60 Years and 13 Days - The Legacy of RFK and His Memoir

This paper is intended to address the rift in historiography between highly zealous supporters and detractors of Robert F. Kennedy and the historical accuracy of his memoir Thirteen Days. This paper utilizes the ExComm tapes and a wide range of recent scholarly sources to uphold the conclusion that RFK lied about his positions on militant solutions to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

However, it is also established that some of the other inaccuracies in Thirteen Days, particularly the omissions of the contributions of other ExComm members, can more likely be attributed to RFK’s lack of access to classified materials than any deliberate malice on his part. Various disciplines are incorporated into this analysis, including rhetoric analysis, administrative science, and the expected military and political history lenses. The paper concludes with an analysis of the relationship between academic partisanship and negative partisanship among the public and the need for increased transparency in politics and academia.

This paper is first and foremost intended for an academic audience with some prior experience on the subject but is also intended to be digestible by a lay audience as well.