Film - Philip Kerr relives the fear of thirteen unforgettable days in October 1962

At the time of the Cuban missile crisis, I was six years old. Vividly, I remember my fear that the world might be consumed in a nuclear holocaust before Christmas; and, looking back on that time, I now realise just how grave things were, that the events of those 13 days in October should have permeated even the cynosural consciousness of a small and otherwise ignorant schoolboy.

If you are too young to remember the crisis yourself, you should certainly see Thirteen Days, a new film directed by Roger Donaldson and starring Kevin Costner. It depicts the story of the crisis in chronological detail: how a US spy plane photographed Russian scientists building first-strike-capability nuclear missiles in what America likes to think of - but wrongly so - as its own backyard; how America demanded that the Soviet Union withdraw the missiles or suffer the consequences; and how the world held its breath as the two superpowers squared up to each other.

There are no special effects in Donaldson's film. At 145 minutes, it is probably 20 minutes too long. Because of its interlocutory, conferential subject matter, it is not particularly cinematic, and its apparent quiescence makes the story better suited to a television audience. There is only one star, Costner, in the entire film, with the part of Jack Kennedy played - and played extremely well - by someone I had never heard of, called Bruce Greenwood (his Harvard accent is much better than Costner's). Yet, despite these difficulties, the film works and ought to be essential viewing for those too young to have been around in October 1962, or, for that matter, anyone whose memories of that fearful time have grown less acute.

The story is told from the perspective of Kenny O'Donnell (Costner), who was Bobby Kennedy's classmate at Harvard and, as JFK's special assistant, was one of the White House Irish mafia. It is based on RFK's book about the Cuban missile crisis, Thirteen Days, and O'Donnell's own memoir of JFK. And if I do have a criticism of the film, it is that the screenplay is based on sources that are quite self-serving of the Kennedys.

Jack, Bobby and O'Donnell are portrayed as three handsome doves in a hawk-house of ugly, cigar-chewing, gung-ho generals - such lunatics as General Curtis LeMay, upon whom Kubrick based the character of Buck Turgidson, played by George C Scott in Dr Strangelove (which, coincidentally, began shooting during the crisis). LeMay was famous for bombing Tokyo during the Second World War; and he would later become famous for bombing Cambodia "into the Stone Age". Hawks didn't come with beaks any sharper and claws any longer than Curtis LeMay.

Much of the movie action is taken up with LeMay urging Kennedy to authorise a huge pre-emptive strike against the missile bases in Cuba, or else with the president huddling with his brother and O'Donnell in the Rose Garden and contemplating the bigger picture. Since this bigger picture appears to their non-smiling Irish American eyes to have been painted by Hieronymus Bosch, our trio of White House heroes, understandably, do all they can to resist accusations from the military that they are being pusillanimous. Indeed, these three appear to be all that stands between the world and nuclear war. To this extent, it's like watching James Bond without the gadgets and the girls - although, as the Kennedys and O'Donnell are reported often to have cavorted in the White House swimming pool with naked hookers and starlets, this particular lacuna in the movie could easily have been remedied.

The fact is, we will never really know for sure if it was the Kennedys and O'Donnell who saved the world, or not. All three principals are now dead. At the time, there were a few distinguished Washington journalists, such as Walter Lippmann, who were of the opinion that, instead of going public with the pictures, JFK should privately have confronted the then Soviet foreign minister, Andrei Gromyko, about the U2 evidence, and thus given Khrushchev what all wise statesmen give their adversaries - the chance to save face.

The Kennedys may well have been the heroes of the hour. But it seems to me to be just as likely that they forced the crisis in order to look tough in public, while all the while planning to compromise in private. Such Machiavellian calculation, however, is hardly the stuff of Hollywood movies. And, certainly, there is no mention made of the numerous provocations Castro was offered by the United States - not least the several attempts, sanctioned by the Kennedys themselves, to have Castro assassinated. Back in 1962, and in the wake of the Bay of Pigs, I doubt that anything was quite as clear-cut and black and white as it appears in this film.

What is perhaps more certain is that Nixon in the White House would have been a very different proposition to the Kennedys. Much more hawkish than the man who had defeated him in the 1960 election by a mere 250,000 votes, Nixon was always the creature of the CIA and the Pentagon. Given the alacrity with which he bombed Cambodia - in secret - it is tempting to conclude, having seen this otherwise absorbing and enjoyable movie, that, but for JFK's narrow victory, a Nixon presidency would have seen the world blown to bits in 1962. And the last "We'll Meet Again" scene of Kubrick's classic nuke movie would have happened in real life. But go and see Thirteen Days anyway, and then reflect that although the cold war may be over, the missiles are still in their silos.

Thirteen Days (12) opens nationwide on 16 March

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