Description
First edition of Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis, signed by U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
Octavo, 224pp. Blue cloth, title printed in gilt on spine, blind stamped initials of RFK on front cover. First edition statement on copyright page with full number line. In publisher’s dust jacket, $5.50 on front flap, some light wear at top edge of spine, bright colors, overall very good. Signed by former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who both contributed an introduction. A scarce piece, the only example we can find signed by McNamara and Macmillan.
Thirteen Days was originally a long article written by Robert F. Kennedy in 1967. After Kennedy’s death, Ted Sorensen used the article and Kennedy’s “Crisis Notes” from 1962 to complete this book. The introduction was written by Robert McNamara, who served as the Secretary of Defense during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. McNamara and President Kennedy agreed that a military confrontation with the Soviet Union could be suicidal, so they both explored alternatives. McNamara wrote on the topic of nuclear proliferation and his experience in the Cuban Missile Crisis in Blundering Into Disaster: Surviving the First Century of the Nuclear Age (1986). Harold Macmillan served as the British Prime Minister from 1957-1963. A protégé of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Macmillan served as the Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer under Churchill’s successor, Anthony Eden. Upon Eden’s resignation, Macmillan succeeded him as Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party. During his tenure, Macmillan rebuilt the “Special Relationship” with the United States that had been damaged by the Suez Crisis.
