What are the motifs in Thirteen Days; a Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Robert F. Kennedy?

Secrecy is a recurring idea in the book. The Cuban missile crisis is a profile in secrecy as well as courage. While assuring the Americans publicly and privately that no offensive weapons will be placed in Cuba, Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev clandestinely ships nuclear warheads, medium-range boosters, and bombers to the island, and they are discovered only when secret surveillance flights by U-2 spy planes reveal the hurried activity to make them operational. JFK withholds the fact that he knows of the Soviet duplicity when he meets as scheduled with Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, allowing him to talk about wanting "peaceful coexistence," assisting Cuban agriculture, providing a few defensive arms, and demanding the U.S. stop threatening Cuba.