>> aggressive conduct ultimately leads to war. >> she said, i'd rather die with you than live without you. the american people have entrusted the power of the white house to john f. kennedy. since then, there has been one political disaster after another. and jfk's troubles are far from over. scandal threatens his marriage. the struggle for civil rights engulfs the south and the world faces nuclear annihilation. >> aggressive conduct ultimately leads to war. >> if the kennedy presidency is to survive, it will take the efforts of the entire family.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ after a terrible first year in office, the kennedys are looking for a way to relaunch jack's presidency. >> the kennedys needed to have

something that the country could feel good about at that stage. >> the family decide to take a chance on jackie. she has never thought of herself as a political asset. >> she always thought she was a liability to him. she always apologized to him on the campaign trail. she even said, you know, i was such a dud, i'm so sorry. >> what is the diplomatic reception room used for? >> well, it's the room that people see first when they come to the white house, so i think it should be a pretty room. >> the project for which she became most famous was to do a top to bottom restoration of the white house. she wanted to create a court of versailles in washington. >> the cameras are invited in to see jackie talk about her work. she is nervous. she knows millions will be watching. >> it takes a tremendous amount

of courage for jackie to stand in front of a camera for that long and be that revealing of herself. >> i rather love this hall. it has all the colors one thinks of one when thinks of the white house. >> during the taping, every time they take a break she would be chain smoking and drop her ashes on the floor and miss the ashtray. so clearly it was something that was not particularly easy for her. >> her mother couldn't believe that she was able to pull this off. it took everything that she had. >> the first lady's tour of the white house was a tour de force because it re-enforced a sense that there was something special and new about this particular administration. >> turned out the country was ready for a queen, and she was it. >> jackie embarks on an international goodwill tour, and

once more, she welcomes the press along. >> jackie went with her sister lee, her younger sister, on quite a long trip to india and pakistan. where they made a big splash. >> the president's gift to mrs. kennedy, the descendant of -- >> she smiled for the camera but there was sadness behind that smile and an understanding that it was a facade. >> meanwhile, back at the ranch, jack kennedy was misbehaving. >> behind the perfect family image, jack is anything but the perfect husband. >> he needed to indulge this phenomenal and really unseemly sex drive. it was for rich girls, poor girls, old girls, young girls, all girls, all the time. >> two months after his wife's

return, the president's birthday celebration takes place at a democratic party fund-raiser in new york's madison square garden. >> the kennedys and celebrity and show business went hand in hand, and it's probably not surprising that jfk would have an affair with the most famous blonde bombshell movie star of her time. >> mr. president, the late marilyn monroe. >> i was right there. in fact, i was standing in front of the stage and looking up. it impressed me. i was wondering how they got that dress on her. >> by the time of the fund-raiser, rumors of an affair are widespread among those close to the kennedys. >> everyone was extremely excited, and i think the excitement was about looking at

the president with our little marilyn. she was just absolutely marvelous at what she does. ♪ happy birthday mr. president ♪ happy birthday to you >> jackie knew about the affair and she never wanted to be thought of as a fool. so she was not going to sit there with her husband. jackie does not attend. >> smart girl. very smart. >> i can now retire from politics after having had "happy birthday" sung to me in such a sweet way. >> it was total embarrassment for jackie kennedy, and i'm sure she hated her husband at that moment.

>> diahann carroll sang at the after party. >> after the show, i think the whole world knew that there is a relationship between marilyn monroe and the president of the united states. >> jackie knows she must act to protect herself, her young children and the image of the kennedys she's working so hard to promote. >> she put her foot down and told jack that he needed to just end it. and she also told him if he doesn't that she would consider filing for divorce before the 1964 election and that would ruin everything for him. >> when it came to a point where his political future was involved then you hit jfk where his heart was, and he made sure that it was over.

bobby was the fixer of the family. he believed in jack and jack's mission. and jack trusted him completely. >> bobby was doing a lot of damage control during this period. and bobby was there to have jack's back. at times having his back meant doing his dirty work. >> bobby is jack's attorney general, the man responsible for the largest investigation ever into organized crime. bobby and his investigators meet regularly at the department of justice. >> he'd be sitting behind his desk. very informal, usually tie down, collar open, no jacket.

>> bobby prioritizes the department's mafia investigations. >> i wouldn't say i was nervous, but i knew it was sensitive. bobby kennedy paid very close attention to what we were saying. >> the investigators had begun circling the kennedys themselves. >> i kept running into references to frank sinatra and his connections with mobsters. >> sinatra was a friend of jfk's and a fund-raiser and brought hollywood into the kennedy campaign. he was a very significant guy. >> frank sinatra had lots of underworld friends and jack kennedy saw him as a great pal and loved to buddy around with him. >> we don't need the president

associating with a guy who is a close associate of mobsters, particularly when his brother's heading the crusade against organized crime. >> the sinatra problem does not end there. the singer introduced jack kennedy to a woman. >> judy campbell was a kind of a party girl. she was somebody who came into the fold of the rat pack. >> judy was always available for jack kennedy when he came into town. >> there are 70 phone calls from judith campbell into the white house. >> mcmillan's investigation reveals judith campbell is a woman in demand. >> as you can imagine, those of us who knew what was coming were a little bit on the edge of our seat. >> jack is not campbell's only

male companion. she's also having an affair with bobby's longstanding nemesis, sam giancana, the chicago mafia boss. >> it appeared that giancana and jfk were sharing a girlfriend. >> you just can't make it up. >> it was a very awkward thing to be saying to the attorney general you need to know your brother's been compromised. >> i mean, imagine, this is the president of the united states having an affair with this woman who is also involved with the head of the chicago mafia. it's a devastatingly dangerous thing for him to be doing. >> jack was vulnerable. he was somewhat reckless. he needed somebody to clean stuff up. >> bobby acts immediately to terminate his brother's relationship with judith

campbell. >> the next day, the phone operator at the white house was instructed no more calls. he had cut off that relationship. >> the even bigger problem for bobby is how to deal with jack's old friend, frank sinatra. >> in the late winter of 1962, jfk was supposed to go to sinatra's house in palm springs to party with him. >> frank can't wait to have jack at his home. he even puts in secret service lines, you know, for them to communicate. there's a lot of excitement about the fact that the president is going to be spending the weekend at frank sinatra's. but bobby tells jack, you can't go. >> you can't do it. go out to palm springs. don't stay with sinatra.

you can stay with bing crosby. bing crosby was frank sinatra's great rival. sinatra gets no advance notice of this. and instead of the helicopter, marine one, landing in his heliport, it lands in a field right next to crosby's. sinatra goes absolutely berserk. takes a sledgehammer out and just starts destroying things. >> frank realizes that he is now on the outside of the kennedy circle. he's devastated by it because he really loved being jfk's best pal. >> bobby may have saved jack and the presidency from disgrace, but it is one of his own relationships that could push the world to the brink of destruction.

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one summer's day in 1962, at the height of the cold war, president kennedy receives a visitor at the white house. he is a contact of bobby's.

georgi bolshakov, a russian. >> he was an extraordinarily entertaining character who would go out to the kennedy estate at hickory hill and do somersaults and perform for the kennedy kids and then sit on the grass with bobby and discuss international issues. >> we loved him. he would do the russian dance where he squatted on his haunches and kicked up his feet, which we thought was fantastic. he would challenge my father to physical contests. >> one of the party games was to see if you could beat georgi bolshakov in an arm wrestle. >> my mother said my father got mad at her three times in her life, and one of them was when she entangled him in a pushup contest with georgi bolshakov. >> georgi bolshakov is a russian

spy posing as a journalist. bobby knows it, jack knows it, and bolshakov knows that it's precisely because he's a russian spy that he's been invited in. >> we thought he was great because, you know, we were watching the james bond films at that time. to meet a real russian spy was, you know, was wonderful. >> the man who so amuses the kennedy kids plays another more important role as bobby's secret back channel to soviet leader nikita khrushchev. >> he thought, if i can communicate directly with somebody through a back channel, that's a way of my ensuring that what my brother wants to get communicated to khrushchev gets to him and that we hear back what he's really thinking without any possibility for other people's agendas to get in the way. >> during bolshakov's visit to

the white house, he relays a request from chairman khrushchev to the president. >> bolshakov delivers a message asking kennedy to stop those annoying spy plane flights over soviet freighters going to cuba. in fact, the russians are putting nuclear missiles on those freighters. >> bobby kennedy summons bolshakov to his office at the justice department. >> this meeting is a little different. no party scene at hickory hill. bobby kennedy's sitting behind his desk. he's got his suit and tie on. very formal. >> bobby has been shown cia reports of troop movements in cuba compiled by agents on the ground. amidst the rising tension, bobby seeks urgent reassurance from his russian friend about the military build-up on the island. >> the kennedys are a little suspicious of what's going into

cuba. and bobby asked bolshakov, what are you doing here? bolshakov says they're defensive weapons, not offensive weapons. >> bobby no longer trusts the benign version of events he's getting from moscow. >> the moment that bobby became convinced that he was getting disinformation about what was really going on in cuba, that's the moment he said, you're out of here. >> six days later, as jack and the family host the algerian prime minister at the white house, the surveillance images provide positive proof of offensive missile sites in cuba. for curtis lemay, jack's hawkish air force chief of staff, this means war. >> curtis he may was ready to

fire the missile that is he controlled. he was willing to see millions of people killed in a nuclear exchange. >> curtis lemay thought that president kennedy was a playboy, a party boy. weak, not tough. >> lemay and the other joint chiefs meet with the president at the white house. jack covertly records their exchanges. >> i emphasize that we don't have any choice except for direct military action. >> there is this extraordinary scene in which curtis lemay is so disrespectful of the president. >> i think that a blockade and political calm would be considered by a lot of our friends and neutrals to be a pretty weak response. in other words, you're in a pretty bad fix, mr. president.

>> what did you say? >> you're in a pretty bad fix. >> well, you' in there with me. >> the united states of america and the soviet union stand on the brink of nuclear war and the world has no idea. jack keeps a campaign date in the midwest, keen to portray an image of business as usual. but information from cuba forces him back to the white house, blaming a cold. the press is suspicious. >> rumors, i suppose you'd call them. but there were other reasons besides the cold that brought the president back. >> the president returned to washington because of his cold. thank you very much. >> surveillance images confirm increasing military activity in cuba, and the cia believes nuclear weapons are now ready for launch.

>> within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on the island of cuba. >> it is looking more and more like we're going to have to bomb and invade cuba. >> as the united states is propelled towards war, the kennedy brothers stand between the world and nuclear armageddon.

this government has maintained the closest surveillance of the soviet military build-up on the island of cuba. >> the united states is in a tense standoff against the soviet union. jack kennedy had always appreciated bobby kennedy. his brother's willingness to do the dirty work. but during the cuban missile crisis, they are completely bonded. >> the president orders a quarantine and a naval blockade to prevent more soviet missiles from reaching cuba. >> today, with the possibility

of quick nuclear destruction -- >> my father largely stayed in the white house during the crisis. at one point, u.s. marshals came to our house to bring us down to southern virginia where there was some kind of bunker for government officials and their families. my father talked to us on the phone at that point and countermanded whatever, you know, order those guys had had to evacuate us and said, you guys need to be good soldiers because if people see you disappearing from school that could cause panic. >> the cuban missile crisis was a great example of the trust that jack and my father had between them and the importance of thinking five steps ahead. what would happen if you do this? because if you just let the generals decide, they would have gone to war. >> bobby kennedy would walk up

and down the pool as jfk was swimming laps talking to him as he was swimming about their strategy to try to neutralize this move toward war. >> meanwhile, families across america prepare for the worst. >> jackie kennedy herself was told that, you know, she and her family would be moved into a bunker if anything did happen, and she refused. she said, no, i want to be here. i want to stand on the south lawn with my husband and children if the end comes. >> she was a sounding board for him during the cuban missile crisis and she kept him level-headed and they had a lot of discussions. >> isn't it amazing that someone who had to be so hurt personally by her husband would turn around and in his moment of greatest need, when he said he would send

her away to the bunker outside of washington, she said no. >> she said, i'd rather die with you than live without you. >> on the second saturday of the missile crisis, the united states is hard up against it. a u-2 spy plane has been shot down over cuba. the military's champing at the bit. they want to start bombing on monday. the president is running out of time. but they find a new back channel through the soviet ambassador dobrynin. >> anatoly dobrynin and bobby kennedy discuss an extraordinary deal. if the soviet union removes its missiles from cuba, the u.s. will remove its rockets from turkey. >> and basically kennedy says,

look, we'll make an exchange, but we don't want any recognition of this in the press. this has to be absolutely secret. >> secrecy is critical. if the press or the public find out the kennedys are removing u.s. missiles from turkey, it would be political suicide. >> bobby is essentially saying, you've got to help us out of this because my brother's got these generals who are pushing him to do something that isn't good for us and isn't good for you. >> the russian ambassador writes up the proposed deal. he sends it to moscow the quickest way he can. >> they send a telegram, and there is this incredible sight of the telegram boy on his bike ride off with this telegram aimed at saving the world, hoping that the fellow doesn't stop and have a coca-cola and go see his girlfriend.

>> so here's bobby kennedy in a sense having it both ways. on the one hand making a trade, and on the other concealing it, and they got away with it. >> press secretary salinger announces that the chairman has agreed to move the missiles from cuba. the president already has left the white house to attend services at his church. >> the entire world breathes a sigh of relief. >> for all of the weaknesses associated with the back channel and all the risks, one of the advantages was that in a moment of crisis the kremlin understood that bobby kennedy was speaking for jack kennedy. >> my uncle and father were lucky to have each other. they both were raised with those assumptions, and, you know, america had a moral purpose and that they had to be the skippers of the ship and they were steering towards history and

that while they were in charge, they had to keep america on that course where we were a moral nation and exemplar of all the countries of the world. >> during the crisis, jack says, once we know of and my guess is lots of times quietly when he was saying his prayers at night, thank god for bobby.

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get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! by 1963, the southern black population faces increasingly brutal repression. >> lynching and racial violence, police brutality was rampant against the black population. this did not figure prominently in jfk's thinking at that time. >> a key battle over education brings the civil rights struggle to the forefront of jack's mind. >> in 1963, the state university of alabama is still whites only. so an attempt is made to integrate the university of alabama. >> two black students, vivian

malone and james hood, are determined to enroll at america's last all-white state university. >> my sister knew the consequences of what could happen. people were getting beaten and killed over very simple rights, but she faced her fears and she felt tired of accepting second-class citizenship. >> standing in their way is the state's governor who made an election promise to keep the campus segregated. >> george wallace, the governor of alabama, said that he would stand at the schoolyard door and that he would use violence to stop black students who wanted to enroll. >> is there any way that you could get the guard in there? >> bobby realizes the inherent danger of the situation and sends nick katzenbach, his senior aide to the university of alabama.

>> we're still considering what we ought to do, whether or not we should call up the guard and have them already there. go in with you. >> as the situation unfolds in alabama, one of bobby's children drops by to visit her father. >> want to say hello to carrie? >> yeah. >> hi, nick. >> hi, carrie. how are you, dear? >> are you at my house? >> no, i'm not out at your house, i'm way down in the southland. >> i remember sitting behind a chair in what we called the television room while my father was talking with his aides about these issues. history was happening at our house. it was happening all around us. >> bobby has the option to use troops but hopes to avoid violence. >> i have a statement to read. >> the kennedys knew that george wallace was a fool, a dangerous fool, but a fool.

and they basically stage an event that allows wallace to stand in the schoolhouse door, and they're setting up a confrontation that makes wallace fulfill his vanity but really works in favor of the kennedys because he looks ridiculous to the rest of the country. >> i take it from that statement that you are going to stand in that door? >> i stand in front of this statement. >> wallace has been allowed to say his piece but still refuses to move. >> away from the door. he is stepping aside. governor george wallace has stepped aside. >> only as he's faced with 100 federal troops does the governor back down. >> five minutes after the

governor leaves, james hood is the first of his race to become a university of alabama student. he is followed into the registrar's office by vivian malone. >> i think that it was a turning point. at some point you say that's enough. >> confronted with the violence, the standoffs and the fundamental injustice, the kennedys realize that america needs civil rights legislation. >> they need a law passed by congress that will end discrimination in the south. now, it's not so easy to get there because kennedy's own political advisers are saying to him, don't do that. the opposition in the south will be too great. >> the south was solidly democratic, and to go against the entrenched, you know, moors -- mores of the day by

supporting integration was a politically risky move. >> just about nobody else on jack kennedy's team thought the timing was right. they thought it was premature, and bobby said, no, we've got to do it and we've got to do it now. do the right thing. >> bobby is in favor of an immediate unambiguous public statement about racial injustice. and he implores his brother to address the nation. >> this was bobby as being jack's better side, his better angel, telling him you give up whatever political price you have to pay with this because this is why we wanted to be president in the first place. >> i think it will be helpful. i think it's a reason to do it. i think you don't talk about the legislation and talk about employment and talk about education. to do it for 15 minutes i think would take away a lot of the problems that we're having. >> if we don't get something ready anyway -- >> well, we've got a draft, which doesn't fit all of these points but there is something to work with.

>> the idea for the speech came from robert kennedy and a first draft was written by robert kennedy. >> this nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. it was founded on the principle that all men are created equal. and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened. >> you see jack kennedy with the full force and beauty of his personality, of his stature, of his dignity, of his intellect make the case to the american people. >> we are confronted primarily with a moral issue. if an american because his skin is dark cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed?

>> it's john kennedy who finally wrapped the civil rights struggle in the mantle of the american presidency and said it was a moral obligation, it was a national imperative. >> we face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and a people. those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. >> but in the end, john kennedy wasn't just speaking robert kennedy's words because he improvises at the end of his speech and gives his own. >> and this is a matter which concerns this country and what it stands for, and in meeting it, i ask the support of all of our citizens. >> robert kennedy got him to the plate, but it's john kennedy who hit the ball out of the park. >> thank you very much.

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♪ let it shine, ♪ the power's ours to let it shine! ♪ anybody who's got half of a heart who's sitting in the white house partly relates to the world through complicated intellectual issues of history and where countries are in terms of strategic initiatives. but the real way they relate to the world is through their own children. and jack kennedy had two young children who he adored more than anybody in his life. >> thoughts of the next

generation are in jack's heart and mind. when he gives a speech in june 1963 at the american university in washington. >> what kind of a peace do i mean and what kind of a peace do we see? i am talking about genuine peace. the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living. >> he pledged his support to racial equality. he brought the world back from the brink of nuclear war. the president is infused with a new confidence. >> our primary long-range interest is general and complete disarmament. >> his american university speech sets a whole new tone for u.s./soviet relations. >> august the 5th was a high point. jack's representatives and the representatives of other countries, and most notably the soviet union, were meeting to

sign a nuclear test ban treaty. >> the keynote of cordiality established at the very first meeting -- >> and kennedy really believes in it. he believed in it from the day he became president. >> his move towards nuclear disarmament is a political triumph. but for jack, a more personal drama is unfolding. jackie is in cape cod, and she is eight months pregnant. >> the president was in washington then, the first week in august, when he got urgent word from cape cod that she had gone into an early labor. >> jackie gives birth to a boy, patrick. >> he said on the way, "i'm never there when she needs me." and the president arrives, the baby has been born by cesarean. but because he is so premature, it suffers from a lung ailment.

>> they arrange very quickly to have him sent to the children's hospital in boston. >> arriving at logan airport, the anxious father found the sympathetic crowd assembled. >> jack holds vigil at patrick's bedside. when it is clear the little boy is dying, the doctors bring him out to be with his father. >> patrick kennedy died at 4:04 a.m. the struggle of the baby boy to keep breathing was too much for his heart. >> patrick died after 39 hours. jack kennedy was just consumed with grief. jackie was still too weak and unwell to attend the funeral. it was so tragic. jackie never had a chance to

hold him. >> the president comes back and visits her with the children. john jr. was a little too young to understand what was happening. but caroline did. and she had so looked forward to having a baby brother or sister. after a week or so, mrs. kennedy leaves the hospital. the president at her side, holding her hand, which was something that he didn't do very often in public. he holds her so gently. it's very touching, very moving to see. >> jackie compared herself and her husband to two icebergs. and i think they both operated in that way. they had very complicated feelings and emotions that they kept to themselves.

>> when patrick died, this changed everything. >> something like that can either drive a couple apart or bring them together. >> by this time jackie has proven herself in so many ways. she's been there when he's had affairs. she's a wonderful mother to his two children. she's done everything for him. and finally he appreciates it. >> in his famous peace speech, he talked about how the soviet union and our country had differences. but yet we could work together. and in an odd sort of way, the same thinking may have been reflected in his marriage to jackie.

when you look at the images of jack and jackie in dallas, you do get a sense that they have come together again. but at the same time, it's just incredibly poignant because you know, looking at those images, that they only have a few hours together. >> the president's car is now turning on to "l" street, jam-packed with spectators awaiting their chance to see the president. >> there's a secret serviceman spread-eagle over the top of the car -- >> next on "american dynasties: the kennedys." >> he slapped his hand to his mouth. >> jacqueline kennedy wanted to show that her husband was a martyr. >> i run for the presidency to stand for hope instead of despair.

>> when bobby goes on the campaign trail, he's a complete rock star. >> jackie would say, i just fear that what happened to jack will happen with bobby. president john f. kennedy has successfully steered america through perilous times. but in battling organized crime, taking a stand on civil rights, and averting nuclear war, the kennedy brothers have made many enemies. >> president kennedy was shot in dallas at 12:25. >> as catastrophic events devastate the family, jackie is determined to shape jfk's legacy. a reluctant new leader emerges. >> robert kennedy. >> to keep the kennedy dream alive.