>> i believe that jack ruby was a paid killer to close the mouth of my son, lee harvey oswald. >> because ruby knew people in criminal activities, there was a lot of investigation about a potential conspiracy. >> ruby would have been one of the most unlikely and worst hit men that the mob could ever get. >> on november the 24th, 1963, lee harvey oswald is supposed to have been transferred at 10:00. at 10:00, the evidence is undisputed that jack ruby was at home asleep. >> the receipt shows that ruby was sending a money order to one of his strippers from a western union office across from the courthouse at 11:17 a.m. >> we know that at 11:20, three minutes later, a block away, jack ruby killed lee harvey oswald. the evidence showed that he was down there anywhere from 5 to 15 seconds. 5 to 15 seconds.

if this is a hired assassin who is supposed to have some advanced information, he is the world's best timer. >> jack ruby was a police and media groupie. ruby thought he was our friend. >> ruby's act was that of a vigilante. he wanted nothing more to be known -- people to flock to his nightclub to shake the hand of the man who killed the man who killed the president. >> you believe that lee harvey oswald did not shoot president kennedy? >> i do not want to get involved in the speculations as to individuals, but i will say that there's no question about the fact that there was a plot and there were a number of individuals involved. >> in 1967, he announced "i've solved the case. i've found the real assassin." >> we will make arrests based on that, and we will make charges based on that, and we will obtain convictions based on that.

>> now, you wouldn't have paid much attention to this, except he was district attorney of new orleans. >> arrested this evening in the district attorney's office was clay shaw, age 54, of 1313 darby street, from new orleans, louisiana. mr. shaw will be charged with participation in a conspiracy to murder john f. kennedy. >> clay shaw was a very respected business man in new orleans. he had been a distinguished soldier during world war ii. he was also a homosexual and closeted, and i think that played a part. and then they realized the truth that there isn't anything there. >> the case on clay shaw is based on testimony that did not pass a lie detector test and garrison knew it.

>> he said i could be made to serve this whole nine-year sentence. or i could be cut loose right away. >> hypnotizing witnesses. >> we decided to give him objectifying to make sure he was telling the truth. >> leon. >> leon, does leon have a last name? >> oswald. >> would you say these methods were illegal? >> i would very say illegal and unethical. >> he had everyone and their grandmother involved in the assassination. at one time, it was oil millionaires. then it was the minutemen. then it was a homosexual killing. >> yes, sir. >> do you feel that homosexuality or the coercion of homosexuality was a factor in the planning or the assassination of john f. kennedy? >> no comment. >> at one point, he had 16 assassins in dealey plaza. with that many assassins, i don't know how kennedy made it to the autopsy table. >> garrison announced he had discovered a code. >> garrison said jack ruby's unlisted telephone number appears in address books belonging to shaw and oswald.

>> you take p and o and use a telephone dial, p gives you 7, o gives you 6. >> he just changed the digits around, added digits, added letters. >> who is suppressing all of this information on whose order? >> i'll tell you who is suppressing it. the federal government is suppressing it. >> who in the federal government? >> the administration. the administration of your government is suppressing it because they know that the central intelligence agency -- >> on whose order? >> on the order of the president of the united states. >> clay shaw came to court in good spirits today with his long-awaited trial under way , >> the trial went on for six weeks. it's important to note that not one witness produced by garrison survived cross-examination. >> in a unanimous verdict by a 12-man jury, shaw was found not guilty of charges that he

conspired to kill the late president john kennedy. >> clay, we have our first question. why did you do it? [ laughter ] >> i would sum it up by saying that any society which allows a man like jack kennedy to have the top of his head torn off and then protects the assassins and obstructs any inquiry and attempt to find the truth is not a great society. we're working together to do just that. bringing you more great tasting beverages with less sugar or no sugar at all. smaller portion sizes, clear calorie labels and reminders to think balance. because we know mom wants what's best. more beverage choices, smaller portions, less sugar.

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information concerning the cause of the death of your president has been withheld from you. >> as a reporter, the greatest story for us would have been to find out somebody other than oswald did it. and we tried hard to do that. but at every turn with the kennedy assassination, things pointed to oswald as not only a shooter, but the shooter and the only shooter. >> lee harvey oswald had these dreams or delusions that he'd been harboring for a long time of an act that would lift him from his obscurity. >> oswald used to attend a small discussion group. and he began to rail against this right wing general, edwin walker.

>> general walker was about as right wing as you got in the early '60s. and oswald saw walker as an american adolf hitler. >> and oswald said someone should kill walker. he then ordered a rifle with a sniper scope, and he planned very meticulously his assassination of general walker. >> and then he went on the night of the 10th of april, took up his place and shot at general walker. >> he was very disappointed to find out that he missed by less than an inch. >> it shows his ability to plan who his target was and that oswald was capable of violence. >> i think that was kind of the rosetta stone that if you understood the walker shooting, you understood that lee was like a cocked rifle. and he could go off anytime. ♪

>> what fed the conspiracy notion about the kennedy assassination among many americans was the sheer incongruity of the affair. all that power and majesty wiped out in an instant by one skinny, weak-chinned little character. it is true that the answers to some questions leave us restless. >> it doesn't satisfy our sense of narrative or justice that a small person of no distinction can be of such historical consequence to kill the president of the united states. >> but would we be more comfortable believing that a second shot was fired by a second assassin who materialized out of thin air for the purpose, fired a shot, and then vanished again into thin air, leaving behind no trace of himself, his rifle, his bullet, or any other sign of existence. >> there are two groups of people. there's one group that will look at an extraordinary coincidence,

a cataclysm of circumstance and say, yes, that's the way the world works. there's another group of people for whom that's quite unsettling. >> they don't want to believe that something so random could have occurred. can you believe that you could step off a curb someday and be killed by an oncoming car? nobody believes in that kind of possibility for themselves, but it happens. is life that fortuitous? that uncertain? >> and for them, oddly, the notion of a conspiracy is more comforting than the absence of it because if there's a conspiracy, at least there's a plan. >> they've lost so much faith in government, that they think the government is an accessory after the fact to the president's

murder. >> the assassination changed the trajectory of the united states. america was a different country the day after the president was killed. in the 20th century, you look at america in the '60s, you really say, that day was a dividing point. >> i guess in the average man's life, there are two or three emotional experiences that he doesn't forget, because they're burned into his heart and his brain. and no matter what happens to me, i'll remember november 22nd as long as i live, and it's impossible for me now to this day, and i'm sure ten years from now. without looking at the school depository building. and it's impossible to drive by the hotel and not think of that day that president kennedy spoke there. it will always be with us. >> ask not what your country can do for you.

ask what you can do for your country. kennedy's memory will only fade i think when we get another president that people will feel the same way they felt about kennedy.

the supreme national effort will be needed to move this country safely through the 1960s. >> across the world soviet missiles are aimed at the united states. whatever the president does, he risks nuclear war. >> khrushchev calls west berlin a cancerous sore. >> lines are now drawn. >> 25 russian ships en route to cuba on what may be a collision course. >> no way of knowing whether western civilization will live or die. >> i think unless something is done, humanity will destroy itself. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ early on in the '60s, you have this backdrop of tension. you have capitalism versus communism, and it was palpable fear. in the united states and in the soviet union. that the two sides were going to get into a nuclear war. >> the temper of the world is crisis. architect of the crisis, nikita khrushchev. >> as the head of the soviet

union, khrushchev was very ideological. he believed that the future belonged to communism. he said, america needs to be contained, and the only way to do it is to create crises all around the american empire. >> khrushchev came to the u.n. in 1960, and he said, we are grinding out missiles like sausages. we will bury you. and americans took it seriously. >> the toughness of the khrushchev speech did as some propaganda fuels of the fire that is now raging diplomatically between moscow and washington. >> to see if the soviets were building nuclear weapons, more importantly, missiles to launch them at the united states. we were flying a spy plane over the soviet union called a u-2. >> i'm bill fox. state cable editor for the united press international in

new york. a single engine u.s. air force plane with one man aboard went missing today not far from the soviet border in the rugged mountains of southeastern turkey. >> to a stunned and startled audience, khrushchev announced that an american u-2 spy plane had been shot down in the soviet union. >> khrushchev made the wreckage a public exhibition. to the soviet union, this wreckage was a national cause. national outrage over the violation of soviet boundaries. >> and so, out comes the cover story. >> the department has been informed by the nasa, a u-2 weather research plane piloted by a civilian has been missing since may 1. >> eisenhower had said, no, that didn't happen, et cetera, et cetera. he had been drawn into a trap. by khrushchev. >> the soviet leader was able to

show not only that they shot down the plane but they had the pilot. >> francis gary powers, an ordinary man, caught up in extraordinary circumstances, and in a way magnified by them. >> i realize that i have committed a grave crime, and i realize that i must be punished for it. >> the evidence of espionage, currency presumably for the spy to buy his way to freedom. and the spy's last resort, a poison needle with which he could kill himself instantly if captured and threatened with torture. >> no one wants another pearl harbor. this means that we must have knowledge of military forces and preparations around the world. the safety of the whole free world demands this. >> our government was, in effect, admitting that we had previously lied and that we had committed espionage, admissions no nation had ever made before. >> how will this incident affect

the united states, do you think? >> i feel that it will give the americans a black eye all over the earth. >> i think we ought to sink one of the submarines that have been spying off cape canaveral. >> i don't think we should admit it. we have a right to protect ourselves. >> the shoot-down was such a big event that it basically torpedoed detente. it torpedoed the chance to have a peaceful period, and actually, it was the beginning of the scariest part of the cold war. >> america's public mood was one of demoralization, and there's the feeling that we can do better. and that's when the election of 1960 comes along. ♪ kennedy kennedy kennedy kennedy kennedy ♪ ♪ kennedy for me >> i think the question before the american people is, are we doing as much as we can do? are we as strong as we should be?

are we as strong as we must be if we're going to maintain our independence? >> kennedy was a cold warrior more than eisenhower was, really. >> i want people in latin america and africa and asia to start to look to america. to see how we're doing things, to wonder what the president of the united states is doing, and not to look at khrushchev or look to the chinese communists. >> the fact is that kennedy did run to the right of nixon, and he was saying that they were letting the russians get ahead of us in missiles. >> it frightens people. it's not true. but it frightens people, and it's very effective in the campaign. >> i believe the soviet union is first in outer space. you yourself said to khrushchev, you may be ahead of us in rocket thrusts, but we're ahead of you in color television. i think that color television is not as important as missile development. >> the missile gap was a total lie. we out missiled them at that time better than 100 to 1.

if eisenhower came forward and said this kid is not telling the truth, it would have been a different election. ♪ >> let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty. >> kennedy in his inaugural speech did not have a single mention of a domestic issue. he came to the presidency thinking his job was to run the cold war. to defeat the russians. >> i do not shrink from this responsibility. i welcome it. once-daily toujeo helps you control your blood sugar.

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if you had left new york by car at seven minutes past 1:00 this morning, by 2:55 you could have made philadelphia. 95 miles in an hour and 48 minutes. in that same time this morning, a man went around the world. the spaceship was built in russia. >> when the russians put yuri gagarin into space, it was another sense of america being

knocked back on its heels. we're behind. >> khrushchev greeted the hero saying, now let the capitalist countries try to catch up. >> for the russians to be the first to put a man in space dealt a real blow not only to american pride but restarted the whole question about whether the u.s. government could protect the american people. >> the gagarin spaceship weighed five tons. the biggest payload we have been able to push into orbit weighed only a few hundred pounds. >> if you could put a man into space, you could put nuclear warheads into space, and lots of them. and then we're in trouble. >> this is norman cal in moscow. the people who work back here in the kremlin are convinced that the balance of power in the world has shifted in their favor, and encouraged by this conviction, they have stepped up their activities all over the world. not only in berlin but also in latin america.

>> a great jam of cameramen here now, an absolute madhouse here. the first historic meeting between premier khrushchev and premier castro is now over. >> my father first met fidel castro in 1960 in the united nations. cubans became heroes in the soviet union. it was like the david who challenged goliath. >> in the years since he took power, fidel castro has become an enemy of the united states. >> in cuba, you have fidel castro who's tying himself to the soviet bloc. which seems to be threatening the united states by the possibility that they're going to export communism to other south american countries which are in many instances anti-american.

>> khrushchev is saying that you have to understand that cuba matters a lot to us. don't mess with cuba. khrushchev was not just using rhetoric. the eastern bloc was supporting castro with military assistance. >> many latin americans were shocked to find out how much communist equipment castro actually has. >> the sense was that kennedy had to do something about castro. >> when kennedy comes to the presidency he's briefed on the fact there was a plan in place to topple castro. >> but the plan that's presented to him is not what he wants. it's a huge invasion on a noisy beach. it's going to look like a u.s. invasion of cuba. so he says to the cia, we can't be associated with this. i want something that is believably cuban. >> this is ron oppen in miami. i'm standing in one of the many anti-castro recruiting places scattered throughout the city. >> they were into communism and we found there's something

against castro, we learned where there was a recruiting center and we just approached them and joined. we had no idea it was the cia. >> since 2:00 this morning, men and boys have been filing through this door behind me, anxious to join the fight in cuba against fidel castro's government. >> they were mainly cuban exiles. they hated castro. they thought that they could mount a small-scale invasion which would gather more and more support until it ended up overthrowing the regime. >> cuban businessmen, doctors, white-collar workers, men who once drove taxis, always hoping the muscle of the united states would sustain them. >> we thought the united states being behind this operation, there was no way we were going to lose. and we were wrong. ♪ >> small force of invaders landed at a semi-isolated resort

area on the south coast of cuba at the bay of pigs. >> castro alerted his small air force and his large army and raced toward the scene. >> the showdown came at dawn and the rebels managed to move only 20 miles inland. and those able to move beyond the beach were trapped in swamp or high growth. >> translator: wrong live the revolutionary forces which are shooting down yankee planes and are smashing the invaders of the land. >> the castro-controlled television network is parading prisoners captured on the beaches before the cameras for public interrogation. >> one writer called the bay of pigs the perfect failure. it was a tragedy on the beach and in washington. >> out of the news of this week, the attempt of cuban exiles to re-establish a foothold in their homeland. a tactical failure that became a strategic defeat for cuban democracy and american prestige.

>> this task of imperialistic piracy falls squarely on the government of the united states. >> united states has committed no aggression against cuba. and no offensive has been launched from florida or from any other part of the united states. >> the american role is immediately exposed. no one believes that this isn't happening with some american help. >> the leader of the free world has been humiliated on its own doorstep. castro has prevailed over kennedy, at least for the moment, and it will take a long time to destroy that image. >> it was a calamity. kennedy had been totally misinformed by american intelligence about the strength of the anti-communist movement. and the fact is, when these poor people arrived on the beaches in cuba, they were decimated. >> on the landing themselves, stewart, how large were they actually? >> best indications, walter,

there were about 300 men armed only with the weapons they could carry. unmistakably clear, walter, from all the evidence available, that the cia planned this operation. it was the cia that established the revolutionary council by saying to the dissident factions, get together or else. >> today in his news conference the president acknowledged the failure and took the responsibility for it. >> detailed discussions are not to conceal responsibility because i'm the responsible officer of the government. victory has a hundred fathers, and defeat is an orphan. >> the russians, i think, see this as evidence of a young, feckless, inexperienced president. >> kennedy privately goes around saying, how could i have been so stupid? he's full of self-recrimination. >> kennedy listened to the experts, cia, military, a little bit too much and they were wrong.

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after the bay of pigs, kennedy was more anxious than ever to meet with khrushchev, because he knew that he had screwed up. >> there he is, president kennedy with mrs. kennedy. >> he thought the meeting in vienna would straighten all that out. in fact, it made it much worse. >> vienna was at its romantic best, almost enough it seemed to remove a bit of the chill from the cold war. it began with a police escort leading mr. kennedy's limousine to the soviet embassy. nikita khrushchev was waiting also, for talks to explore such issues as berlin, nuclear testing, and disarmament. >> tell us what you think about this meeting between the young president and khrushchev? >> well, i think it was long overdue, because the world needs peace and the world needs disarmament. >> for khrushchev, it is a chance to test the new president. on the subject of berlin, khrushchev is tough and blunt.

>> khrushchev said west berlin is a bone in my throat. and we must extract it. >> berlin, of course, is divided at the end of world war ii but berlin is 110 miles inside of the east german zone. >> khrushchev is threatening to force the integration and take over west berlin. and kennedy says to him, berlin is part of our western commitment out of world war ii. don't challenge us there. >> after two days, the talks end. >> kennedy did not do well. he allowed himself to be caught in an ideological argument with khrushchev. he'd been warned against it. he did it anyways. and khrushchev bullied him and pushed him around. >> khrushchev has made the first move in the chess game. and the president knows it. as he leaves, he says, it's going to be a cold winter. >> kennedy thought there might be a basis for dealing with the soviets.

instead, he gets the berlin crisis. >> in july, 1,000 east germans escaped into west berlin every day. now in august, they're coming out at the rate of 2,500 a day. as a result of khrushchev's threats and demands. east germany is being bled of its best-trained people. >> i went to berlin to cover the bureau, and the nbc news desk in new york called in the middle of the night and said, what's this about closing off the border at the brandenburg gate? >> at 2:00 a.m., the communist regime issued a new case. no east german could go to west berlin without special dispensation. >> the sound of jackhammers erupts in the night. suddenly east german police appear, tear up the sidewalk and street. >> a small crowd gathered, and the east germans were unrolling barbed wire and starting fences. they were sealing off the border. i thought, my, god, this is, you know, unbelievable. >> president kennedy was in hyannisport for the weekend. a telephone call from washington

that sunday morning told him that the communists had finally begun to seal the berlin sector border against the east germans and east berliners. >> through backyards, down canals, across streets, all along the 25-mile border between east and west berlin. >> telephone lines to west germany are cut. the flood of refugees is dammed up. west berlin is isolated. ♪ >> a communist country like east germany cannot exist with an open border. it must be able to wall its people in and make them work till communism succeeds. >> president kennedy decided on thursday to send johnson to berlin because mayor brant had written a letter warning that the city's rotting morale

required bold and quick treatment. >> and the united states wants you to know that the pledge he has given to the freedom of west berlin and to the rights of western access to berlin is firm. >> is khrushchev entirely convinced that our words have meaning? and if he is not what can we do, short of war, to convince him that they do? >> 1500 american soldiers arrived in west berlin after a 110-mile road trip across east germany. soviet radio described the arrival of additional american forces as a challenging military act. >> the berliners know that western strength is their only protection. >> there are all sorts of people who say, send the tanks in, knock the damn wall down. and kennedy, no. he understands this solves his problem.

will khrushchev try and take over the rest of berlin if he's putting up a wall? will he risk a war with us? no. the wall saves us from that kind of conflict. >> after the berlin crisis, khrushchev tests the largest nuclear device ever. he basically is going to say to the americans, you can't scare me. i'm going to scare you. >> the west has nuclear jitters. people worry about fallout, about war. khrushchev has turned testing into a weapon of terror. >> there was tremendous anxiety and fear that if you got into a nuclear war, it was going to mean the devastation of civilization. it was the apocalypse. >> let us face without panic the reality of our times. the fact that atom bombs may

someday be dropped on our cities. and let us prepare for survival by understanding the weapon that threatens us. >> the threat of nuclear war was the center of many of our lives. >> the fallout shelter could save your life in a nuclear war. >> the family room of tomorrow. it's a truly shipshape room only 8 1/2 by 12 feet in size but with an amazing amount of storage space. >> it just seems unless we can control the use of such a thing as that, that all the civilization that we built up over all these many thousands of years will just be washed out. >> it gives you quite a scare to think about something like that happening to us. >> we were close to nuclear war in 1961. and as jfk said to his brother bobby, you know, we've had a good life. but our children, what if there's a nuclear war and our children die?

that's how close war felt.

as he said he would, mr. khrushchev has exploded his giant bomb in cynical disregard of the united nations. >> kennedy recognizes that he's on the verge of yet another crisis but he's looking in the wrong direction. and then, in 1962, there's a lot of political chatter about cuba. >> if at any time the communist build up in cuba were to endanger or interfere with our security in any way, then this country will do whatever must be done to protect its own security

and that of its allies. >> the cia had a consultant who spotted soccer fields all along the coast in cuba. and as he said, the cubans play baseball. russians play soccer. >> kennedy approves a series of u-2 flights. >> he didn't want to get sucked in once again as he had at the time of the bay of pigs. he wanted hard evidence. >> it was the combination of very good, high level photography plus espionage that made it possible for the u.s. intelligence community to say, mr. president, we are absolutely convinced that they're putting missiles in cuba. >> kennedy gets together a group of his closest advisers which becomes known as the ex-com, or the executive committee of the national security council. >> sir, we have never seen this

kind of installation before. >> even in the soviet union? >> no, sir. >> how do you know this is a medium-range ballistic missile? >> the length, sir. >> u.s. intelligence showed him the parts of the united states that would be hit by nuclear attack. and the figure was about 30 million americans were in danger of dying. >> my father, he want to be recognized as equal. if you're not recognized as equal, you challenge opposite side. >> now, what kind of military action are we capable of carrying out? and what may be some of the consequences? >> we could carry out an air strike within a matter of days. >> big debates. should we bomb? should we invade? back and forth. >> after we've launched 50 to 100 sorties, what kind of a world do we live in? how can we stop at that point? i don't know the answer to this. >> most of them thought we should attack cuba.

kennedy almost alone did not want to do that. >> kennedy is the only person who has a sort of larger view. there are times when he's not just the president of the united states. he is thinking in terms of the survival of the human race. >> the question really is the chances of a nuclear exchange, obviously failure. >> he was frightened that a wrong move by him could trigger a whole sequence of moves by the other side, so he wanted to slow everything down. and the method he chose was the imposition of a blockade. >> president kennedy will address the nation tonight on radio and television on a subject of the highest national urgency. >> good evening, my fellow citizens.

this government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the soviet military build-up on the island of cuba. these large, long-range, and clearly offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction constitute an explicit threat to the peace and security of all the americas. to thwart this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine of all offensive military equipment to cuba is being initiated. i have directed the armed forces to prepare for any eventuality. >> within minutes after the president spoke and made the announcement, it was sustaining a blockade of cuba with more than 40 ships and 20,000 men. >> hate like heck to see us go to war, but if it's necessary to prevent a nuclear war, i think the action has to be taken at this time. >> i think it's high time we stopped russia from having

things their own way. >> i know that some action should be taken. but he's going to have to tread very lightly, short of war. >> but the american people were very frightened that they were on the edge of a cataclysm, something no one had ever experienced before. a nuclear war. >> we have been jammed up. we have been mobbed. people are buying like food is going out of style. >> is this your normal order, or are you stockpiling? >> oh, i'm not stockpiling. i feel if anything were to happen, you wouldn't be able to eat it anyhow. >> develop a sheltered spot where there's water, food, medical supplies, a geiger counter, and a radio. >> congressional leaders were recalled from their campaign labors, flown back to washington in military planes, and there were reports of troop movements in the florida keys. >> fidel castro told his people that the armed blockade is the most dangerous venture since world war ii.

he called president kennedy a pirate and said a life-and-death struggle is under way between an empire and the revolution of a small and weak people. the cuban militia was mobilized and put on a war footing. russia alerted its military forces and warned that the united states is playing with fire. at a special session of the united nations security council, the united states, cuba, and russia offered separate resolutions and traded bitter charges. >> do you, ambassador, deny that the ussr has placed and is placing medium and intermediate-range missiles and sites in cuba? yes or no? don't wait for the translation. yes or no? >> i am not in an american courtroom, sir. therefore, i do not wish to answer a question that's put to me in the fashion in which a prosecutor does. in due course, sir, you will have your replay. >> i am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over if that's your decision. >> each side didn't know what the other side was doing and

there was a lot of room for miscalculation. >> we believe there are about 25 soviet ships moving toward cuba. if the vessel does not stop, refuses to heed the instructions, force will be applied to assure that it does stop. >> nikita khrushchev says soviet ships will never submit to the united states blockade. >> the next few days are critical. who is going to blink first? uh-oh, looks like someone's

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since you're heading off to dad... i just got a zerowater. but we've always used brita. it's two stage-filter... doesn't compare to zerowater's 5-stage. this meter shows how much stuff, or dissolved solids, gets left behind. our tap water is 220. brita? 110... seriously? but zerowater- let me guess. zero?

yup, that's how i know it is the purest-tasting water. i need to find the receipt for that. oh yeah, you do. a dispatch just in. a late development. 25 soviet ships steam toward cuba. if the ships' captains do not >> the next 48 hours will be