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tv   First Ladies  CNN  October 11, 2020 7:00pm-8:00pm PDT

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xx it's snowing and there is this feeling because she's dressed in this beautiful white gown and they just seem to be stepping into a fairytale. and jack kennedy says turn on the interior lights so people can see them as they go by. and he asked his wife to sit forward, because she is so
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beautiful. having the president from that very moment place her in the spotlight tells us what the presidency will be like and how mrs. kennedy will be at the center of it. >> inauguration day, 1961. america welcomes a young and glamorous president and first lady to the white house. dwight eisenhower was 70. here came kennedy who was 43. and mrs. kennedy is 31. >> the kennedys knew how to turn their youth into something
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deeper and more symbolic of america entering an age of renewal with a new generation, they were going to conquer the world. >> jackie was the epitome of style and glamor. this was going to be a white house of unprecedented elegance. and the country loved it. >> going to the inauguration was amazing. this was new and energetic. this was in fact the new frontier. >> jackie later recalled her memories of that momentous day. >> everyone said why didn't jack kiss you after, which he would never do there. but you had to march out in such order. and i so badly wanted to see him alone. >> she's worried about being separated from her husband as he starts this new role as leader of the free world. she didn't know what would it do to her marriage and she can't quite get to him. >> i caught up to him in the
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capitol. he is looking to me and there really were tears in his eyes. there was so much more emotion than any kiss. oh, jack, what a day. >> the kennedys had already recognized jackie's value. >> she was much more elegant, to put it mildly, than my family, the kennedy family, known primarily for football and sailing. jackie had a really good sense of taste and elegance. >> jackie had a very privileged childhood. she had never advantage in terms of her education. she went to vasser. >> jackie kennedy was the perfect prize. she also knew that the kennedy family was using her. she once said that family treats me like a thing, like an asset, like rhode island. even her own wedding was a political event. >> for the spectators outside the church, it is a real story
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book wedding. the top society wedding of the year. >> there is glamor on the outside, heart ache on the inside. jackie's own father gets so drunk before the wedding that he can't make it up the aisle. >> jack len kennedy had a father she adored. john bouvier, but he had many flaws. he was an alcoholic, a gambler, a womanizer. >> after divorcing john bouvier, jackie's mother janet married the standard oil heir. >> janet hits the gold mine there. he is incredibly wealthy and she drills into jackie's mind, you need to marry a wealthy man. you need to have that security. >> with a political life and a rising star. >> there were 1,200 people at the reception. jackie said she didn't even know the guests at her own wedding. >> to be at your own wedding and
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meet hundreds of people that you don't know. that says a lot about their relationship. jack and jackie remain the only first couple to have a baby, john f. kennedy jr., between the election of the president and the inauguration. she had a assese cease air sees birth. and john jr. had a lung ailment. >> that day she was exhausted. >> you see them on the platt snowstorm she's there. suddenly she's vanished. she simply physically couldn't keep up. that was when she went back into the white house. she didn't know, how am i going to go off to five different inaugural balls. showed the absent herself and
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go, not too strong to say, collapse in her new home, the white house. >> i was really so tired that day. and that night, i was just laid out in the queen's bed. i couldn't move. >> she calls for the president's physician, dr. janet travell, who brought two pills. >> she had two pills, a green one and an orange one. she said take orange one. i said what is it? she said it was dexadrin which i had never taken. >> it turns out that's an amphetamine, speed, to rev tim motor of the individual. and mrs. kennedy said did it. it allowed her to get out of bed, get dressed, and look her most beautiful. >> jackie rejoins her husband for the first inaugural ball. >> on this greatest of all days, high on dexadrin, this young
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queen goes into the night. jackie kennedy knew how to pout a show. >> here was this stunningly beautiful 31-year-old woman playing this new role of a gorgeous first lady of the united states. >> if we didn't know the so-called back story, we would think that there was absolutely nothing wrong. she got through it as far as the dexadrin would take her but she couldn't get through the whole evening. >> it was like cinderella and the clock striking midnight. i guess the pill wore off. so jack said go home now. >> he carried on to three more inaugural balls and various parties where he was seen with women, not his wife, and carries on without her. >> it was never going to be smooth sailing between them. they were he two fiercely independent people. but this independence was a secret of surviving being married to jack kennedy. before we talk about tax-smart investing, what's new?
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what about your role as a mother and a wife? can one have a role as afrafirs lady? >> yes. it doesn't matter what else you do if you don't could that well. >> the kennedys had a 2-month-old son, a 3-year-old very boisterous fun loving daughter caroline. >> jackie was a good mother. she was excellent with them in the white house and they have a lot of fun. i think she did everything she could to normalize it. >> do you really hope to keep a private life for your children? >> i hope it is. i will try very hard to do that. otherwise, how can i bring up
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normal children? >> president kennedy knew the asset of having a photo genic family. he had come from one. and he knew those two children were beautiful and beguiling. >> when jackie was out of town with caroline, president kennedy asked, is there anyone here from look magazine? and there is this iconic photograph of john kennedy jr. peeking out from underneath resolute desk in the oval office. the president said he knew she would go angry. i will take brunt of it. jackie came back and was furious. >> jackie came from a political family. they were accustomed to sharing their lives and jackie didn't think that was helpful for a child to be exposed at the age of 3 to the mass media. so they didn't always agree about that. >> jackie has her own ideas on how to make her mark as first
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lady. >> what do you think has to be done to the white house? >> there's very little antique furniture here now. the thing i care about most is to make it more of a museum. >> mrs. kennedy is gentlemen upset at what she sees in the white house when she arrives. it looked like the furnishings had come from a statler hotel, she said. >> she understood white house should represent the history that had taken place there. >> jackie has grand plans to transform the white house. but she immediately faces opposition. >> everybody on president kennedy's staff said no. you don't know what you're doing. how dare you touch white house. she's 31 years old. she stands up to all the president's advisers and says, i'm going ahead. >> jackie raises money to buy back furniture belonging to past presidents and persuades collectors to donate antiques. she welcome as film crew into the private quarters for the
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first time. >> mrs. kennedy, i want to thank you for letting us visit your official home. this is obviously the room from which much of your work on it is directed. >> yes, it is attic and cellar all in one. >> this was probably her most important performance during her whole time at the white house. she was tense. she was very, very nervous. every time they had a break, she would smoke like chimney. she had some brown liquor with her and invariably, she would drop the ashes on this beautiful silk settee, you know? >> so exciting to see things every day. >> at the end of the day, the producer shows the kennedys what they had filmed. >> they said when he looked over at jack, his admiration and pride was unmistakable. >> everything in the white house should be the best.
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>> for the next hour, mrs. john f. kennedy invites you to visit the white house and see the restorations she's made. >> a record 80 million viewers watched jackie's tour. donations to her restoration project flood in. >> are all the pieces from lincoln's time? >> yes, they are. the most famous one, of course, is the linkon bed. every read that seemed to love it. >> they got rave reviews. there were governors' wives all over the country that said we have to do this with the governor's mansion. >> people tended to underestimate her intelligence, which was considerable. the whole historic preservation movement in this country owes a great debt of gratitude to her. >> the dictatorships of fidel
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castro. >> three months into the presidency, the kennedy administration suffers its first major setback. the cia backed invasion of cuba ends in disaster. >> reality really bit both kenned kennedys. kennedy had been too influenced by advisers. >> we came back to the white house. he started to cry. just with me. he just put his head in his hands and sort of wept. >> it brought home to him that he had to be more self-reliant and more relightning ant on his. the only two people in the white house you really have are each other. now is the time for a new bath from bath fitter.
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john kennedy's debut on the international scene gets off to a start in france where the president is greeted formally. >> four months into the presidency and reeling from the bay of pigs fiasco, the kennedys he will ba embark on a european tour. >> president kennedy needs allies, but charles de gaulle is
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famously cold and austere. >> all eyes are on jackie. >> people are screaming. jacqueline! both the president and mrs. kennedy are taken aback by how many people are there. jackie was red in the bone. she loved america but she had real fascination with france. [ speaking french ] >> it was a particular triumph to be as elegant as she was in the land that in effect invented elegance. >> imagine what it is like to try to have a conversation with
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the president of france. you can't be talking about paris fashion. they're talking about french history. defall says she knows more history than most french women. she more than holds her own. >> i do not think it altogether inappropriate to introduce myself. i am the man who accompanied jacqueline kennedy to paris and i've enjoyed it. >> in the eyes of her husband, she now was a major asset in diplomacy, making inroads in areas where he was not doing that well. >> after paris, kennedy faces his first super power summit with soviet leader nikita khrushchev. >> the world looked to america as the president of the united states arrived. >> kennedy thought he could get through that summit by virtue of his knowledge, which was
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expansive. >> president kennedy expressed america's desire for effective nuclear test controls and a disarmament agreement. >> but khrushchev did not allow that to happen. he bullied kennedy. >> once again it is jackie who breaks the ice. >> when khrushchev sees her, his face lights up. it is described in the press as looking like russian school boy on the banks of the river, when the snow melts in the spring time. and he is doing everything possible to impress mrs. kennedy, including telling her how many tractors are made in soviet factories and she famously said in her breathy voice, oh, mr. chairman, don't bore me with statistics and he just roared with laughter. nobody tells the head of the soviet socialist republic, don't bore me with statistics. but he loved her sharp wit. her impact at a minimum diverted attention from a super power
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summit that kennedy described later as the toughest thing i've ever been through. >> jackie succeeds in bolstering her husband's presidency. but his loyalty to her has its limits. >> i said, what are you going to do about all your affairs, jack? and he said, well, you know, in the white house it should be easier. the secret service will protect me. and he was right. the secret service did protect him. >> jackie kennedy was well aware of her husband's infidelities. how could she miss? her own secretary was sleeping with the president, along with a lot of other women at the white house. jackie was no fool. they were all around her. >> i've always thought jackie really loved jack. really loved jack. and was always trying to get him to be faithful to her. >> during a family football game at bobby kennedy's home, jackie
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sprains her ankle. she is tended to by bobby's friend and neighbor, a doctor. >> the way he projected warmth clicked with her. and she said, do you think could i call you from time to time? and he said, well, yes, of course. >> for the next two years, jackie calls the doctor twice a week. >> she said, i'm not naive. i know that he is having a lot of affairs. she alleged that he was having an affair with marilyn monroe, and she said that really bothered her. she somehow felt inadequate. it was his role to reassure her that it was not her fault. and at the same time, he actually gave her a kind of set of talking points about how to improve their sex life.
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and she said, it had actually improved. but he was still womanizing. >> jackie was working as a photo journalist for the washington times herald when she was introduced to jack kennedy through mutual friends. >> i think we just automatically thought they would be good for each other. he was fun, very good looking, and she was intelligent and fun could be with. >> jackie kennedy took one look at jack and saw the main chance. >> but when jack proposed, jackie agonized for four weeks before accepting. >> she could see the prospect of adventure, but she could also sense danger. she knew that he had the capacity to be unfaithful. but she decided then, life with
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him was worth it. and that she loved him. she was being interviewed three years into their marriage, which was really in their relationship sort of hit rock bottom. >> you're pretty much in love with him, aren't you? >> jackie kennedy knew that jack had been a playboy. but she had not banked upon the sheer scale of his infidelity. >> i said no, didn't i? >> yes, did you. do you want to do it again? >> she couldn't say anything other than an honest reaction in that moment. >> you are pretty much, right? >> i suppose so. >> by 1958, jackie had had enough of her husband's infidelities. while jack was away campaigning, she couldn't identifieded in her friend walter ritter. >> jackie said he is so badly wlaifd. he is away again. god who knows he's with. i can't take it anymore. i think i have to divorce him.
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and my husband said, jackie think about this. you do not want to have on your conscience that you prevented him from becoming president. >> by divorcing him, she would have ended his political career. but by staying with him, there would be a tradeoff, giving her the latitude, if he became president, to do what she wanted to do. >> mr. president, the late marilyn monroe. ♪ happy birthday to you >> at jack's 45th birthday celebration, jackie is notably absent. ♪ happy birthday mr. president >> one reporter said that it was making love to the president in
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front of 40 million people. and this was a really embarrassing moment for jackie. >> everybody, happy birthday! >> to the extent that she knew about her husband's womanizing, she had two choices. she could stay and know that it was going on around her or she could get away from it. and sometimes i think she chose the latter. and yet, what a terrible paradox. because to leave gave president kennedy an open field in which to graze. ♪ introducing the all-new 2021 gla suv.
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a crisis is near. a strategic command reconnaissance pilot soars high over cuba. >> president kennedy is informed the soviets are building nuclear missile sites in cuba. the world stands on the brink of nuclear war. >> my father said to us children, we're in real trouble. do you want to get away and go into a shelter? and we all said no, we'll stay with you, daddy. and the same thing happened with jackie. >> i said please don't send me away to camp david. anything happens, we'll all stay here with you. i just want to be on the lawn when it happens and i want to die with you, and the children do, too. >> it shall be the policy of this nation with regard to any nuclear missile launched from
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any nation in the western hemisphere is an attack. >> a lot of people were very scared that it would be the end of our world. those generals, they wanted to go to war. >> i walked by his office all the time. sometimes he would take me out for a walk around the lawn. he didn't very often did that. just walk quietly. >> as soviet ships sail toward cuba, kennedy defies his military advisers and orders a naval blockade. kennedy demands that the missile sites be dismantled. khrushchev refuses. >> from then on there was no waking or sleeping and i don't know which day was which. there was no day or night. that's the time i've been the closest to him. >> she really knew what was going on. she was a sounding board. and they were really growing closer together through this
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trauma. >> as the days go by, the pressure mounts on kennedy to invade cuba. an act that would result in war. on the 13th day, kennedy and khrushchev finally break the deadline. >> i have today been informed by khrushchev that all weapons will be withdrawn in 30 days. >> nuclear war averted, kennedy presents his closest advisers with tiffany silver calendars marked with the 13 crucial days. he also gives one to jackie. >> and finally when it was over, he started giving that calendar to everyone. i was surprised that i had one. >> it was elevating her as someone he looked upon with as much respect as did he his own brother and was by his side during those 13 days. that gift was incredibly important to her and she treasured it all her life.
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>> yesterday, a shaft of light cut into the darkness. negotiations were concluded in moscow to ban all nuclear tests in the atmosphere. >> 1963 had been a good year for jack and jackie. and the most important thing in their personal lives right then was they were looking forward to the birth of a third child. >> jackie was surrounded by kennedys who were having loads of children, including bobby and ethel who had gone on to have 11. the president wanted a large family and jackie felt inadequate. she had these terribly difficult pregnancies. >> seven years earlier, jackie went into pre mature labor. but jack was totally absent. >> in 1956, she gave birth to a still born daughter whom she named arabella. jack was away being a playboy in
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the south of france. and it really took somebody saying to him, you have to get on a plane and go home and be with your wife at this moment. but in 1963, his mind set was very different. when she went into labor. >> mrs. kennedy has given birth to a four pound, 10.5 ounce baby boy. it was five and a half weeks pre mature. >> born by emergency c-section, baby patrick has severe breathing difficulties. he is immediately taken from his mother and flown to boston for life-saving treatment. >> all jack could do was watch through this little porthole in the room and see this child inside an incubator. when it was finally clear that he was going to die, they brought him out and put him in his father's arms. >> patrick kennedy died at 4:04
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a.m. the struggle of the baby boy to keep breathing was too much for his heart. >> jackie only saw patrick in an incubator. she never had a chance to hold him in her arms. jack was disconsulate and he immediately flew to the hospital where jackie was. >> he came back from boston to me in the hospital. and he walked in in my room. he just sobbed and put his arms around me. >> after patrick, i think they were a lot closer. it's the first time i've ever seen them hold hands. >> it was symbolic that he would be so publicly tender to her.
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it showed the world that this was something that they were sharing and had in fact deepened their bond. >> a month later, jackie writes to charles bartlett, the friend who had introduced her to jack. >> it begins as a letter to charles for having been the match maker. >> i have so much to thank you for, dear charlie. all my life, jack, john and caroline, when i think of the narrow escapes, how we might never have met, it is fright quite frightening. >> i think the most poignant thing she writes, without jack, her life would have been a wasteland. that's a very vivid image. you do get the sense that they have achieved this in their marriage, and it is actually
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followed by her recommitment, really, to their marriage and to their political life. >> two years ago, i introduced myself in paris by saying i was the man who had accompanied mrs. kennedy to paris. getting somewhat that same sensation as i travel around texas. >> there is no question that he was thrilled that she wanted to come to texas with him. that she wanted to campaign with him. >> this is a very dangerous and uncertain world. we would like to live as we once lived. >> it was a bright, sunny day. and jackie put on her sunglasses. and jack said, please take them off. i want them to see you. >> as they're in the motorcade, governor connelly's wife turns
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the president is turning on to elm street. it will be only a matter of moments before he arrives. even the freeway was jam packed. >> they're in the car. jackie thinks that she hears some back fires. and she turns to look at her husband. and she sees literally his brains being blown out. >> it appears as though something has happened in the motorcade route. >> the sounds and the screaming and the motors racing. for him to literally fall into her lap so that she is staring into the wound and knowing that he's gone. >> there are people running up the hill alongside elm street. >> she's in a war zone.
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she starts to climb out of the car. >> and then clint hill, the secret service agent, pushes her into safety but now she's back in the horror of this chamber in which her husband has been murdered. >> coming directly to the hospital. >> president kennedy has been assassinated. it is official now. the president is dead. there's only one word to describe the picture here. and that's grief. secret servicemen standing by the emergency room, tears streaming down their face. >> this is probably going to be one of the last times she is with him ever. very soon they'll come put him in a casket. she wants to give him something. something personal that she can put in with him to have a piece of her with him. and she chooses her wedding band. and removes it from her finger and attempts to place it on his.
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>> president kennedy's body is to be placed aboard air force one. already arrangements for swearing in the new president have been made. >> she is wearing a blood-stained suit. and she is asked, would she like to change? and she refuses. and says with maybe anger, i want them to see what they've done to jack. >> i do solemnly swear that i will faithfully execute -- >> standing next on lyndon johnson, yes, she is in shock. she's already thinking. what is she going to do to preserve her husband's legacy? >> on the flight back, she is talking about wanting her husband's funeral to be just like lincoln's funeral. >> she knows the symbolism of the lincoln martyrdom should infuse her husband to the united
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states and the world. and back in washington. we literally gasped to see mrs. kennedy appear behind the casket streaked with her husband's blood. she was the message that her husband had been killed in a political assassination. >> president kennedy's body is returned to the white house. only then does jackie finally leave his side. >> that was a moment, i'm sure, of profound isolation for her. in the eight seconds that it took fire off three shots, she lost her husband, her job, and her home. >> and she said, i have worked so hard at the marriage and succeeded, and he had really come to love me. and to congratulate me on what i did for him. >> she said just, when we had it
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all settled, she had the rug pulled out from under her without any power to do anything about it. that's not true, actually. she had power and she used it. >> in the imposing rotunda of the capitol, the casket rests on the same catapult used when abraham lincoln's body lay in state nearly 100 years ago. >> jackie wishes to walk behind her husband's casket. this presents a notice player for the secret service. >> the secret service says if you're going to march from the white house to street matthew's cathedral, about seven, eight blocks, surrounded by tall buildings, the very kind of building the president was shot from in dallas, world leaders, and president johnson and mrs. johnson are going to want to march in solidarity with you, too. >> the secret service says under no circumstances should president johnson take that
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risk. >> that day kennedy's assassin is shot in dallas. >> jackie stage managed her husband's funeral perfectly. every detail, riderless horse, two heartbreaking children standing next to her with john john saluting as his father's coffin rolled by. >> and jackie holds firm to her final wish. >> jackie walked with bobby and teddy, followed by all these other world leaders, charles de gaulle and prince philip, halle selassie. >> believed to be first time a president's widow has walked in his funeral procession. all followed behind the
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president's casket. >> jackie doesn't know whether president johnson has joined the procession. she turns to see he's defied the secret service. she smiles, the only smile displayed those four days. >> she's so happy that johnson has followed her lead. fact these leaders put their own lives at risk meant a lot to her. >> i remember my parents saying if she can get through this, so can we. >> these became iconic moments for the nation when the presidency reminds us of who we are. >> the funeral was incredibly memorable capstone to this all too brief presidency. it really was the beginning of the creation of her husband's legacy. now is the time for a new bath from bath fitter.
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proposition 16 takes some women make as little as 42% of what a man makes. voting yes on prop 16 helps us fix that. it's supported by leaders like kamala harris and opposed by those who have always opposed equality. we either fall from grace or we rise. together. proposition 16 provides equal opportunities, levelling the playing field for all of us. vote yes on prop 16. when was the last time your property tawhat?l went down? never. are you kidding me? for years, the residential burden has gone up.
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while the corporate burden has gone down. prop 15 reverses that. it closes corporate loopholes and invests in schools, small business, and firefighters. and when the big corporations pay more, your tax bill goes down. that's right. a savings of a hundred twenty-one dollars a year for the average home. give homeowners a break. vote yes on 15. a week after her husband's assassination, jackie calls journalist and historian theodore white to hyannisport. wants a piece for "life" magazine. >> he was the chronicler and
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"life" magazine had great power. >> she is obsessed with how the president will be remembered. trying to get jump on the first grasp of history, journalism. >> midway through recalling the events in dallas in graphic detail, jackie suddenly changes the subject. >> she tells this very sweet story that they would put on the soundtrack from the broadway musical "camelot," that the president's favorite line was don't let it be forgot that once there was a spot for one brief shining moment known as camelot. and then mrs. kennedy said there will be great presidents again but there will never be another camelot. >> arthurian legend is full of infidelity, betrayal, death and loss. so there's a darker side that's weirdly the truthful image.
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but like many things that jackie kennedy did it was brilliant stagecraft. it was brief and shining. white said she could have sold him the brooklyn bridge. but she's pouring over his copy and she edits it. white files a story, editors a little skeptical, is this camelot a little bit much? she insists, no camelot, no story. >> country was enjoying a brief interregular numb before vietnam, before watergate, an innocent america willing to be lured into fantasy. a fantasy that was so appealing. >> jackie prepares to leave the white house for the last time. >> dear mr. chairman president,
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so now one of the last nights i will spend in the white house, in one of the last letters i will write, i would like to write you my message. >> but jackie's letter is not to a family member or close friend, but soviet premier nikita khrushchev. >> i send it because i know how much my husband cared about peace. used to quote your words in some of his speeches. in the next world the survivors will envy the dead. you and he were adversaries but you were allied in determination that the world shouldn't be blown up. >> her final act in the white house really revealed the depth of her seriousness. it's in that letter to nikita khrushchev, urging him to continue the nuclear disarmament talks that had begun with her husband. >> the danger which troubled my husband was that war might be
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started, not so much by the big men, but by the little ones. while big men know the needs for self-control and restraint, little men are sometimes moved by fear and pride. it's really good let's continue for future generations. mark of president is understanding the big issues of the day, the mark of a great first lady is a more subtle thing, and jackie got this. and that is understanding the essence of the time. and america as a global player, she perfectly reflected that. and in fact shaped it. >> although she became jackie o., and had a whole life as a book editor and everything else
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that she did subsequent to the white house, she was in the end inevitably defined by what she did as first lady. round two, 14 days after hosting a super spreader event at the white house, president is back on stage. >> i'm feeling great. >> but swinging from wild accusations to unfounded promises. can president trump turn things around. larry kudlow and kate bettingfield join me. with senators set to begin hearings for top court pick, democrats are promising a fight. >> we'll use every tool. >>

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