[Barbara Perry] It's snowing...
and there's this ethereal feeling,
because she's dressed in this beautiful white gown
and they just seem to be stepping
into a fairy tale.
And Jack Kennedy says to the driver
"Turn on the interior lights,"
so people can see them as they go by.
And he asks his wife to sit forward,
because she is so beautiful.
Having the president from that very moment
place her in the spotlight tells us
what the presidency is going to be like
and how Mrs. Kennedy will be at the center of it.
[band playing "Hail to the Chief"]
[narrator] Inauguration Day, 1961.
America welcomes a young and glamorous president
and first lady to the White House.
[Barbara Perry] Dwight Eisenhower was 70,
and here came Kennedy who was 43,
and Mrs. Kennedy's 31.
[Evan Thomas] The Kennedys knew how to turn their youth
into something deeper and more symbolic of America
entering an age of renewal with a new generation
that was going to conquer the world.
[Sally Bedell Smith] Jackie was the epitome of style
and glamour.
[Kati Marton] This was going to be
a White House of unprecedented elegance.
And the country loved it.
[cheering and applause]
[Kathleen Kennedy] Going to the inauguration was amazing.
This was new and energetic.
This was, in fact, the new frontier.
[narrator] Jackie later recalled her memories
of that momentous day.
[Jackie Kennedy] Everyone says, why didn't Jack kiss you after,
which, of course, he would never do there.
But you had to march out in such order.
And I so badly wanted to see him alone.
[Barbara Perry] 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 it would do to her marriage
and she can't quite get to him.
[Jackie Kennedy] And I caught up to him
in the Capitol and he's just looking at me
and there really were tears in his eyes...
I mean, that was so much more emotional than any kiss.
Just say, "Oh, Jack," you know, "what a day!"
[narrator] The Kennedys had always recognized
Jackie's value.
[Kathleen Kennedy] She was much more elegant, to put it mildly,
than my family, the Kennedy family,
who was known primarily for football and sailing.
[cheering]
Jackie had a really good sense of taste and elegance.
[Sally Bedell Smith] Jackie had a very privileged childhood.
She had every advantage in terms of her education.
She went to Ms. Porters, she went to Vassar.
[Evan Thomas] Jackie Kennedy was the perfect prize
of the WASP establishment.
She also knew that the Kennedy family
was using her.
She once said the family treats me like a thing.
Like an asset. Like Rhode Island.
Even her own wedding was a political event.
[reporter] For the spectators outside the church,
-it's a real storybook wedding. -[applause]
the top society wedding of the year.
[Evan Thomas] There's glamour on the outside
and heartache on the inside.
Jackie's own father gets so drunk...
before the wedding that he can't make it up the aisle.
Jacqueline Kennedy had a father she adored,
John Bouvier,
but he had many flaws.
He was an alcoholic.
He was a gambler. He was a womanizer.
[narrator] After divorcing John Bouvier,
Jackie's mother, Janet,
married Standard Oil heir, Hugh Auchincloss.
Janet really hits the goldmine there,
because he's incredibly wealthy,
and she drills into Jackie's mind
that you need to marry a wealthy man.
You need to have that security.
[reporter] With a pretty wife and a politically rising star,
the future seems bright for the junior senator
from Massachusetts.
[Evan Thomas] There were 1,200 people at the reception.
Jackie said she didn't even know the guests at her own wedding.
[Kate Andersen Brower] To be at your wedding
and to have to meet hundreds of people that you don't know,
I think, says a lot about their relationship.
[cheering and applause]
[Barbara Perry] Jack and Jackie Kennedy remain to this day
the only first couple to have a baby, John F. Kennedy Jr.,
between the election of the president
and the inauguration.
She had a caesarean section birth.
She suffered a terrible loss of blood
and baby John Jr., premature,
had a lung ailment when he was born.
[Sally Bedell Smith] That day, she was absolutely exhausted.
You see them on the platform and she's there...
and then, suddenly, she's vanished.
She simply, physically, couldn't keep up.
That was when she went back into the White House.
[Barbara Perry] She didn't know, how am I going to be able
to go off to five different inaugural balls.
She had to absent herself and go,
and it's not too strong to say, collapse
in her new home, the White House.
[Jackie Kennedy] I was really so tired that day...
and that night I was just laid out in the queen's bed.
I just couldn't move.
[Barbara Perry] She calls for the president's physician,
Dr. Janet Travell, who comes in with two pills.
[Jackie Kennedy] She had two pills,
a green one and an orange one,
and she told me to take the orange one,
so I did and I said what is it?
And she told me it was Dexedrine,
which I'd never taken in my life.
[Barbara Perry] It turns out that's an amphetamine or speed,
which is, obviously, to rev up the motor of the individual.
And Mrs. Kennedy said it did.
It allowed her to get out of bed, get dressed,
and look her most beautiful.
[narrator] Jackie rejoins her husband
for the first inaugural ball.
[Evan Thomas] On this greatest of all days, high on Dexedrine,
this young queen goes forth into the night.
Jackie Kennedy knew how to put on a show.
[Barbara Perry] Here was this stunningly beautiful
31-year-old woman...
playing this new role of a gorgeous first lady
of the United States.
And if we didn't know the so-called back-story,
we would think there was absolutely nothing wrong.
[Sally Bedell Smith] She got through it as far
as the Dexedrine would take her
but she couldn't get through the whole evening.
[Jackie Kennedy] It was like Cinderella
and the clock striking midnight. I guess that pill wore off.
So, Jack said, "You go home now."
[Barbara Perry] 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.
[Kati Marton] It was never going
to be smooth sailing between them
because they were two fiercely independent people.
But this independence was the secret
of surviving being married to Jack Kennedy.
[Sander Vanocur] What about your role
as a mother and wife?
Can one have a role as first lady?
Yes, I think it doesn't matter what else you do
if you don't do that part well.
If you fail your husband and your children.
[Kate Andersen Brower] The Kennedys had
a two-month-old son,
a three-year-old very boisterous fun-loving daughter, Caroline.
[Martha Bartlett] Jackie was a good mother.
She was excellent with them in the White House.
And they had a lot of fun.
I think she did everything she could to normalize it.
[Sander Vanocur] Do you really hope
to keep a private life for your children?
Well, I hope it is,
and I'm going to try very hard to do that...
Because, otherwise, how can I bring up normal children?
[Barbara Perry] President Kennedy knew the asset
of having a photogenic family
because he had come from one.
And he knew those two children were beautiful and beguiling.
[Kate Andersen Brower] When Jackie was out of town
with Caroline,
President Kennedy asked,
"Is there anyone here from Look magazine?"
And there's this iconic photograph
of John Kennedy Jr. peeking out
from underneath the Resolute desk
in the Oval Office.
The president said he knew she would be angry,
"I will take the brunt of it"
and Jackie came back and was furious.
[Kathleen Kennedy] Jack 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 three to mass media.
So, they didn't always agree about that.
[narrator] Jackie has her own ideas
on how to make her mark as first lady.
[Sander Vanocur] What do you think has to be done
to the White House?
[Jackie Kennedy] There's very little
antique furniture here now
and the thing I care about most is to make it more of a museum.
[Barbara Perry] Mrs. Kennedy is very 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.
[Kathleen Kennedy] She understood that the White House
should represent the history that had taken place there.
[narrator] 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 the White House."
She's 31 years old.
She stands up to all the president's advisers
and says, "I'm going ahead."
[narrator] Jackie raises money to buy back furniture
belonging to past presidents...
and persuades collectors to donate antiques.
She welcomes a film crew into the private quarters
for the first time.
Mrs. Kennedy, I want to thank you
for letting us to visit your official home.
This is the obviously the room
from which much of your work on it is directed.
Yes, it's attic and cellar all in one.
[Sally Bedell Smith] This was probably
her most important performance
during her whole time at the White House.
And she was tense. She was very, very nervous.
Every time they had a break she would smoke like a chimney.
She had some brown liquor with her.
And she invariably dropped the ashes
on this beautiful silk settee, you know?
[Jackie Kennedy] So excited to see things grow every day.
[narrator] At the end of the day,
the producer shows the Kennedys what they had filmed.
[Sally Bedell Smith] He said that
when he looked over at Jack,
his admiration and pride was unmistakable.
[Jackie Kennedy] I think that everything in the White House
should be the best.
[Charles Collingwood] For the next hour,
Mrs. John F. Kennedy invites you to visit the president's house
and see some of the restoration she's made in its interiors.
[narrator] A record 80 million viewers watch Jackie's tour.
Donations to her restoration project flood in.
[Charles Collingwood] Are all the pieces from Lincoln's time?
Yes, they are.
The most famous one is, of course, the Lincoln bed.
Every president seemed to love it.
[Sally Bedell Smith] It got rave reviews.
There were governors' wives all over the country
who were saying we have to do this
with the governors' mansion.
[Jackie Kennedy] It was bought by Mrs. Lincoln.
She made her husband rather cross,
because she spent too much money.
[Sally Bedell Smith] 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.
[reporter] The assault has begun
on the dictatorship of Fidel Castro.
[narrator] Three months in the presidency,
the Kennedy administration suffers
their first major setback.
The CIA-backed invasion of Cuba ends in disaster.
[Kati Marton] Reality really bit both Kennedys.
It was a humiliation.
Kennedy had been too influenced by advisors.
[Jackie Kennedy] He came back over to the White House,
to his bedroom and he started to cry,
just with me.
Just put his head in his hands, sort of wept.
[Kati Marton] It brought home to him
that he had to be more self-reliant
and more reliant on his partner.
As Jackie said, in the White House
the only two people you really have are each other.
[reporter] President John Kennedy's debut
on the international scene gets off to a start in France
where the president is greeted formally
by President Charles de Gaulle.
[narrator] Four months into the Presidency
and reeling from the Bay of Pigs fiasco,
the Kennedys embark on a European tour.
[Evan Thomas] The Cold War is approaching
a dangerous point.
President Kennedy needs allies
but Charles de Gaulle is famously cold and austere.
[reporter] The crowd's estimated as high as two million
line the route to cheer the president.
[narrator] But all eyes are on Jackie.
[Jackie Kennedy in French]
[Barbara Perry] People are screaming
"Vive Jacqueline! Vive Jacqueline!"
Both president and Mrs. Kennedy are taken aback
by how many people are there.
[Sally Bedell Smith] Jackie was bred in the bone
as a Francophile.
She loved America, but she had a real fascination with France.
[Jackie Kennedy in French]
[Kati Marton] It was a particular triumph...
to be as elegant as she was in the land
that in effect invented elegance.
[Evan Thomas] Imagine what it's like
to try to have a conversation with the president of France.
You can't be talking about Paris fashion.
They're talking about French history.
De Gaulle says that she knows more history
than most French women.
She more than holds her own.
[John F. Kennedy] I do not think it altogether inappropriate
to introduce myself.
I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris!
-[laughter] -And I've enjoyed it.
[applause]
[Kati Marton] 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.
[narrator] After Paris, Kennedy faces
his first superpower summit
with Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev.
[reporter] The world looked to Vienna
as the president of the United States arrived.
[Barbara Perry] Kennedy thought he could get through that summit
by virtue of his knowledge, which was expansive.
[reporter] President Kennedy expressed America's desire
for effective nuclear test controls
and a disarmament agreement.
[Barbara Perry] But Khrushchev did not allow that to happen.
In fact, he bullied Kennedy.
[narrator] Once again, it's Jackie who breaks the ice.
[Barbara Perry] When Khrushchev sees her, his face lights up.
It is described in the press
as looking like a Russian schoolboy
on the banks of the Volga river
when the snow melts in springtime,
and he is doing everything possible
to impress Mrs. Kennedy
including telling her how many tractors are made
in Soviet factories
and she famously says in her breathy voice,
"Oh, Mr. Chairman, don't bore me with statistics."
And he just roared with laughter,
because nobody tells the head of the Soviet Socialist Republic
"Don't bother me with statistics."
But loved her sharp wit.
Jackie's impact on Nikita Khrushchev, at a minimum,
diverted attention from a superpower summit
that Kennedy described later
as "the toughest thing I've ever been through."
[narrator] 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, Pam Turnure, was sleeping with the President,
along with a lot of other women who worked 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.
[narrator] During a family football game
at Bobby Kennedy's home, Jackie sprains her ankle.
She is tended to by Bobby's friend
and neighbor, Dr Frank Finnerty.
[Sally Bedell Smith] The way he projected compassion
and warmth clicked with her.
And she said, "Do you think I could call you
from time to time."
[chuckles] And he said, "Well, yes, of course."
[narrator] For the next two years,
Jackie calls Dr. Finnerty twice a week.
[Sally Bedell Smith] She said, "I'm not naive.
I know that he's 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.
And she said it had actually improved...
but he was still womanizing.
[narrator] Jackie was working as a photojournalist
for the Washington Times-Herald
when she was introduced to Jack Kennedy
through mutual friends.
I think we just automatically thought
they'd be good for each other.
He was fun. He was very good looking,
and she was intelligent and fun to be with.
[Evan Thomas] Jackie Kennedy took one look at Jack
and saw the main chance.
[narrator] 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 that life with him...
was worth it, and that she loved him.
She was being interviewed three years into their marriage,
which was really when their relationship
sort of hit rock bottom.
[interviewer] You're pretty much in love with him, aren't you?
[chuckles] Oh, no.
[Evan Thomas] 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?
[interviewer] Yes, you did. Do you want to do it again?
[laughs]
She couldn't say anything
other than an honest reaction in that moment.
[interviewer] You are pretty much
in love with him, aren't you?
I suppose so.
[narrator] By 1958, Jackie had had enough
of her husband's infidelities.
While Jack was away campaigning,
she confided in her friend, Walter Ridder.
Jackie said, "He's so badly behaved.
He's away again.
God knows who he's with. I just can't take it anymore.
I think I have to divorce him."
And my husband said, "Jackie, think about this.
You do not want to have on your conscience
that you prevented him from becoming president."
[Sally Bedell Smith] By divorcing him,
she would have ended his political career.
But by staying with him, there would be a trade-off,
giving her the latitude, if he became president,
to do what she wanted to do.
[announcer] Mr. President, the late Marilyn Monroe.
♪ Happy birthday to you
[narrator] At Jack's 45th birthday celebration,
Jackie is notably absent.
♪ Happy birthday, Mr. President ♪
[Kate Andersen Brower] One reporter said
that it was making love to the president
in front of 40 million people.
And this was a really embarrassing moment for Jackie.
Everybody, Happy Birthday!
[Barbara Perry] 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.
[reporter] A crisis is near.
A strategic air command reconnaissance pilot
soars high over Cuba.
The evidence is unmistakable.
[narrator] President Kennedy is informed
that the Soviets are building nuclear missile sites in Cuba.
The world stands on the brink of nuclear war.
[Kathleen Kennedy] 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.
[Jackie Kennedy] I said, "Please,
don't send me away to Camp David.
If anything happens, we're all going to stay
right 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."
[John F. Kennedy] It shall be the policy of this nation...
to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba
against any nation in the western hemisphere...
as an attack...
[Kathleen Kennedy] A lot of people were very scared
that it was going to be the end of our world.
Those generals, they wanted to go to war.
[Jackie Kennedy] I'd walk by his office all the time,
and sometimes he would take me out
for a walk around the lawn.
He didn't very often do that. We just sort of walked quietly.
It was just this vigil.
[narrator] As Soviet ships sail towards Cuba,
Kennedy defies his military advisors
and orders a naval blockade.
Kennedy demands that the missiles sites be dismantled.
Khrushchev refuses.
[Jackie Kennedy] From then on, it seemed
there was no waking or sleeping,
and I just don't know which day was which.
There was no day or night.
Well that's the time I've been closest to him.
[Kate Andersen Brower] She really knew what was going on...
and she was a sounding board,
and they were really growing closer together
through this trauma.
[narrator] 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 deadlock.
I have today been informed by Chairman Krushchev...
that all weapons will be withdrawn in 30 days.
[narrator] Nuclear war averted,
Kennedy presents his closest advisors
with Tiffany silver calendars marked with the 13 crucial days.
He also gives one to Jackie.
[Jackie Kennedy] And, finally, when it was over,
he thought of giving that calendar to everyone.
I was so surprised that I had one,
I burst out crying.
[Kate Andersen Brower] It was elevating her
as someone he looked upon with as much respect
as he did his own brother,
who was by his side during those 13 days.
So, that gift was incredibly important to her
and she treasured it all her life.
[John F. Kennedy] Yesterday, a shaft of light
cut into the darkness.
Negotiations were concluded in Moscow
to ban all nuclear tests in the atmosphere.
[Sally Bedell Smith] 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.
[Barbara Perry] Jackie was surrounded by Kennedys,
who were having loads of children
including Bobby and Ethel who'd go on to have 11.
The president wanted a large family.
And Jackie felt inadequate
that she had these terribly difficult pregnancies.
[narrator] Seven years earlier,
Jackie went into premature labor,
but Jack was totally absent.
[Sally Bedell Smith] In 1956,
she gave birth to a stillborn daughter...
whom she named Arabella.
Jack was away being a playboy in 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 mindset was very different,
when she went into labor.
[Pierre Salinger] Mrs. Kennedy has given birth
to a four-pound ten-and-a-half-ounce baby boy.
It was five-and-a-half weeks premature.
[narrator] 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.
[Sally Bedell Smith] All Jack could do was watch
through this little porthole in the room
and see this child inside an incubator.
And when it was finally clear that he was going to die...
they brought him out and put him in his father's arms.
[Pierre Salinger] Patrick Kennedy died
at 4.04 a.m.
[reporters groan]
[man] Say that again.
[Pierre Salinger] 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 disconsolate.
And he immediately flew to the hospital
where Jackie was.
[Jackie Kennedy] He came back from Boston
to me in the hospital,
and he walked in the morning, about 8:00, in my room...
and just sobbed and put his arms around me.
[Martha Bartlett] After Patrick, I think they were a lot closer.
It's the first time I've ever seen them hold hands.
[Sally Bedell Smith] It was symbolic
that he would be so publicly tender to her.
It showed the world that this was something
that they were sharing and had, in fact, deepened their bond.
[narrator] A month later,
Jackie writes to Charles Bartlett,
the friend who had introduced her to Jack.
[Sally Bedell Smith] It begins as a letter of gratitude
to Charley for having been the matchmaker back in 1951...
[Martha Bartlett] "I have so much to thank you for,
dear Charley.
All my life, Jack, John and Caroline.
When I think of the narrow escapes,
how we might never have met, it is quite frightening.
[Sally Bedell Smith] I think the most poignant thing
in the letter
is she writes that without Jack,
her life would have been "a wasteland."
I mean, that is a very vivid image.
You do get the sense
that they have achieved this equipoise
in their marriage,
and it is actually followed
by her recommitment, really,
to their marriage and to their political life.
[John F. Kennedy] Two years ago, I introduced myself in Paris
by saying I was the man
who accompanied Mrs. Kennedy to Paris.
I'm getting somewhat that same sensation
-as I travel around Texas. -[laughter]
[applause]
[Marie Ridder] There's no question...
that he was thrilled that she wanted
to come to Texas with him,
that she wanted to campaign with him.
[John F. Kennedy] This is a very dangerous
and uncertain world.
We would like to live as we once lived...
[Sally Bedell Smith] And 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."
[Evan Thomas] As they're in the motorcade,
Nellie Connally, the Governor Connally's wife,
turns to JFK and says,
"Well, you can't say that Dallas doesn't love you."
And the president says, "You certainly can't."
[reporter 1] The president's car is now turning off at Elm Street
and it'll only be a matter of minutes
before he arrives at the Trade Mart.
I was on Stemmons Freeway earlier,
and even the freeway was jam-packed
with spectators waiting...
They're in the car
and Jackie thinks that she hears some backfires.
[gunshots]
And she turns to look at her husband,
and she sees, literally, his brains being blown out.
[reporter 1] It appears as though
something has happened in the motorcade route.
Something, I repeat, has happened
in the motorcade route.
The sounds and the screaming and the motors racing.
For him, then, literally, to fall into her lap.
So that she is staring into the wound...
and knowing that he's gone.
[reporter 1] There's numerous people running up the hill
alongside Elm Street.
[Evan Thomas] She's in a war zone.
And she starts to climb out of the car.
[Barbara Perry] And then, Clint Hill,
the Secret Service agent pushes her into safety,
pushes her back down.
But now she's back into the horror
of this chamber
in which her husband has been murdered.
[reporter 1] Just a moment, we have a bulletin
coming in directly from Parklands Hospital...
[reporter 2] President Kennedy has been assassinated.
It's official now. The president is dead.
There's only one word to describe the picture here
and that's grief.
Secret Service men standing by the emergency room,
tears streaming down their face...
[Barbara Perry] This is probably going to be
one of the last times she is with him ever.
Very soon they're going to come and put him in a casket.
And she wants to give him something,
something personal that she can put in with him,
I guess, 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.
[reporter 3] President Kennedy's body is to be placed
aboard Air Force One.
Already, arrangements for swearing in
the new president are being made.
[Barbara Perry] She is wearing a bloodstained 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."
[Sarah Hughes] I do solemnly swear...
[Lyndon B. Johnson] I do solemnly swear...
[Sarah Hughes] ...that I will faithfully execute...
[Lyndon B. Johnson] ...that I will faithfully execute...
[Evan Thomas] Standing next to Lyndon Johnson,
yes, she's in shock.
But she's already thinking what is she going to do
to preserve her husband's legacy.
[Kate Andersen Brower] On the flight back,
she is talking about wanting her husband's funeral
to be just like Lincoln's funeral.
[Barbara Perry] She knows the symbolism
of the Lincoln martyrdom
should infuse her husband's farewell
to the United 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.
[narrator] President Kennedy's body
is returned to the White House.
Only then does Jackie finally leave his side.
[Sally Bedell Smith] That was a moment
I'm sure of profound isolation for her.
[Barbara Perry] In the eight seconds
that it took to fire off three shots...
she lost her husband, her job, and her home.
[Sally Bedell Smith] And she said,
"I had 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."
[Evan Thomas] She said, "Just when we had it 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.
[reporter] In the imposing rotunda of the Capitol,
the casket rests on the same catafalque
used when Abraham Lincoln's body
lay in State nearly 100 years ago.
[narrator] Jackie wishes to walk behind her husband's casket.
This presents a nightmare for the Security Service.
[Barbara Perry] The Secret Service say,
"If you're going to march from the White House
to St. Matthew's Cathedral,
which is about seven or 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."
[narrator] The Secret Service says
under no circumstances
should President Johnson take that risk.
[reporter] Oswald has been shot! Lee Oswald...
[narrator] That day,
Kennedy's assassin is shot in Dallas.
[Kati Marton] Jackie stage-managed...
her husband's funeral perfectly,
every detail: The riderless horse,
two heartbreaking children standing next to her
with John John saluting as his father's coffin
rolled by.
[narrator] And Jackie holds firm to her final wish.
[Sally Bedell Smith] Jackie walked with Bobby and Teddy
followed by all these other world leaders,
Charles de Gaulle, and Prince Phillip,
Haile Selassie.
[reporter] It is believed to be the first time
a president's widow has walked in his funeral procession.
All follow behind the president's casket.
[narrator] At the head, Jackie doesn't know
whether President Johnson has joined the procession.
Reaching the cathedral, she turns to discover
that he has defied the Secret Service.
She smiles, the only smile she displays
during those four days.
[Kate Andersen Brower] She is so happy
that Johnson has followed her lead.
The fact that that these leaders put their own lives at risk
meant a lot to her.
[Kati Marton] 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.
[Sally Bedell Smith] The funeral was
an incredibly memorable capstone
to this all-too-brief presidency.
It really was the beginning
of the creation of her husband's legacy.
[narrator] A week after her husband's assassination,
Jackie calls journalist and historian, Theodore White,
to Hyannis Port.
She wants him to write a piece for Life magazine.
[Evan Thomas] Theodore White was the premier
chronicler of presidents.
And Life magazine had great power.
[Barbara Perry] She is obsessed...
with how the president will be remembered
and she is trying to get the jump
on the first draft of history that is journalism.
[narrator] Midway through recalling
the events in Dallas in graphic detail,
Jackie suddenly changes the subject.
[Barbara Perry] She tells this very sweet story
that they would put on the soundtrack
from the Broadway musical, Camelot,
and 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 says,
"There will be great presidents again,
but there will never be another Camelot."
[Evan Thomas] The Arthurian legend is full of infidelity
and betrayal and death and loss.
So, there is a darker side
that's actually weirdly the truthful image.
But like many things that Jackie Kennedy did,
it's brilliant stagecraft.
The thousand days of JFK, it was brief and shining.
[Evan Thomas] White later said
that she could have sold him the Brooklyn Bridge.
I mean, he was gonna do anything for her.
But she's pouring over his copy, she edits it.
So, White files a story,
and the editors are a little skeptical,
"Isn't this Camelot a bit much?"
And she insists, "No Camelot, no story."
[Kati Marton] This country was sort of enjoying
a brief interregnum before Vietnam,
before Watergate.
It was an innocent America
that was willing to be lured into a fantasy.
But it was a fantasy that was so appealing.
[narrator] Jackie prepares to leave the White House
for the last time.
[Kathleen Kennedy] "Dear Mr. Chairman President,
so now in 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."
[narrator] But Jackie's letter is not to a family member
or close friend.
It is to Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev.
[Kathleen Kennedy] "I send it because I know
how much my husband cared about peace.
He 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."
[Kati Marton] 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.
[Kathleen Kennedy] "The danger, which troubled my husband
was that war might be started not so much by the big men
as 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 about let's continue for future generations.
[Kati Marton] If the mark of a great 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.
[Sally Bedell Smith] Although she became "Jackie O"...
and had a whole life as a book editor
and everything else that she did
subsequent to the White House,
she was, in the end,
inevitably defined
by what she did as first lady.