24 Hours After: The JFK Assassination

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September 16, 1968. Richard Nixon isn't exactly seen as a comedian. But tonight, he's trying to change that by appearing on Laugh-In, a TV show similar to Saturday Night Live. Nixon needs every vote he can get in the 1968 election, facing off against Hubert Humphrey, the vice president who became the Democratic nominee after Lyndon Johnson withdrew from the ticket.

Nixon's Laugh-In appearance is a surprise, but soon, he'll pull off a move that no one would ever expect. How did back-channel dealings, unattended teleprompters, and Oval Office shouting matches turn this election into an all-time drama? And what do recently uncovered conversations reveal about how far Nixon was willing to go to secure victory?

Special thanks to David Farber, professor of history at the University of Kansas and author of Chicago ‘68; Lawrence O’Donnell, host of The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC and author of Playing with Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics; and Luke Nichter, professor of history at Chapman University and author of The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968.

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How did the Kennedy assassination impact the nation in the hours that followed his death? And how did this event—and the decisions made by all those involved—alter the course of history?

Jackie returns to Washington in shock and in mourning. But she’ll have no time to grieve: she needs to plan a funeral and protect her children, even as Lyndon Johnson and his administration are already moving into the White House.

Traveling with JFK to Dallas were two of his closest aides – Kenneth O’Donnell and Dave Powers. With his sudden passing, they find themselves stuck between their loyalty to the President and their duty to the nation.

J.W. Fritz is Texas’s most celebrated lawman. When he finds Lee Oswald in his custody, he’ll have only hours to extract a confession while the world waits impatiently for answers. And then, everything goes wrong.

Lee Harvey Oswald thought defecting to the Soviet Union would set his troubled life on a new path. Instead, he found himself working a minimum wage job in Dallas, estranged from his wife… and with the Presidential motorcade right outside his window.

Robert Kennedy is hard at work investigating the mafia when he learns his brother has been shot. He jumps into action to protect JFK’s secrets, all the while wondering: was the assassination all his fault?

Lyndon Johnson was a has-been – sidelined by the Kennedy administration and drained of political influence. But in a moment, he’ll become the most powerful man in the world. How did he walk a political tightrope right into the Oval Office?

On the morning of November 22nd, 1963, Jackie Kennedy was in Dallas to support her husband’s re-election campaign. By that evening, she’ll be planning his funeral. How did Jackie survive that fateful day?