JFK: A New World Order

We will learn about the Kennedy and Fitzgerald families, including John's parents and siblings, as well as Kennedy's first inklings of a life in politics.

We will take a close look at the first televised Presidential debate between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, and its significance not only to the 1960 election, but for all political contests to come.

From the gala inauguration eve parties thrown for the fashionable couple by the likes of Frank Sinatra, to the frigid platform at the foot of the Capitol the next morning, and the new President's iconic speech with its historic call to service.

The program will give background and perspective to the situation in Cuba, from the Revolutionary overthrow of Batista to the emergence in the late 1950s of Castro and his communist regime. We will take a close look at the events of October, 1962, when the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, and the eventual compromise reached between the United States and Soviet Russia to prevent certain doom.

A Wall of Words traces the origins of Soviet-American tensions in the divided city of Berlin from the final days of World War II up through the time of John F. Kennedy's Presidency and the construction of the wall, ending with an extended view of John Kennedy's triumphant Berlin Wall speech of June 26, 1963.

The program will look at Kennedy's often less-than-amicable relationship with Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, including Kennedy's actions at the sight of Sammy Davis Jr. attending a public White House reception with his white wife that would leave Jackie in tears.