About
THE KENNEDYS, an eight-hour four-part movie event, uses public events as a background to tell the intimate story of this iconic family. We begin on November 8, 1960 – Election Day – with America choosing between the charismatic Senator John F. Kennedy and his far more experienced opponent, Vice President Richard M. Nixon. Through flashbacks to the 1930s and 1940s we see Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.’s ambition to be president himself, his appointment by Franklin Roosevelt as Ambassador to Great Britain as the first step toward that goal, and a disastrous tenure in London in which his pro-Nazi sentiments lead to his dismissal. Joe then makes a solemn oath to himself and to his wife Rose: if he can’t be the first Catholic President of the United States, he’ll make sure that their eldest son, Joe Jr., will make it to the White House. For Joe Sr., his second son – Jack – is an afterthought.
But there’s intense competition between the two brothers for their father’s love and respect. Joe Sr. realizes that Jr.’s WWII service as a pilot will be a stepping-stone to a political career. Jack, who has always been sickly, has to endure the ignominy of a Navy desk job. But he pleads with his father to pull the strings necessary to get him a combat position. When Jack is awarded a medal for heroism in the Pacific, Joe Jr. goes wild with jealousy. He flies additional missions over Europe in order to win a commendation of his own. In August, 1944, his plane explodes over the English Channel.
Though devastated by his golden child’s death, Joe Sr.’s determination that one day a Kennedy will be President is never shaken. That mantle will now be borne by the next in line. We’ll see Jack’s first run for Congress, a painful process for the young man who realizes immediately that he doesn’t possess the innate political gifts of his older brother. He wants to withdraw from the race. Joe Sr. won’t hear of it. He commits fraud in order to split the votes of one of Jack’s opponents. Jack wins, of course. Then Joe Sr. immediately begins to plan the next crusade: Jack’s run for the Senate. As soon as that’s accomplished, Joe sets his sights on the Presidency.
When we return to Election Night, 1960, we’ll also see the underlying fragility of the marriage between Jack and his wife, who sees him flirting with a pretty campaign worker. When Jack wins the Presidency, she tells him that his questing for sexual conquest must end. “I’ve had my private humiliations,” she says, “I won’t have them in front of the American people.” Camelot begins with a warning. The key moments of the Kennedy Administration – the Bay of Pigs, civil rights, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis – will trace the maturation process of John F. Kennedy from an inexperienced mis-handler of events to a statesman who keeps the world from exploding in October of 1962.
We’ll experience the partnership born of love and loyalty between Jack and Bobby. The death of Jack and Jackie’s newborn son in August 1963 brings them closer than they’ve ever been before. Our final episode finds Bobby and Jackie, consumed by grief, entering into a complex relationship. He runs for President in 1968 and is on the verge of securing the nomination of the Democratic Party, when he’s killed in Los Angeles after the California primary.
History tells us what this family did. THE KENNEDYS tells us who they were.