JFK’s death: 40 years later

As TV viewers sat transfixed in horror and fear on Sept. 11, 2001, watching the terrorist attacks unfold live before their eyes, many of a certain age doubtlessly were hurtled back to another violent, world-changing event: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as he traveled through Dealey Plaza in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

Though television cameras didn’t catch the actual shooting, the harrowing aftermath -- the capture of Lee Harvey Oswald, the fatal shooting of Oswald two days later by Dallas club owner Jack Ruby, Kennedy’s funeral -- was beamed into the homes of grieving Americans.

And now the sad story is back. Next Saturday marks the 40th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination, and television is once again awash in this watershed moment in American history. There are at least 17 programs over the next week devoted to the Kennedy presidency and his murder, each taking a different approach -- for example, one concludes that Oswald acted alone and another says he couldn’t have.

Here are some of the most notable programs.

“JFK: Case Not Closed,” Sunday at 6 p.m. on Fox News Channel

Using modern forensics technology, this hourlong program questions the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Oswald was the lone gunman.

“I am a big fan of ‘CSI’ and ‘CSI: Miami,’ ” producer Peter Russo says. “I thought if we took the old evidence as best we could and process it with today’s knowledge.... It’s the great American murder mystery. And if the Warren Commission is so definite, why in 1963 and ‘64, when they took a poll, did 66% of the people not believe that Oswald was the lone assassin?”

“JFK: A Presidency Revealed,” Sunday at 8 p.m. and midnight and Nov. 22 at 8 p.m. on the History Channel

This three-hour documentary looks at Kennedy’s character and the era in which he lived, using recently declassified Dictaphone recordings by JFK, recently revealed health records, recently released JFK phone calls from the Oval Office and seldom-seen home movies.

“The conclusion I came away with is that in today’s political environment, he would never have gotten the nomination for president,” producer David Taylor says, referring to Kennedy’s health and his reliance on pain medication. “And he probably wouldn’t have considered running. One of the interviewees said that Kennedy was living in a unique time; he had the means to acquire power and he took advantage of it.”

“JFK: The Day That Changed America,” Monday at 6 and 10 p.m. on MSNBC

“Hardball’s” Chris Matthews hosts this hourlong program that features people ranging from former President Gerald Ford to Jay Leno discussing their memories of the Kennedy assassination. “I think everybody can do documentaries,” says Matthews, who was a college freshman in 1963. “But this is about personal experience rather than political experience. Everybody had a very common experience. It’s almost like ‘The Sorrow and the Pity’ -- unedited people talking about what they went through.”

“JFK: Breaking the News,” Wednesday at 8 p.m. on KCET

Jane Pauley narrates this one-hour program about the media coverage of the assassination and how, for the first time, television’s live coverage of a national event superseded newspapers’ reports. The program utilizes firsthand accounts, original local broadcast coverage, amateur films and images from Texas newspapers.

“It was the first collective experience generated by television,” producer Krys Boyd Villasenor says. Though the camera- work and coverage is very unsophisticated by today’s standards, she says, the journalists doing the reporting “were very honest people and their reactions are so natural. They hadn’t done a lot of live TV. Nowadays, they would be embarrassed if Matt Lauer or some Dallas anchor broke down on the set. But I think that’s what made it so compelling.”

Appearing on the program -- he also served as editorial consultant -- is veteran reporter Hugh Aynesworth. As a 32-year-old reporter for the Dallas Morning News, he witnessed the shooting of Kennedy, was present during the police chase and capture of Oswald, and was among the newsmen in the basement of the Dallas Police Department when Ruby shot Oswald.

“It was surreal,” Aynesworth says. “The weird thing was I wasn’t assigned to the story at all. I was a science and aviation editor and I didn’t have anything to do until 2 that afternoon. So I walked over to see the motorcade and then [the story] got dumped on me forever. I was lead reporter through the Ruby trial.”

Aynesworth believes that Oswald was the lone gunman, adding that conspiracy theories abound because “we love conspiracies. We love the fun of mystery. It was not very comforting to any American to realize that a complete nobody like Oswald and another like Ruby could change the course of history, but they did.”

“Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination -- Beyond Conspiracy,” Thursday at 9 p.m. on ABC.

In this two-hour special, the ABC News anchor sets out to prove that Oswald was the sole assassin.

The program makes use of computer technology to re-create the event. For the past decade, award-winning animator Dale Myers has been working on a reconstruction using maps, blueprints, physical measurements, more than 500 photographs, crime-lab and autopsy reports and, most especially, the famous Abraham Zapruder home movie footage, the only film that captured the sight of Kennedy’s motorcade being hit.

“People will find this very shocking [to watch], even though it’s technology,” Jennings says. “I have now seen the president shot hundreds of times in this animated way. There are moments in which I still flinch when it happens.”

“The Kennedy Tapes Revealed,” Friday at 8 p.m., next Saturday at 1 p.m. and Nov. 23 at 1 a.m. on Bravo

Kevin Spacey narrates this hourlong documentary that looks at the life of JFK and his relationship with his brother Bobby, using the younger man’s own words as well as clips and interviews.

Just three months after the assassination, Robert F. Kennedy sat down and recorded the first in a series of interviews that were meant to be informal and confidential, in which he talked candidly about his brother, then-President Lyndon B. Johnson and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

“These tapes were done in ’64 primarily and a little bit later in ’65 and a short time in ‘67,” producer and director Philip B. Kunhardt III says. “They have been locked away for all of these years at the Kennedy Library. There were several edited transcripts of the tapes made up in the ‘70s that have been used by scholars. They were literally not to be played.”

Kunhardt, though, went to Kennedy’s widow, Ethel, who allowed him a one-time-only use of the 25 hours of tapes.