Entertainment

A different day

On Sunday night, the History channel be gins a remarkable three-hour, two-part program on the assassination of JFK, perhaps the best on that subject you will ever see.

And even if you think you’ve seen it all and can’t bear to see it again, well, then think again.

For one thing, the entire two-night program does not have a single talking head, no narration and no opinions other than the ones given at the times of the events all those years ago.

Each 90-minute program is made up solely of clips from newscasts, documentaries and vintage talk shows in which actual witnesses to the events tell what they saw and heard. You are there as it happens.

We’re so programmed to expect a voice-over by a vaguely famous actor telling us what we’re going to see and, in some cases, what we are actually seeing, it takes a short time to get used to using your own brain to stitch together events.

Among the famous newsmen (emphasis on “men,” since the only woman on-camera is the late Jessica Savitch years later) are Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Howard K. Smith, Eric Sevareid and the well-named Harry Reasoner, as well as many anonymous local newsmen who were witnesses to the assassination. None of them are identified on screen.

Part One takes us from the hours before the assassination to the tragedy and through the next five blurred days after it, including the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald.

It’s impossible to imagine the thousands of hours of ancient film the editors went through, the three hours are so complete.

In one brilliant segment, the funerals of Oswald and of JFK are intercut.

In Oswald’s case, we find out that newsmen were pallbearers because Oswald didn’t have any friends, which is then contrasted with the honor guard and family members at JKF’s state funeral.

Just as moving are both widows at their husbands’ funerals. Oswald’s young widow sits alone holding their infant, while the grieving Jackie is surrounded by family, her two beautiful children and literally the whole world.

Part Two tracks the aftermath of the murders through the investigation to the conspiracy theories — from inside the Warren Commission to interviews with New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison, who stood up to the White House and the FBI and insisted there was a conspiracy and cover-up in Dallas.

It took until 1978 for a congressional hearing to agree with him.

It’s two great nights of television that you really need to watch with your children.