All language subtitles for ㅏㅣㅓㅗ

[♪♪♪]

[Newsreel]:
Well, this is the man

who, in the next 24 hours,

may become
President of the United States,

and she,
First Lady of the land.

[JFK]: So now,

my wife and I prepare
for a new administration

and for a new baby.
Thank you.

Ask not what your country
can do for you.

Ask what you
can do for your country.

Every degree of mind and spirit
that I possess

will be devoted

to the long-range interests
of the United States

and to the cause of freedom
around the world.

[Sam Pate]:
Just a moment, please.

Something has happened
in the motorcade route.

Stand by, please.

Parkland Hospital...
there has been a shooting.

Parkland Hospital
has been advised to stand by

for a severe gunshot wound.

The flash, apparently official,

President Kennedy died

at 1:00 p.m.
Central Standard Time.

[Bill Hampton]: The president
of the United States is dead.

I have just talked
to Father Oscar Huber

of the Holy Trinity
Catholic Church.

He and another priest tell me
that the pair of men

have just administered

the last rites
of the Catholic Church

to President Kennedy.

President Kennedy
has been assassinated.

It's official now.
The president is dead.

[Newsreel]: As the casket
is returned to the caisson,

there comes a family vignette
that must take its place

with those memories
we hold warm and dear,

a gentle reminder
from his mother,

and John John
celebrates his third birthday

with a soldier's farewell
to his father.

It's easy for someone to say,
"Well, I'm going to be me."

Well, that's easy

when nobody gives a damn
who you are,

but when somebody
has definite ideas about you,

superlative ones,
in John's case...

"You'll be the greatest.

You are the most handsome.

You are royalty.

You are bound and destined
for greatness.

Do nothing normal.
Do nothing pedestrian.

You are better than that
and everyone."

That's not easy
to have on your shoulders.

He's the only person
we've ever seen

have that kind of greatness
put upon him.

In our culture,

where we don't recognize
royalty,

he was the closest thing
we had to a crown prince.

He was the heir,

the heir to the promise
and to the challenge,

"Don't ask what your country
can do for you.

Ask what you can do
for your country."

That salute of John Jr.

is the first extraordinary
celebrity moment

in John Jr.'s life.

From that moment on,
his life was different.

From the very beginning,
you know, that little salute,

he was under scrutiny
and pressure.

I think
John F. Kennedy Jr.'s salute

is a defining moment
in the American public,

in their psyche,

that we're going to see more
from this kid.

[Larry King]: Is it
tough being a junior?

I don't have a basis
of comparison, so...

I mean, are there
ever days you say,

"I wish my name
were David"?

No, I'm pretty happy
with what it is.

It's complicated,

and it makes
for a rich and complicated life,

but that's, I think,
part of the puzzle

to figure out in my life.

For me, it wasn't meeting

the little boy
saluting the casket.

I think for my mother,
it would have been that.

For me, it was like, I mean,

he's, like,
a hot New York bachelor.

The first time I met him,

I was working out in my gym
in Tribeca,

and a mutual friend
had brought him up there

while I was working out,

and so I was on the bike,
and we shook hands.

I was just fortunate enough
to meet him and engage with him

and go on just a minute

of a cosmic-dust journey
with him,

and it was pretty awesome.

You know,
his tentacles, his love,

it reaches out from the grave.
It's still here now.

A Native American said

that when somebody
takes your picture,

you lose
a piece of your soul.

How he retained his soul

after hundreds of thousands
of pictures

is one
of his greatest accomplishments.

He had a brilliant capacity

for getting people
to quit looking

at the balloon of himself
that he was towing overhead,

the sort of Macy's
Thanksgiving Day parade-sized

John F. Kennedy Jr.

to the guy
that was standing there

who was remarkable
in his own way

but was, you know,

put his pants on
one leg at a time.

You know, one of the things

that John tried to do
throughout his life

was be his own man
and go his own path.

He obviously had
the whole specter

of his presidential father
and his very famous mother

and a family
that was known for politics,

but, you know,
John was very much his own man.

He marched to his own beat.

Like many sons
of famous fathers,

there's a legacy.

There's sort of
a big mountain to climb.

So I think he felt like he had
to do something significant.

I mean, he couldn't just
get a job.

[Barlow]: His being
part of the Kennedy legacy,

the really important thing
to know about John

in that regard

was that he was not a Kennedy.

He was a Bouvier.

His mother was the guiding,
shaping force in his life,

and he looked
very much like her,

but he was also
very much a Kennedy,

very devoted to his family,
to the name,

to the history,
very, very much so.

He couldn't separate himself
from that legacy,

and nor would he want to.

The process of separation

becomes a problem
for a presidential child.

Their greatest single challenge
is to find a separate identity.

Who am I?

He called me up one night,
and he said,

"I've been thinking a lot
about great men,

and it occurs to me

that it would be
kind of a cakewalk

for me to become a great man.

I mean, everybody expects me
to be a great man.

I'm perfectly positioned.

You know, if I don't f*** up
in some major way,

I can just do it,"

and he said, "But I've been
reading a lot of biographies

of great men
all the way through history,

and I'm realizing
that not one of them

seems to have been
a good guy at home.

I mean,
even Gandhi beat his family,

and, you know,
and my father was no model,

and I wonder

if it wouldn't be a much more
interesting challenge

in my position

to set out at this point

and see if I couldn't
make myself a good man."

And that was really
paramount to him.

He wanted to be good

in his relationship
with his wife.

That was really important.
He wanted it to work.

He wanted to be good in his
relationship with his sister,

who was very important to him.

No schadenfreude at all.

He wanted
his friends to succeed,

so I think
John Perry Barlow's comment

about him wanting to be good

is really important
in understanding who John was.

I also knew that pressures
were about to enter his life

in increasing force

that would make
sticking with that principle

an extremely hard thing
to pull off

because everybody in the world

was going to be tugging
at his sleeve.

People were going
to treat him like a thing.

They already were.

It's difficult
to maintain your goodness

if you're being treated
like a thing.

If you were
to have a son,

would you encourage

a political
career for him?

I would, definitely.

I would hope
he would grow up to be,

if not a politician

in the sense
of devoting all of his time,

I would hope
that whatever he did do,

that he would have some sense
of responsibility

for what went on.

Over a quarter century ago,

my father stood before you

to accept the nomination

for the presidency
of the United States.

[cheering]

In 1988, John introduced
his uncle Teddy Kennedy

to the Democratic
National Convention.

The place went wild.

[cheering]

Thank you.

There's a huge gravitational
pull towards politics

because that's kind of
what he...

I mean, he was just
such a natural at it.

John was smart enough
to know "I'm Junior.

I'm not John F. Kennedy.
I'm not my father."

He did this counter-culture.

He didn't want to be

what everyone thought
he should be or become,

and I thought
that took a lot of balls.

Having people on him,
fawn over him,

since he was a little baby,

especially after
what had happened,

so I liked
that reserved thing about him.

Easy to relate to.

John really, for me,
represented someone

who had every right
to be a cynic

and decided to be a romantic.

Obviously, John, to everybody,
was a very charismatic person,

because of his name,
because of his family,

but also because of him.

He had this very attractive
personality,

part humble, part irreverent,

very handsome, very energetic,

and people projected
all their hopes and dreams

on this son of this family.

You never thought of
running for office?

That had to have
come up

in some discussion
somewhere.

No, I mean,
I've certainly thought about it,

but I think that, you know,

there is this great weight

of expectation and anticipation,

and I think

that part of you wants
to sort of address that

in some way

and maybe do
something different,

and maybe, but just
to sort of engage it.

Most people get into politics

for one of or a combination
of three reasons.

It's for money,

it's for power,

or it's for fame.

John had all three
the day he was born.

In Georgetown,

a hopeful crowd

waits for a glimpse
of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr.,

first baby to be,

who is whisked by,

heavily swaddled against
the sub-freezing weather.

One of the reasons
Americans loved the Kennedys

was because we didn't have
this grandfather Eisenhower

in the White House any longer.

We had this young family.

We had this beautiful
young wife and mother.

We had Caroline,

and, especially,
we had John Jr.

We had this exciting,
irascible little boy

running through the White House.

Jackie Kennedy

is an extraordinary figure
in this story

because she's very bright.

People think of her as young,
and so young as First Lady,

that it hardly registers

that she was
a very bright young lady,

and she had done studies
about presidential children.

She was a bit of an expert
before her time

on presidential children.

In fact, when the Clintons
were elected president,

one of the first things they did
was brought in Jackie Kennedy

and ask her advice.

[Leamer]:
His mother understood

the wages of celebrity,
what celebrity does to you.

President Kennedy saw
the advantages of celebrity...

[speaking Spanish]

[cheering]

Seeing the advantages
of his beautiful wife,

what that brought to him
politically,

and he saw
the advantages of his children.

We have those great photos

of the kids scampering around
the Oval Office.

That was the president, who knew
that "Jackie's not here,"

and said to his secretary,
"Go get the kids."

So they brought them
from the mansion

over to the West Wing

and had them scamper around
the Oval Office,

and we have
those delightful pictures today.

They never would have happened
on Jacqueline Kennedy's watch.

Instantly,
John Jr. becomes a star.

He becomes
part of the national fabric

of our lives.

Here was this kid
who was sort of America's kid...

really, a part of royalty

in a country
that doesn't have royalty.

[Andersen]: If you called John's
name in the White House,

as Jack often did, summoned him,

he didn't come right away,

so often what you'd hear echoing
down the White House halls

was "John? John? John? John?"

If you wanted
to get under his skin,

you'd say, "Listen, John John,"

and, you know,
that would be the "argh."

[Chermayeff]: He had a really,
really nice relationship

with his mom and his sister.

You know, I mean, his mother
was incredibly gracious,

but, as John said,
she ran a tight ship.

It was a little...

It looked a little more
free-flowing, you know,

but she was actually
very together,

and John was the kind of kid
that needed a lot of assistance

getting his stuff together
for a long time,

and probably really irritating
in a lot of ways.

[Barlow]:
He was an amazing character.

He could remember
not only everybody's name,

but everybody's dog's name,
you know.

He had a natural talent
for being graceful.

He had absolutely
the best teacher in the world

in his mother,

and she passed that on
seamlessly to him.

[Chermayeff]: They adored
each other, all of them,

Caroline and John
and their mother.

I mean,
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

still is, like...

in the top five style icons
that I can think of.

I mean, she's referenced
constantly in fashion.

The media may overdo

how perfectly classy
and perfect she was,

but she was classy.

She was.

She did dress

in a tailored, appropriate,
sophisticated manner.

Jackie Kennedy,
to anybody from the outside,

was this larger-than-life,
iconic figure,

made so particularly,
obviously,

because of what
she so publicly went through.

The globalized grief and tragedy
of the Kennedy assassination

and the fact

that this young, beautiful
widow and mother was left...

Everyone in the world
admired Jackie Kennedy.

Everybody imitated her.

Everybody felt her pain
and her sadness after 1963,

and everybody
watched those children

as if they were their children.

This is a little boy, you know,

born on Thanksgiving Day.

You know, his father

had been elected President
of the United States.

He barely knew his own father.

He lost him in the most violent
and unacceptable of ways.

For the five years

after Jack Kennedy's
assassination,

Bobby Kennedy really functioned

as the father
to John and Caroline.

When Bobby was gunned down
in 1968,

in a sense, John and Caroline
lost their father a second time.

Jackie was devastated.

[Andersen]: She said,
"They're killing Kennedys,

and my children
are the number-one target,

and I'm basically out of here."

And she married
Aristotle Onassis.

Aristotle Onassis
was not only fabulously wealthy,

but he also had
a 75-man security force.

It was a kind of a charmed life,
in a sense,

but, sadly,
it didn't last for long.

Onassis died

six weeks after entering
the American hospital here

just outside of Paris.

John's life, as we all know,
was a very complicated life.

His mother
kept him and his sister

sort of away from
a lot of the world, you know,

and a lot of it
was driven by security concerns.

You know, in the beginning,

he really
kind of needed a father

that wasn't
a Secret Service agent.

[Andersen]: In search
of a strong male figure,

Jackie had heard of a fellow
named John Perry Barlow,

who was a kind of a free spirit

who wrote songs
for the Grateful Dead

and owned a ranch in Wyoming.

[Barlow chuckles]

It was fairly late
in the evening.

I was sitting
at the galactic headquarters

of the Bar Cross
Land and Livestock Company

in Cora, Wyoming.

I get this breathy voice
on the phone

that says, "Hi,
this is Jacqueline Onassis,"

and I said, "Well,
in the highly unlikely event

that this isn't
some kind of a joke,

what can I do for you?"

Two days later,
he was on the ranch.

He always talked about Barlow.

You know,
"Barlow this, Barlow that."

He was sort of this legendary
figure in John's life.

[♪♪♪]

[Wiese]: You know, when John
enrolled at Brown University,

it was, you know,
pretty big news.

Brown didn't have

a Kennedy school
of this or that,

or a Kennedy library,

and I think he probably liked
a little of that anonymity.

You know, you'd walk
around a football game

with, you know, a sign saying,
you know,

"Party after the game
at Phi Psi,"

and when John joined the frat,
it went from advertising

to restricting people
from coming in.

You know, we started
getting lines out the door.

At a certain level,

as much
as I could relate to John,

there's very few people
on this earth

who could relate

to how he grew up

and what was normal to him.

He had been
at a Rolling Stones concert,

and he might have even had,
you know,

Keith Richards' guitar.

I thought, you know,
"Let's face it.

Most college students,

they just sort of connive

their way into a concert.

You know, most people

aren't going to be backstage
with the Stones."

One night, you know,
he took me out reveling

with Hunter S. Thompson.

Can you imagine?

With John Kennedy,
Hunter S. Thompson,

and I'm in this fabulous bar,

but I knew
that this was special,

and maybe John
would go on to something else.

So I said to him, "So, John,

do you want to be president
one day?"

and he said, "Shut up, Kissy."

He just didn't entertain us
going into that area.

[Andersen]:
You know, Jackie also felt

that he had a destiny
to fulfill,

and part of that destiny

would involve
his going to law school.

John F. Kennedy's
going to find out soon

if all that cramming he did
has paid off.

He began taking
his New York bar exams

The son of the late president
will have to pass this time

if he wants to hold
onto his $30,000-a-year job

as an assistant D.A.

I think
when I was running for Congress,

and one time I got
bad press on something,

and he sort of laughed at me
and he said,

"You have no idea
what bad press is

until you're on the front page
of the New York Post ."

Slow news day, I guess, huh?

John, a lot of people
waiting for you here.

How do you
feel about...

Is it true that
you passed the bar?

Uh, apparently it's true.

I got the official word
not long ago, so it's true.

What do you mean,
"not long ago?"

Just a few
minutes ago?

I got the word.

That's really
all that's important.

What many people don't know

is that John
had a reading disability,

and you're supposed
to get more time

on the bar exam.

He wouldn't take more time
on the bar exam

because he thought
people would think

that he was getting
special favor,

and that was a mistake for him,

but that was
part of being John.

I'm looking forward
to doing some good things here,

and I'm glad it's behind me.

Are you going
to stay here

in the D.A.'s
office?

Sure.
Absolutely.

What kind of cases are
you looking forward to?

Whatever they give me.

[Coulter]:
I think it's sort of unfair,

the business about him
failing the New York bar exam.

For one thing,
Hillary Clinton failed it,

and all I hear about
is how brilliant she is,

but, moreover,

the bar exam is something
you do have to study for.

It isn't an IQ test.

It's learning
specific knowledge,

and here he is, you know,

the sexiest man
in the universe,

according to People magazine.

He's young, he's single.

How much studying was he doing?

You can imagine, among friends,

some of the ribbing
he would have, you know, got.

It was like, "John,
does that mean sexiest ever?"

I mean, we used to tease him.
"Qualify for it."

It turned out
to be a really great way

to take the piss out of him.
[laughs]

"Oh, do I have the sexiest man
in the galaxy on the phone?"

[chuckles]

[Cuomo]: Did he like
to have his shirt off a lot?

Yeah, sure, he did.

I would too,
if I looked like that guy.

Of course,
it's easy to deal with women

when you are People magazine's
sexiest human in the universe.

[laughs]

Just smile.
We'll do whatever you want.

[laughs]

He certainly
was a hand with the ladies.

[laughs]

No question about that.

[Chermayeff]: None of those
were very serious.

They made a lot
out of that stuff, you know.

Sarah Jessica Parker and John

had, you know, no relationship,
really,

not really,

and Madonna, not really.

Like, maybe one night.
Sorry.

Who knows, maybe more.
What do I know?

John really was
a serial monogamist,

in spite of the fact
that it was very difficult

for his girlfriends
to believe that,

because he was under
a continuous barrage

of other opportunities.

The actress Daryl Hannah,
the star of...

At that time, she was best-known
for the movie Splash ,

but she was in John's circle

because she came

from a very wealthy family
of Democratic donors,

but in 1988,
the same year

that he was on the cover

of the People M agazine's
"The Sexiest Man Alive,"

they began a relationship,

and this
was a serious relationship

that lasted five years.

They are the fun couple of '93,
a paparazzi's dream.

John F. Kennedy Jr.
and actress Daryl Hannah

are traveling the world
these days.

I know that,
while they were together,

you know, John had
a lot of concern for her,

that she understood
celebrity and attention

in a way that, you know,
other women could not.

This is the JFK
special spotter version.

You probably can get him

at the length of two football
fields easily with this.

I never have seen anyone
get reactions the way he did.

Not the biggest rock star,
not the biggest movie star,

because he wasn't
an entertainer.

He was the real deal.

He was the living legacy

of the closest thing
to greatness

a big slice of this country

thought that we had
ever experienced in a leader.

That's what Kennedy was.

I remember watching,

in sort of a combination
of horror and awe,

the way men and women
threw themselves at him,

Even if they physically weren't
throwing themselves at him,

they were emotionally
throwing themselves at him.

People would come up to him

and you could see them
just shedding IQ points

as they approached.

...the closer they got,
the dumber they were.

You knew
that they'd been pretty bright

over here someplace,

but by the time they got there,
they were just dumb as bait.

When People magazine came out,

that was somewhat of
a dividing line in his life.

You know, he was a single guy
in New York City.

He wasn't being treated
as, you know,

the son of a slain president

or, you know,
son of Jacqueline Onassis.

At this point, I think,
with the press,

they felt
that everything was fair game.

That happened to John,
like, every day,

everywhere he went,

and even in the biggest city
in America,

you could see,
walking on Broadway,

"pop, pop, pop."

That doesn't happen
to normal people.

That doesn't even happen
to most actors.

[♪♪♪]

Another layer of John's charm
was that he was a New Yorker.

Welcome to the premiere
of Heart of the City .

Hello. I'm John Kennedy.

There are few places on Earth

more fascinating, exciting,
or glamorous than New York City.

He loved this city.

He loved everything about it.

[Oberbeck]: You know, he was
on 1040 Fifth Avenue,

which is right across the street
from the Met,

and so the Met
became his playground.

So we played Frisbee
right in front of the Met

because there were lights.

You know, it had a little more
lights than normal,

so we'd be playing Frisbee
right across Fifth Avenue,

you'd sort of bounce it
off a taxi windshield,

and try and, you know,
curve it to each other.

He loved New York.
New York offered him

the right combination
of anonymity

and... and hugs.

You know, it's the energy
of the city.

It's the vibrance.

John, if nothing else,

was an incredibly vibrant,
energetic person.

The guy was peripatetic.

He could not sit still.

Rollerblades
were the biggest thing

that ever happened
in John's life, I think,

because he could really go
like a bat out of hell

on rollerblades.

He was like
some kind of a superhero.

Funny thing about John
was that, you know,

despite the six-pack abs
and the great physique,

which he certainly had,

and he worked hard for
and he deserved,

he was not a great athlete,

despite all the pictures you see
or films you see

of him playing football
in Central Park.

[Ginsberg]: He was terrible
at touch football.

He played it with such intensity
and seriousness,

but, you know they say
there's go-to receivers?

John was not
a go-to receiver.

Every moment with John
was an adventure.

You know, "Let's go camping.
Let's go rock climbing."

We kayaked out
into the middle of the Hudson

in the middle of the night,

which is, in and of itself,
is an incredible experience.

We would take
the subway together uptown.

You know, he was a regular guy.

He wanted to be treated
like everyone else.

One thing he kept doing
in New York City,

he rode a bike around.

He wouldn't lock it,
and it was, like,

"The world must know this
is John Kennedy's bike," right?

Of course
nobody will steal it.

Well, it would get stolen
within minutes.

I don't know
how many bikes he lost.

In New York City.

Here was a guy that
everybody knew his whole story,

and you'd see him, like,
you'd see him ride his bike.

You'd get a glimpse,
and it was kind of like

seeing Santa Claus
or something.

You'd be like,
"Yeah, I just saw Kennedy!"

And he managed to navigate
this really abnormal...

aura that was around him
and thrust upon him,

and, I think, be a very normal
boy despite it all,

and I do put that
down to his mother,

who was an amazing force
in his life.

I remember one day
going with him,

you know, to the house,

you know, knock knock knock
on the door.

His mum answered the door,
and I remember her saying,

"Oh, angel."

She called him
"angel" sometimes,

and it was just
so from the heart.

She loved him to bits.

And he was one
of the few adult males

who was still
very much attentive

to his mother's expectations.

It mattered to him
to make his mother proud.

When I first heard the news
that Jackie was sick

and she had lymphoma,

I was so sad,
so, so, so sad,

and I immediately called up,
and I just wanted to...

just say
that I was thinking of her

and, you know, praying for her.

She said, you know,

"It's all right.
This is the good kind.

We can beat this kind."

[Andersen]: She says
she's gonna fight this,

and she does.

There's chemotherapy, surgery,

and throughout it all,
John is by her side.

John called me and said,
"Mummy's coming home.

She wants to be at home,

and there's nothing more
to be done."

I said, "Okay, I'm coming.
I'm coming."

So I got on a plane
and I came to New York,

and, on a human level,
there's nothing else to say.

It was a very big tragedy,
a personal tragedy.

Somebody's mum was dying.

Losing his mother
was intensely personal for him,

but, again, with everything else
in his life,

there were these added layers
of significance to it.

Jackie O was sick,

and that meant something
in American culture.

He had to process all that

and deal with
all this publicity.

John! John!

[Amanpour]: Oh, my God.

Can you imagine?

How do you live like this?

How did Caroline
live like this?

How did John live like this?

How did Jackie
live like this?

How do you live like this?

I just never forgave

individuals
or members of the press

who didn't have the decency,

especially in the worst,
most painful,

most personal,
most private moments,

to give them a little space.

I found it...

I found it grotesque,

especially when
they have given you

the courtesy of their best
and their most polite selves.

I can't talk about
what happened inside that room

or inside that apartment.

It's private,
but just to say

that she was surrounded
by her family, her friends,

and a huge amount of love.

Last night, around 10:15,
um...

my mother passed on.

She was surrounded
by her friends and her family

and her books, uh,

and the people and the things
that she loved,

and she did it in her own way,
on her own terms,

and, uh...
and we all feel lucky for that,

and now she's in God's hands.

John handled death
better than anybody I knew.

He lost...

You know, he lost cousins,
he lost parents,

and he was
incredibly unemotional.

Not that he didn't feel it,

but externally was able
to hold it together

better than anybody I knew.

I remember saying, "John,
how the hell do you do it?"

Thank you all very much,
and have a good afternoon.

Sorry, John...

And he said, "You know,
I just learned from my family.

You just don't wallow in death.

You move on.
You hold it inside."

[♪♪♪]

Her last letter to her son
included the admonition

"You especially
have a place in history,"

and this was
a real departure for her...

Putting any kind of pressure
on him at all,

which she avoided,
she studiously avoided.

She knew in her heart

that someday
the stars are going to line up

and he's going to be President,

and the money will be there,

the mood of the nation
will be there,

the polls will be there,

the country
will be ready for it,

and he will be President...

[JFK]: We choose to go
to the moon in this decade

and do the other things

not because they are easy,
but because they are hard.

[Amanpour]: This is the family
that envisioned...

a man on the moon.

This is the family
that started the Peace Corps.

Didn't you feel

an enormous
amount of pressure,

you know, following in
your father's footsteps?

In your mother's?

No, I mean, it was more
a thing of having,

you know,
a fulfilling life,

and then the other stuff
takes care of itself.

It's a complex thing, right?

You have this legacy.

It's clear.
You can't ignore it.

It has great privileges
that come along with it.

It has very difficult things
that come along with it.

There's a lot of pressure,

and yet he had
enough confidence

to sort of want
to live out his own life,

but he didn't want
to let anybody down.

I mean, yes,
it was a complicated thing

just to be that son
of that fallen idol.

We're used to a certain degree
of being watched,

and I think
that you're aware of it

even if you're not
consciously aware of it.

Just obsession.

Well, is that
what it is?

Yeah.

You know, it's
given both of us

great opportunities.

You know, guys like him,
the people make you a king.

He's the uncrowned king,
with king privileges,

and he didn't want 'em.
[laughs]

As he got older, you know,

the edge started to come in.

Like, okay, what are you
going to do now?

How are you going to leave

the iconic image
that we all had of you

and become John Kennedy
who you are?

What's your personality?
What are you going to do?

What are you
going to accomplish?

It took him a while to figure
out what he wanted to do,

and, you know, frankly,

I don't think
that really happened

until he did George .

Are you in the market
for a magazine

devoted solely to politics?

Big yawn, right?

Now, if I tell you

John Kennedy Jr. is the man
behind the enterprise,

what happens?

They just had no idea
what to expect,

and we kept it really secret.

Ladies and gentlemen,
meet George .

[Berman]: The cover

was the cover
everyone was waiting for.

[applause]

Watching John Kennedy Jr.
present me as "George"

for his inaugural issue,

I thought that was pretty cool.

[Hare]: Cindy Crawford

dressed up
as George Washington.

Of course!
I mean, Cindy Crawford

was probably
the hottest model in the world.

"No problem.

No problem.
We'll get Cindy Crawford.

No problem."

[Berman]:
She's, like, a businesswoman,

women like her,
she's hot, men like her,

she's American,
she's beautiful."

I didn't really know
the concept or anything,

because it was
John Kennedy Jr.'s new magazine.

I think we shoved a sock
down my, um, trousers,

and I literally had the balls
to become George Washington.

And I remember those magazines.
They were sexy.

It was like, Cindy Crawford,
you know,

with the George Washington wig.

George Clooney, I remember,
as one of the covers.

I mean, it was like...
It was a cool magazine.

[De Niro]:
He asked me to do it.

If I could be of some help
getting the magazine started,

as it was my understanding,

I said, "Let me do it. Sure."

Politics isn't dry,

it isn't dull,

so why should
a magazine that covers it be?

Mixing politics and pop culture,

and celebrating politics,

and boy I was drawn to that.

[Terenzio]: George was

a place where John
could be John.

There was no legacy,
there was no...

I mean, he was certainly,
like, you know,

everyone's mentor,

and everybody
wanted to be around him,

but it wasn't--

it was a situation
where he could be himself

and he could be
really comfortable.

A magazine is very organic,
you know?

It has to be.

You get kind of
a weird chemistry

with the people
that you work with,

and it's
a very personal expression.

You know, he kind of
breaks that barrier

between a celebrity
and a regular person.

You're walking
to the men's room,

and he wrestles you
up against the wall, you know,

because he could see maybe
you were a little uptight

or something,

and he... right away,
he took that away.

We did this issue called, um,
"Rebels and Revolutionaries,"

and so we had
all these celebrities

signed up to be various rebels
in history,

like Abbie Hoffman
or Rosa Parks,

and people who stood up
for something,

and who was playing Rosa Parks
was Whoopi Goldberg,

and he sneaks on to the bus,

and we're all just--
keep working,

we were just kind of
in the moment,

and the photographer's snapping,

and John goes up to her,
and he hadn't met her,

and he goes,

Would you mind going
to the back of the bus?"

and she...[laughs]
...she just cracks up.

She goes, "Not a chance, buddy,"
she goes, you know?

[JFK Jr.]: You have to leaven
the political dialogue

with funny stuff
and light stuff,

so we may talk about the budget,

we may talk about, you know,
Hillary's hairstylist,

and somewhere in that mix
is, hopefully,

an interesting read.

[Ginsberg]:
George , more than anything,

reflected John's personality.

It was... fun.

It was mischievous...

Colorful, unconventional.

He thought politics

was too important
to be left to the politicians.

[Bill Clinton]:
I have accepted responsibility

for what I did wrong
in my personal life,

and I have invited
members of Congress

to work with us to find
a reasonable, bipartisan,

and proportionate response.

I was so deep
in the impeachment.

I was working
at the White House,

and I was on
the impeachment team...

and there was a moment...

I'm sitting in my office,

I had a private fax,

and the thing starts whirring,

and it spits out
a one-page note,

hand written.

It says, "Dear Mr. President,

I've been under that desk.

There's barely room
for a three-year-old,

much less a 22-year-old intern.

Cheers, JK."

I have to say I took that thing
into the Oval Office,

and Bill Clinton
laughed so hard,

tears...
It was a great release.

It was a great moment.

But being able
to see the absurdity

in a constitutional crisis,

and also to sort of
playfully mock

one of the iconic images
of his life,

was pretty amazing.

It was a witch hunt, it was,

and it was a time of witches,

and I just don't think
John was really interested

in setting people on fire

because of their
sexual peccadilloes.

What we've tried to do
with our writing is that...

our writers,
is to really bring a sensibility

to the coverage of politics

that is different

than conventional
political magazines.

He believed

that if you wanted
to do something innovative,

if you wanted to be, you know,
sort of disruptive,

you had to bring people in

who were not rank-and-file
magazine people.

Ann Coulter, who you'd think,

what is she doing
in this magazine?

My family was not
a Kennedy-fanatic family,

so I never really distinguished
one Kennedy from the rest,

so I knew he was at least
the good-looking one

of this motley crew.

He was certainly fair
to Republicans,

and no other magazine was.

He seemed to want to give
some of those right-wing whackos

their voice of the day.

[Cuomo]: The media,
it doesn't matter who you are,

it is a very, uh...
competitive place,

where your competition
is your critic base.

Your family's famous
for sticking together.

Can we expect some
tough stories

about Uncle Ted?

Never.

What I have decided,
with regard to my family,

that I will recuse myself

and let my editor
make the choices,

with the one reminder

that we have to work together
in the future.

In September's George ,
JFK breaks ranks.

"Two members of my family

became poster boys
for bad behavior.

Perhaps they deserved it.

Perhaps they should have
known better."

Mr. Oliphant, you think
that this is sophomoric. Why?

The interesting thing

is that what you just read
is all there is.

There was now
a larger number of people

who wanted to see him struggle.

Even though John was seen
as an exalted figure,

now he got into the business.

Standards for public discussion
ought to be high,

and I think John Kennedy
doesn't come close

to even meeting
minimal standards.

John takes
that kind of criticism

like water off a duck's back.

He thinks philosophically.

He understands his product well.

Washington
really rewards convention.

You really can't
color outside the lines.

You know, in Washington,
the big phrase is

"Suck up and piss down."

I never once saw him do that.
Never once.

George magazine was definitely
his magazine,

and the fact that there are
no other magazines like that,

to this day, there's no other
magazine like it,

kind of proves the point.

John went to buy a suit
at Calvin Klein,

and he ran into this beautiful,
ethereal blonde woman,

Carolyn Bessette.

John was attracted to women
who...

were not intimidated by him.

He liked women
with a point of view.

He was smitten with her
from the first time he met her.

He was all loved up
with Carolyn,

they were dating at the time,
and he lived across the street,

they came in,
and, uh...

and on the way out,

she was kind of
climbing on his back.

Like, they were in love,
you know?

They were being playful.
She was literally...

He was carrying her out.
She was on his back.

You know,
he could have had, what?

The prim, proper girl

from, you know, some, you know,
girls' school in Manhattan.

She was fun,
gregarious, smiling.

She was very quirky,
eccentric...

artistic, Bohemian.

Carolyn was hilarious.

She was sarcastic
without being mean.

She was funny.

She was engaging.

You cannot tell in photographs

how beautiful she was
in real life.

I never saw a picture of her
that did her justice.

Carolyn was enchanting.

There was something about her

that when she focused on you,

you felt like you were
the only person in the world.

[Cuomo]:
Not only did John Kennedy

suffer from a, you know,
a true overabundance of riches

when it came to women
who found him attractive,

but to have a woman
who didn't seem as though

she needed John
to find her attractive,

now, that's the magic
right there,

and, certainly,
Carolyn had that in spades,

and I think that
it really motivated John

to be his best self.

John F. Kennedy Jr.,

long regarded as the world's
most eligible bachelor,

is a married man.

[Chermayeff]:
The wedding was great.

The wedding
was really, really nice.

It was beautiful,

and it was
a beautiful little church.

[Amanpour]:
His family was there,

and nobody knew till the end,

and how fabulous is that?

What a great sense of freedom.

So uncomplicated,
so un-grand, so simple.

So simple.

They released one picture,
and that was that.

[Terenzio]:
Planning that wedding

was the most nerve-racking,
terrifying thing

I have ever encountered
in my life.

It was so important to them
that the wedding be private.

[Cuomo]: Beautiful woman,

but it was the energy
that she had,

it was she brought out in John,

it's what he drew from her

that really made
that relationship what it was.

The complementary aspects
on the outside

were nothing compared to
what they shared on the inside.

I saw a very, very romantic
side of their, you know,

newlywed life.

They'd really got affectionate

and talk in private name talk,

you know, whatever
they called each other.

You know,
it would get embarrassing,

where I'd be like,

"I'm going to go get that thing
at the Xerox machine,"

and I'd kind of slip out.

They had a friendship
as well as a marriage,

and that was really
sweet and nice.

This woman has,
in one swell swoop,

become the greatest celebrity,
you know, of the last 10 years.

Carolyn got, you know,

dumped into the deep end
of the celebrity thing,

you know,
pretty unceremoniously.

She could have never anticipated
the intensity

that would then
be transferred onto her

because now it's not just

"Well, you're hanging out
with this guy

that we all care about,"

it's "Wow, you're the one?

You're the one?"

So it became this combination

of everything
you would have to deal with

if you were dating a rock star,

with...

that rock star
also happens to be royalty.

Carolyn Bessette
was not prepared for life

as the wife
of John F. Kennedy Jr.

I mean, photographers
were everywhere.

They hounded her every step.

Carolyn didn't smile ever,
because she was terrified.

She wasn't used to it.

She was being bombarded
with cameras and paparazzi

and people screaming
horrible things at her

to try and get a reaction.

People were cruel to her,

and the media
could be really cruel to her.

[Andersen]:
It was too stressful for her,

and too much,
and she couldn't take it,

and John was so worried

that he held
a special press conference,

in which he asked the press
to back off.

How was the
honeymoon, John?

Good. Getting married
is a big adjustment,

and for her, who was a...

a private citizen
up until about two weeks ago,

it's even more so.

I don't think
she quite appreciated

just how intense
it was going to be.

I don't think anybody
could have appreciated it.

I don't buy what people say,

that she knew
what she was getting into.

No one knows
what they're getting into

until they're in it.

How was the
honeymoon, John?

Hold it, please, for us.
Look this way!

Oh, we're not
getting it.

We're not
getting it, John.

Are there any little
Johns on the way?

John!
Whoa, whoa.

Too quick.

It kind of caused her
to unravel a little bit.

She felt it was so oppressive,
having those people out there.

She just would not
leave the house.

I took her out at one point,
and I said, "Listen, you know,

there's only one way
around this,

which is to reduce
the value of the currency

by making it more plentiful."

One more time, how was
the honeymoon, John?

Great.

Honeymoons are great.
I recommend them.

Any little Johns
on the way?

Little Johns?

I mean, you've just got
to go out there,

and be out there,
you know, enough

so that you don't go on being

like the Howard Hughes
of brides.

It can't be said enough.

There is no celebrity,
even today,

who knows what it's like
to have the constancy

and the intensity of interest
in their life,

on all strata of society,

as John Kennedy.

John wound up striking

a very pure bargain
with the media

and the rest of the culture,

which was "Okay, I get it.

You find me interesting.

Great, come on in,

but I'm going to be
doing things

that I think are important.

I'm not going to be
rollerblading around

with my shirt on

or taking a swim.

I'm going to be
taking you places

and talking about things

and showing you people
and places that matter to me,

and you're going to be there
because I am."

Mike Tyson received
a jailhouse visit last night

from John F. Kennedy Jr.

Kennedy says it was
a visit between friends.

Can you tell us why
you're here tonight?

Yeah, I'll do it
on my way out,

if that's all right.

All right, sure.

You know, he paid this visit
to the prison

in May of '99,
two months before he died,

and at that point,
Tyson was not a popular figure,

but John had
a relationship with him,

and John felt a personal
compassion for the guy.

He said, "The only reason
you're in this jail

is because you're black,"

and I...
And that could have been,

but I kind of disagreed
at that moment.

I was really...

I was pretty much
an irritant back then.

I got into a car accident,

a fender-bender,

and I was mad,

and I struck the people
in the car.

They gave me two years.

He thought it was outrageous.

He came down.

I think he's a man

who really was putting
his life back together,

has an opportunity to do so
in the future,

has a strong family.

He has kids.

He has a wife that
really looks out for him,

and, you know, I hope, you know,

perhaps coming here
and telling folks that,

people might start
to believe it.

[Leamer]: All John's life,
perhaps coming here
and telling folks that,

he wanted to be free.

He wanted to fly
above celebrity.

He wanted to fly
above this attention

and be his own person,

and the ultimate way to do that
was to fly,

and from the time he was a boy,
he wanted to do that.

John was serious
about becoming a pilot,

and he went down to
the famous academy in Vero Beach

to learn to fly,

where only
professional pilots go.

[Barlow]:
I'm a private pilot,

and had a plane that
I was using a lot on the ranch.

He always wanted
to go along on that,

and I eventually said,

"Obviously, you want to know

how to drive
one of these things.

It's not that hard.

Let me teach you."

He was always fascinated
with aviation,

and it goes back to his youth,

because that's when
the whole space program

really took off
under his father.

That had a major influence
on his life.

[Tyson]:
He would tell me

about his great ideas
about flying.

He just didn't seem
rational to me, you know?

Some people are...

Some people are different,

and that's what
you have to respect.

In my wildest dreams,

I would never want
to fly a plane by myself.

All my life, I wanted
people to wait on me.

That's why I worked so hard.

[laughs] I don't want
to fly the plane.

I want you to fly
the go***mn plane.

On Memorial Day of 1999,

John took up this contraption
that he had bought

called
a Buckeye powered parachute.

I was not thrilled
about the Buckeye.

I would not go up
in the Buckeye.

It was a kite
with a lawnmower attached to it.

I remember one time we were out
in Hyannis Port,

and he was flying it around.

He was like, "Do you
want to give it a shot?"

I was like, "Absolutely not."

I was afraid to fly that thing,

and, you know, I'm not afraid
to fly much of anything,

but that was
a very treacherous aircraft.

And he was flying around
up there by himself,

and Caroline said,
"He's all alone up there.

He couldn't be happier."

He went up in that thing,

and then something went wrong,

and he came down,
and he came down with a crash,

and we all went running
to go see him,

and the first ones to get there
was my husband,

holding my son,

but he was so conscious
of not freaking out.

He was like, "No, no, Phinney,
I'm going to be fine," you know,

Phinney was like,
"What's the matter, John?"

He was like, "No, no, I'm fine.
I hurt my leg.

I'm going to go get it fixed."

[Andersen]:
He survived the crash,

but he broke his left ankle,

and for the next several weeks
he was wearing a cast.

It's an emotional thing.

You break your leg,

it's the beginning
of the summer...

It's sort of like a symbolic,
just everything's broken down.

[Amanpour]:
John was going to try to get

some more funding,

and try to breathe
new life into George ,

which was, you know,

suffering from some
of the economic realities

around the publishing industry
at that time.

Is there a conflict
in your own mind

about your role in all of this?

It will succeed, in part,

because it's also the selling
of John Kennedy.

I mean, I understand

that I compromise a measure
of my own privacy

by doing something like this.

This is a commercial venture,

and I'm out here
selling my magazine.

[Terenzio]:
The ad pages

in the first two issues,
you know,

it was thick
as a phone book, almost.

I think that people expected
that to keep going, you know.

They expected every issue
to be packed with ads,

and I think we kind of
expected that, too,

a little bit,

and it was
tougher than we thought

to keep it going,
and to keep people interested,

and to keep the advertisers
coming back,

and it was important
not to use John for that,

but to really have
the integrity of the magazine

stand for itself.

I think it was
ahead of its time,

unfortunately.

I think John saw something
that today is taken for granted,

this idea of the melding
of politics with culture.

You know, I guess, you know,

people didn't really care
what Cyndi Lauper had to say

about Israeli politics.

I mean, it was a goofy maga...
I mean, it was...

If you thought about it,
it was like, you know what?

I don't know
if people really care.

He had been told that Hachette
was going to basically,

I think, pull back
on its funding.

It was up to him now
to keep it alive.

I personally think

it's incredibly important
for someone like him,

that was, I think, destined
for this amazing future,

to know what it's like
to go around and beg for money,

and he wasn't getting the money.

Is this your life,
magazine editor,

or is politics
somewhere down the road?

I'm here for a good long time.

And then?

And then we'll see.

I actually think

that John was more interested
in politics

than he let on
sometimes, you know.

Outwardly, he would say,

" George magazine
is my compromise,"

you know, "This is what I'll do.

It's political without
my being in politics,"

but I think that
the older he got,

the more he recognized
the purpose of service.

A public career is...

is, uh, it's a lot to bite off,

and you'd better
be ready for it,

and you'd better have
your life set up for it,

and you'd better be prepared
to do it for the long haul.

He was kind of born
to be president, right?

Certainly, after his dad died,

everyone assumed
that at some point

that would be
his ultimate journey.

You know, it's like
a great musician or something.

He was just very talented
at dealing with people,

and so he had
all the natural skills

to be a very successful
politician.

It's in the family,
it's in the blood,

and it was in him.

There was always this sense,
this constant reminder,

that his father
had been murdered,

and that's how everybody
identified with him,

and I suspect

everybody of, like,
my mom's generation

always sees him
as that little boy

at his father's funeral.

His fame was both
derivative and tragic.

He wasn't famous
because of anything he did.

He was famous
because of his existence.

We are interrupting
your program this morning

for some information
involving John F. Kennedy Jr.,

the son of the slain president.

ABC News has reports

that his plane is missing
this morning.

A dark day for America.

John F. Kennedy Jr.,
his wife, Carolyn,

and her sister, Lauren Bessette,

still are missing tonight,

You know, as somebody

who has flown a light plane
on the east coast,

you get conditions in the summer

where humidity
will be so intense

that the horizon
will just disappear into it.

He took off
from a New Jersey airport,

heading eventually for
his cousin Rory's wedding

at the family compound
in Hyannis Port,

after stopping first
in Martha's Vineyard.

that they went down in the crash
of a single-engine plane

that Kennedy
was flying last night.

As that news spread across
America throughout the day,

there was a common reaction:

"This is unbelievable.

That family truly is cursed."

[Barlow]:
I spent a couple of hours

trying to convince myself

that what they'd done
was to...was to run away.

So I thought, "Gosh,
maybe they've pulled this off.

Maybe they'll...

they'll go off
and get plastic surgery

and disappear from
the face of the earth, and..."

But that was
a pretty optimistic view.

You know, I held out hope
for a while

that he would be
stranded somewhere,

like, swimming there,
or whatever.

[chuckles]

Nope.

Not in a million years

did I think that
there was any way possible

that that plane had gone down.

I just thought,
"He's somewhere else."

You know, to be honest,

I don't think I'll ever
really grasp what happened.

And a friend of mine called

and said that he had heard
that John's plane was missing,

and so I called John's house

because I knew Rosemarie
was staying there,

and I called Rose,
I said, "Rose,

this is not true, right?"

and she broke down and said,
"Yeah, it's true.

We can't find the plane,"

and, um...

that's how I found out.

For more than 40 years now,

the Kennedy family

has inspired Americans
to public service,

strengthened our faith
in the future,

and moved our nation forward.

Through it all,
they have suffered much,

and given more.

And someone comes up to me

and said, "Oh, well, they found
some of the luggage

washed up on shore,"

and, you know, when they say
the stages of grief,

you know, denial,

I mean, I was, like,
definitely in denial.

Part of me,
in a very strange way,

was kind of mad at him

for getting himself
into the situation.

It just shouldn't
have happened.

And I have to say,

I immediately knew he was dead.

John Kennedy Jr.'s plane
was not going to go missing.

[♪♪♪]

[Chermayeff]:
The funeral here in the city

was very moving
and incredibly beautiful.

Once you went
inside the barriers,

which was however many blocks
around Park and Madison Avenue,

there was silence.

I remember looking down

and seeing Muhammad Ali
sitting on the end of one pew,

and I was like...

I smiled, you know?

I was like, "John,

you would have loved this,"
you know?

John liked a good show,

and I think he would have
looked at it and said,

"I was treated
quite well here."

Maybe a few months later,

and I was with my daughter,

I think she had
just turned four,

and we were walking
in the backyard,

back in towards the house,

and she said, "Mama,
I had a dream last night.

I had a dream last night
that you were happy,

and you weren't
crying anymore,"

and I just looked at her,
and I thought, "Oh, my gosh,

I've just been crying
and crying and crying,"

so it was like,
"Well, maybe I've got to stop."

I don't know.

[Hare]: But I think
the world really missed out

on a wonderful opportunity
to have a leader

with his head and his heart
in the right place.

[Barlow]: We talked
for a long time on the phone

about two weeks before he died.

I said, "Do you remember
that conversation we had

about being a good man?"

And he said, "Of course.
I think about it a lot,"

and I said, "Well,
I just want you to know

that you have wildly,
spectacularly,

achieved that objective.

I mean, you are
as good a man as I know.

You are as clear a case

of what I consider to be virtue
in an adult male

that I can think of."

That's not going to make
the cover of People magazine,

you know?

[chuckles]

"Galaxy's Most Virtuous Male"...

[laughs]

...doesn't somehow
have the same ring.

[laughing]

[Amanpour]:
I challenge anybody

to come up with any among us,

at that time,
and of his generation...

and say that
he wasn't a fine man.

I miss not having
that future to look forward to.

I believe that he had
greatness in him,

and I don't give a damn

if that meant
anything about politics.

He cared about
doing things in the world.

He was unique

in terms of what he represented
in our culture,

and that's gone,

and it has not been replaced,

and I don't think
it ever will be.