All language subtitles for 1968.The.Year.That.Changed.America.S01E04.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-AlfaHD_Subtitles01_Unnamed.ENG

- As we look at America,

we see cities enveloped
in smoke and flame.

We hear sirens in the night.
- ♪ Yow!

- We see Americans dying on distant battlefields abroad.

We see Americans
hating each other,

fighting each other,
killing each other at home.

- ♪ Please allow me
to introduce myself ♪

- Mr. Nixon,
I'm gonna sting you

and sting you like a hornet
day in and day out.

- We've got
some difficult days ahead,

but it really
doesn't matter with me now

because I've been
to the mountaintop.

- ♪ I watched with glee
while your kings and queens ♪

- There are prospects
for peace in Vietnam,

but no one knows
when peace will come.

- ♪ I shouted out,
"Who killed the Kennedys?" ♪

♪ Well, after all,
it was you and me ♪

♪ Ohh-hoo-hoo

- Apollo 7 starts the final

American push to the moon.

- 12, 11...

- Failure on this flight

would all but finish US chances

of reaching the moon
by the end of next year.

- ♪ What's my name?

- Five, four--
we have ignition.

- On the basis
of the spectacular success

of Apollo 7,
it will be possible now

for the next mission,
that's Apollo 8,

three Americans in orbit
around the moon on Christmas.

- I think we have
some late word just arriving,

and I interrupt
to bring this to you.

This is the latest disclosure
in a report

from National Civil Defense
headquarters in Washington.

It has been established that persons who have recently died

have been returning to life and committing acts of murder.

- I saw
"Night of the Living Dead"

at a drive-in movie theater.

And, I mean, I'm sure there
were zombie films before,

but this is a zombie movie
that creates new zombie movies.

- It was so gritty.
It was in black and white.

There were no
recognizable stars,

and it was as terrifying
a film as I'd ever seen.

- And what the hell?
The lead character's black,

which was an unexpected
political statement.

- It's a really tense movie

because they're in this house
hiding out from these zombies,

and you get these sort of
weird social dynamics

that start going back and forth
between the characters.

- Let me in!

Cooper!
Cooper!

- I'd never seen a film
with a black man as the hero.

He's the person
who has the plan.

He's the person who's
going to save everyone.

And then you get
to the next morning.

And this character Ben
is one of the last survivors.

- Let's go check out the house.

- There's something in there.
I heard a noise.

- All right, Vince,
hit him in the head

right between the eyes.

- This was six months after

Martin Luther King
is assassinated,

and here you had this sort of--
another great black male hero,

and he dies
and gets shot as well.

As a kid, I took it to mean
he was killed

because he was black

and that the hero
can't survive if he's black.

- It worked as a scary movie,

and it worked
as social commentary

on the idea of the lone
black hero in this white world.

It doesn't matter
how noble you think you are,

you're still a black guy.

- All summer for
an assortment of reasons,

a thunder of discontent
has rumbled on the horizon

of the 19th Olympiad.

- The Olympic Games,

live and in color
from Mexico City.

Another ABC sports exclusive

brought to you
by the Ford Motor Company.

- Mr. Edwards, I think
it might help to illuminate

your position
if you explain your idea

of the boycott
of the Olympics.

- I think first of all,
we have to understand

that the Olympic Games
in this society and in the world

is the second largest
meeting of nations

at the international level

outside of
the United Nations itself,

and it's just as political.

The Olympic Project
for Human Rights,

an effort to forge boycotts
and demonstrations

at the 1968 Mexico City Games

was to protest racism
and discrimination

in the United States
and in sports in particular.

- I couldn't give you
any information

as far as the black athletes
are concerned at Mexico City.

All I can say is
you can expect almost anything.

- John Carlos and Tommie Smith were sprinters

that Harry Edwards knew
from Northern California,

who were also very politically
active on their own.

- There's no way
you can really plan

for anything like this
because first, you've gotta win,

you've gotta make it
to the podium.

So this idea that somehow
there was this huge plan.

What there was
was an ongoing disposition

and commitment
to make a statement.

- Olympic victory ceremony, 200 meters, men.

- John Carlos
and Tommie Smith

made it to the podium,
and both had the commitment

and the courage to say
before 100,000-plus people

that we, too,
are committed to the struggle.

They raised their fists
not in militant disrespect

for the flag
but as a salute

on behalf of all of the people

who would never get
to that station,

never get to that podium
to make a statement

about human rights
in this country.

- It was a pretty courageous
thing to do

because they knew that
that was probably going to be--

not just getting kicked
out of the Olympics

but probably the end of their hope for a career in athletics.

- Where you going, Carlos?
- I'm going home.

Home, home, home,
home, home, home, home.

- United States?

- Tommie and John
were banned from

Olympic competition
for life.

The average person to this day does not understand the courage

and the commitment
that it took to do that.

- You understand that
many white people in America

don't agree with you,

that there will be
some backlash because of this,

much backlash.

- To do something good...

you would always--
someone would always find fault.

So, uh, I was prepared
for this also, Howard.

- Are you proud
to be American?

- I am proud to be
a black American.

- Shut up!

- In a year when most campaign
talk has deadly soporific,

Wallace almost
always manages to inject

a special urgency,
a kind of drama

into his television
appearances.

- I again say to the anarchists
in this country,

you had better have your day now
because after November 5th,

you are through
in the United States!

Thank you very much.

- In October,
Wallace was at 21%.

He had enlarged
his constituency

and widened his message.

He began really
to reach more and more

of the folks in the North.

- I'd rather vote for him
than vote for Nixon or Humphrey

because I don't like
the two of them.

- Wallace by the fall of '68
has a major problem.

He needs a Vice Presidential
candidate,

and nobody wants the job.

So first, his aides reach out
to Happy Chandler

who had been
the commissioner of baseball

and former governor
of Kentucky,

but they discover that Chandler
is somewhat liberal

on integration issues,
so that's not gonna work.

- So they go back
to the drawing board.

They consider Colonel Sanders,
you know, the fried chicken guy.

- He's a household name.

So they actually contacted
the Colonel,

who basically said,
"Don't be a fool.

I'm running a business."

"I'm not about to antagonize
half my customers here."

So at that point,
Wallace began talking

about retired General
Curtis LeMay.

- I am very proud--
I am very proud

to have as my running mate
a man of great courage,

General Curtis E. LeMay.

- Curtis LeMay
is this legendary figure

in American military history.

He was the general responsible
for the firebombing of Japan

during World War II,

and he was an evangelist
for nuclear power.

- Thank you very much,
Governor.

Thank you for
your confidence in me.

- The night before
this press conference,

Wallace's aides
sit LeMay down and say,

"Whatever happens, do not talk
about nuclear weapons.

"Do not talk about the efficacy of nuclear weapons.

You just have to stay away
from that."

First question to LeMay
is about nuclear weapons.

- I think
there are many occasions

when it would be most efficient
to use nuclear weapons.

- LeMay launches
into this unbelievable

defense of nuclear weapons.

- Doesn't make
make much difference to me

if I have to go to war
and get killed in the jungle

of Vietnam with a rusty knife

or get killed
with a nuclear weapon.

As a matter fact,
if I had the choice,

I'd lean towards
the nuclear weapon.

- Well, at that point,
Wallace is about to have

a nervous breakdown.

- LeMay went on and said,

"We tested them out
in Bikini Atoll,

"and a lot of the foliage
is back.

A lot of the animal life
is back."

- The rats out there
are bigger, fatter,

and healthier
than they ever were before.

So taking a hasty look
at these facts,

you might come to the conclusion
to put 20 something bombs

down in one place,
and you improve it.

He said, "The sand crabs
are a little hot."

- General,
we've got to go.

- It just turned out to be,
politically, a disaster.

- One more statement.
Wait a minute, gentlemen.

- And support for Wallace seemed
to go downhill after that.

- The latest Harris poll
released today

shows that Hubert Humphrey
has moved

within five percentage points
of Richard Nixon.

Harris said that
if Humphrey gains another

two or three points on Nixon,

the election could become
too close to call.

- The last line of the speech
he has prepared for tonight

says, "Well, it looks like
we're going to win."

Now, that's a political line,
but the kind of line

he could barely have read with
a straight face a month ago.

- Humphrey,
late in the election,

decided to stop being insipid

and actually get out there
and be who he was,

which was kind of a battler.

- Well, Mr. Nixon
was supposed to have

this election in the bag,
but, ladies and gentlemen,

when he opens that bag
on November 5th,

out will jump
Humphrey and Muskie!

- Hubert Humphrey
gained 15 points,

and we gained nothing
in that October.

So all those Democratic votes
were coming home, all right.

They passed right by us
and went to Hubert Humphrey.

- I happen to be of the opinion
that we need a debate

in this country.

I think that
you and Mr. Humphrey

should get at Vietnam
and some other questions.

- I think Mr. Humphrey
is having a great time

debating himself.

- The conceit
behind the new Nixon

was that that old, whiny,

sad, combative loser is gone.

- And now,
despite numerous requests,

NBC presents
"Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In."

- I don't think we could
get Mr. Nixon

to stand still
for a "sock it to me."

Sock it to me?

- The difference
in the campaign

was that whenever possible,
the candidate

is never in an environment
that he can't control.

- That's it!

- The counsel to Richard Nixon
was "don't leave script."

- Nixon makes the same speech
everywhere he goes.

All candidates do that,

but Nixon is speaking
on the issues of the day

in only the most general way.

He's saying there are lots of
things wrong with the country,

and he's promising
to do something about it,

but he's not saying what.

- Time will not permit
an extended discussion

of those great problems
in which you're all interested,

but my friends,
I say to you...

Let's enlist
the people of America,

enlist their hearts
and their minds

in the handling of the problems
of America.

America became great

not because of what government
did for people

but because of what people did
for themselves.

That is the way to move.

- In hockey,
there's a term about

if you have a one-goal lead,
you go into a shell.

You just pass the puck
back and forth.

You don't rush the--
you just play--

you play defense.

So Nixon basically
went into a shell.

- Richard the careful.

Richard's so careful today
that he won't say anything

about anything to anybody
at any time.

He either evades or straddles
every major issue.

I'm going to send him
some kind of talcum powder.

He must be getting saddle sore
straddling all those issues.

- Humphrey was on the move.

He had excitement and energy.

It was Richard
the chicken-hearted.

He was attacking us,
and we were doing the same thing

we had done in September.

I told Nixon, "You've got
to attack Humphrey.

"We can't let him bring
the party together.

If they get together,
we lose the battle."

- As the big day draws nearer

and the polls show
Hubert Humphrey drawing closer,

the ice water
generally believed

to flow through
Richard Nixon's veins

may be melting and may indeed
be nearing the boiling point.

- Fight, fight, fight!

- George Wallace's spirits
appear to be sagging.

For several days he'd run
into overwhelming protests,

and he was shouted down
in El Paso.

- Wallace was
a very effective demagogue.

He knew how to get
a crowd energized.

He knew how to get them angry.

He would get them violent,
and often, that was the goal.

The more people saw violence,
they more they would say,

"We need somebody
who can stop this violence."

- If you wanna stop
all this nonsense,

you just vote for me
November 5th, and I'll--

- But as time went on,
people began to say,

"Well, maybe he's not
the person to stop it

"because he's the person actually who's making it happen

in the first place."

- Now, I don't
mind speaking here,

but when you start
throwing rocks that size--

who threw it?

That's all right.
Go ahead and throw another one.

- By this time, I think
he is frustrated, angry.

Wallace was more and more
in fights

with his campaign staff who
told him over and over again,

"I know that you see yourself
as a national candidate,

"but the strategy
is to throw this election

"in the House of
Representatives.

"You're not gonna win.

We need to be campaigning
in Florida, Virginia, Texas."

His ego wouldn't allow it.

And one of his last major
rallies was in New York City.

- I'm sure "The New York Times"
took note of the reception

that we received here
in the great city of New York.

- He speaks
to a packed crowd,

the largest
political gathering

in Madison Square Garden's
history,

but outside, it's ugly.

- George Wallace brought his
campaign to New York tonight,

and all of the hostility
and anger

that have built up
around this campaign

spilled into these streets.

- These were the anarchists

to whom the candidate
frequently referred

as he is a man who arouses
emotional extremes,

love and hate in passion.

Those among the 15,000
who were allowed inside

appeared to have decided
already to vote for Wallace.

- Don't worry about what
the newspapers say about us.

They can fool some of the people
some of the time,

but they can't fool all
the people all of the time.

You remember that.

male announcer:
Now here is Frank Reynolds.

- Good evening.

In the words
of an American spokesman

at the Paris peace talks,
there was nothing encouraging

in today's session
with the North Vietnamese.

- There were a lot of words.

The session lasted
two and half hours,

but like the others before it,

it ended without any visible
sign of progress toward peace.

- Lyndon Johnson
was trying, trying, trying

to get the North Vietnamese
to the negotiating table.

He thought,
if I can do this,

not only will it burnish
my own legacy,

but that'll help Hubert Humphrey
tremendously.

- North Vietnam's
top negotiator, Xuan Thuy,

said there will be no breakthrough in the peace talks

until the bombing
has stopped unconditionally.

- The United States
had in fact dropped more bombs

on North Vietnam
and in South Vietnam

than they had used
in the entire World War II.

- The North Vietnamese
would not engage in negotiations

until the United States ceased
all bombing of North Vietnam.

- For the last two weeks,

rumors of an imminent
breakthrough to peace

have swept the world,

but there has been no official
announcement by this country

until the one the President
is about to make right now.

- I have now ordered

that all air, naval,
and artillery bombardment

of North Vietnam cease.

- There are going to be
a great people in this country

who are going to speculate
about the fact

that the President has managed
to bring all this about

just five days
before the election.

- Johnson's
so-called bombing halt

was clearly designed
to push Humphrey over the top.

My view was
it was a political ploy.

- If the Democrats
manage to settle the war

by election day,
the election is over.

Richard Nixon
has no chance at all.

And he responds
with a very radical maneuver.

- Nixon tells his team to use
a woman named Anna Chennault

to monkey-wrench
the negotiations in Paris.

- Anna Chennault,
a Republican fundraiser

and a member
of Nixon's campaign,

is telling Saigon,
"Stay away from Paris.

"Stay away
from the peace talks,

and you'll get a better deal
if Nixon is elected."

- As a presidential
candidate--

and my Vice Presidential
running mate joins me in this--

neither he nor I
will say anything

that might destroy
the chance to have peace.

We want peace above politics
in America.

- LBJ feels confident
to move forward.

The condition that North Vietnam had always asked for

has now been met,

and so four-party peace talks
are imminent.

They will happen.

Well, in Saigon,
on November 1st,

President Thieu
stands up on the dais

and drops this major bombshell.

- South Vietnam,
with deep personal regrets,

cannot participate
in the negotiations.

- I think that's enough.

I have no more things
to tell with you.

- Embarrassment
is common today

among Americans here in Vietnam,
particularly those of us

who have acquaintances
among the Vietnamese.

We find ourselves apologizing,

apologizing for what may be
one of the biggest

diplomatic blunders
in US history.

- Once we heard

the South Vietnamese
were not aboard,

I said, "Let this play out

because when this South Vietnam
thing breaks,

it's gonna look like Johnson
didn't have

all his ducks in a row,

and this is as political
as it can be."

- I think President Johnson went
into this bombing pause

with the very best
of intentions.

I think, however, the reason
that the ducks were not in a row

was that he was relying
on an old team,

a team of well-intentioned men,
but they're tired.

I think that what we need
is a new team,

a new team that won't make
these mistakes.

male announcer:
Election night '68.

Reporting from election
headquarters, Walter Cronkite.

- Good evening everyone.

We may be here
for a very long night tonight.

- It's been one of the roughest

and unhappiest political years
in American history.

In the next few hours
or for as long as it takes,

we'll see how it all turned out.

- This was one
of those special elections

where many voters felt

that the direction of
the country was really at stake.

We're talking about big issues
of war and peace,

of race relations.

People are watching
with bated breath

to see how this
is going to unfold.

- Nixon was asked about
a last-minute poll

showing Humphrey slightly ahead,
and he said,

"I don't consider that
reliable."

- We're down three
in the Harris poll

which said to me
we're gonna lose the election.

And Nixon said, "Mm, okay."

There was no reaction
whatsoever.

But I was very pessimistic.
My hands broke out in hives.

- Everybody was just trying

to contain their anxieties
and excitement.

Everybody by this time
is exhausted.

We've been going at this
since January.

You're kind of spent,
to put it mildly.

So you just have to keep
the adrenaline going,

and the candidate
has to keep it together.

- Richard Nixon
will win Colorado.

- Hubert Humphrey, according
to "CBS News" estimates,

has carried Michigan.

- Nixon will win Wyoming,
as anticipated.

- The winner in Mississippi
will be Wallace.

- Wallace will win in Louisiana.

- Wallace was a problem for us.

He was a terrible problem

because there are about
five Southern states

that Wallace would take.

We would've carried
those states.

- Wallace realized
that he had slipped a good bit

from where he had been.

He still had hopes
that he might be able

to throw it into
the House of Representatives.

- If he comes in second,

if the election ends
in a three-way deadlock,

if he shows substantial strength
outside the South,

so far as Wallace is concerned,
any of these things

would prove his case
and be a victory of sorts.

- And here's
the electoral votes,

the ones that still count
under our archaic system.

- If none of these three men
get 270 electoral votes,

then the matter goes to
the House of Representatives.

- Before this night is over
we should know

whether we have indeed
chosen a President

or whether our electoral system
has led us

into a major constitutional
and political crisis.

- The unbelievable messiness
of what happens if no one wins

an electoral vote
is almost indescribable.

It would take an hour
to describe it,

and no one would understand it,
including me.

- An hour to describe it

and four years
to straighten it out at least.

- Yes, yes, this may be the last
year for the electoral college.

It might be a good idea
if it is.

- In the race for the Presidency
of the United States,

Hubert Humphrey
has taken a lead

for the first time tonight.

- Howard,
I can't tell you very much.

I'm in the middle
of the darndest jam

I've seen in a long time,
and it's kind of indicative

of what's happened
in this campaign.

Hubert Humphrey a month ago
a sure loser

and today has all the earmarks
of a sure winner.

- Anyone who goes to bed without
knowing a little bit more

about what's happening
in the Midwest tonight

could be in for a shock
in the morning.

- By midnight, Nixon thinks,
oh, my God,

it's happening again.

It looks like it's going down
to Illinois.

- And at that point,
Pat Nixon went into the bathroom

and threw up because
she had been in there in 1960,

and here it was happening again.

- I think before
the morning is out,

Hubert Humphrey will be the next
President of United States.

- Good morning, or,
if you've stayed

through the night with us,
hello once more.

With the 26 electoral votes

in Illinois, Richard Nixon goes over the top

with 287 electoral votes,

and that seems to be
the 1968 election.

- Nixon's the one.

That's the natural banner

for any sprightly
front page tonight.

There are the numbers.

In short, Nixon and Humphrey
are separated

by about 375 thousandths
of 1%.

- ABC was the first thing I saw

where it checked Nixon
is the winner,

and I went immediately
into the bedroom

where Nixon was propped up
with his briefcase on his lap,

and I said, "Sir," I said,

"you've just been declared
the winner."

He jumped out of bed,
looks at the set,

and everybody is cheering and
congratulating one another.

- It was vindication,
validation.

It was everything
he had dreamed of.

- It's the greatest
comeback in political history.

And nobody could believe it.

- Nixon declined
to claim victory

even though it was his
until Humphrey had conceded,

and a little after noon today,

Humphrey did
with tears in his eyes.

- I never had any doubt
whether it'd be a close fight.

Comme ci, comme ça,
you know, one way, one--

it bounced a little one way,
it bounced a little another.

We've got a President elect.

He's gonna have my help.
Cheers.

- I think the problem
with the Humphrey campaign

was that it was built on
sinking sand from the beginning

and that is the old
Democratic coalition,

which no longer exists,

and Hubert Humphrey tried
to win with it one more time,

and he fell short.

- Because Richard Nixon
won in 1968,

politicians
at almost every level,

including the Presidential level
after that said, "Okay,

this is
the new campaign model."

- He put together an
effective television campaign.

He put together
planned rallies

where no opposition
was ever in evidence.

He controlled his campaign
from beginning to end,

and that to me
is the significant thing,

and if he won by one vote
or 10,000 or 100,000, he won.

- The basic appeal
of Richard Nixon in 1968

is reaction.

It's a reaction to a world
that seems to have gone mad.

- Nixon was inheriting a nation

which was bitterly
and permanently, it turns out,

divided over the war in Vietnam,
over issues of race,

over issues of culture,
over issues of morality.

I think he really thought

he could bring
the country together.

- Some public men
are destined to be loved,

and other public men
are destined to be disliked.

But the most important thing
about a public man

is not whether he's loved
or disliked

but whether he's respected,

and I hope to restore respect
to the Presidency.

- Going to see "2001:
A Space Odyssey" for me was--

it was almost
a spiritual experience.

It reshaped my concept
of cinematic art in 15 minutes.

- There had been for a long time
science fiction visionaries

like HG Wells and Jules Verne
imagining

what going to the moon
was like,

but nobody had seen a film
like Kubrick's masterpiece,

and it made us question
not just space exploration

but what is the human dilemma?
What does this mean about us?

- Many Americans didn't want
cultural comfort food anymore.

They actually wanted
something challenging.

It's like going
to a fine-art museum

where the viewer projects
on abstract art

what he or she
wants to see there,

but it's not usually the recipe
for a successful film.

And yet, it was popular.

- Open the pod bay doors, Hal.

- I'm sorry, Dave.
I'm afraid I can't do that.

- We're getting into
what we were calling then

the computer age,
and "2001" kind of looks at,

well, what if the machine
turns on us?

It looked at that anxiety,

these underlying fears
that we have

about the way the world
is changing.

- Before I say grace today,
I would like for us to pause

for a moment of silence
in memory of our friends

that were lost this morning.

Let us pray.

- Alpha company had three men killed and three others wounded

in the battle just ended.

Instead of turkey dinner
for 150,

there will be just 144.

- The experience
of missing holidays

while you're in a combat zone
of course weighs heavily on you.

It's a time
where you get nostalgic.

Tears come to your eyes,
and you envision

all things good and beautiful
back in the world

because you wanted
to remind yourself

that there was another world

and that you were gonna
get there.

- I guess on a day like this,

you really have something
to be thankful for.

- Uh, yes, I do.

I really have something
to be thankful for,

that I'm still alive,
and I'm doing my best

to stay alive
for the next few days.

- There was no way
to gauge progress

in anything like the classical
sense of the term.

The only gauge of progress
was how many enemy

were killed on a particular day or week or month

as compared to how many of us.

And they start to ask,
"Well, Lieutenant,

what the hell
are we doing here?"

The only thing I could say
at that time, I said,

"We're Marines.
We're professional soldiers.

"We fight the enemy
they tell us to fight,

and we fight for each other."

You know
that if you have to,

you really will lay down
your life for these guys

and that--

that they'll do the same
for you.

- Hold it up and spread it out!
- Hold it up and spread it out.

- At some point,
you started to wonder,

what is this all about?

I didn't quite get it.
We're not moving forward.

We'd go to the same place
sometimes in the same tour.

It'd be like, "We were here
three months ago."

It just started
to not make sense.

- Uh-huh.

How many uh-huhs
do you want?

- 920.

- Ladies and gentlemen,
Mr. Elvis Presley.

- Elvis had really fallen
out of the public eye

after 1960 when he musters
out of the Army.

And although he's still
making movies,

he's become a little bit
of a caricature

because the movies themselves
aren't very good.

He's not making music,
and a new younger,

hipper sound has come in
with the British invasion.

- It's been a long time,
Jack, I'm telling you.

- At the end of the year,
you get Elvis on a stage

with a group of his musicians
from the '50s...

- ♪ Well since
my baby left me ♪

- Doing these
stripped-down versions

of "Heartbreak Hotel,"
"Love Me Tender."

- ♪ Lonely Street
at Heartbreak Hotel ♪

- And suddenly, the world falls
in love with Elvis again.

- ♪ Ready now go, cat, go

♪ But don't you
step on my blue suede shoes ♪

- In the wake of what follows
him, suddenly this symbol

of all that is decadent

becomes a symbol of an older,
gentler America.

- ♪ Love me tender

♪ Love me true

- It's Elvis unplugged.

Elvis wasn't like that before.

and he'll never be
like that again,

but for that moment,
you understand the magnetism,

the charm, and the real
raw talent of Elvis Presley.

- ♪ There must be lights

♪ Burning brighter somewhere

- What's most memorable for
me about that special, though,

is the song that Elvis
will end with,

and it's a song penned
by Walter Brown for Elvis

in the aftermath of
the assassination of Dr. King,

and it's about Elvis
sharing the dream

that men can one day
walk together in brotherhood.

- ♪ Out there in the dark

♪ There is a beckoning candle,
oh, yeah ♪

- Elvis is one
of the greatest vehicles

for a song in history, but because he wasn't a writer,

he was very dependent
on what he was handed,

and in that case, he was handed
a song worthy of him

and a sentiment worthy of him.

- ♪ Right now

- He reclaims his soul in 1968.

It wasn't just a comeback
special 'cause he had been away.

It was a comeback special 'cause he reasserted who he was.

- Every Christmas Eve is,
for some people,

the first Christmas
without someone

who was around last year.

But every Christmas Eve is,
for some people,

the first Christmas with someone who was not around last year.

For Ethel Kennedy
and her family,

this is both kinds
of Christmas.

Last week, Mrs. Kennedy
brought home Rory Kennedy,

born six months
after her father died.

- Will this be,
can this be

a happy Christmas
in the King household?

- Christmas
will be sad for us,

as it will be for many people,
I think, this year.

A time like this causes people to really reflect

on the deeper meaning
of, say, Christmas.

- As the country moved
into December,

what a year it's been,
one of the most dramatic

and most consequential years
in history.

But out there--
up there

is the great dream
of putting a man on the moon.

- Six and a half
years ago, John F. Kennedy

set this nation
on a course toward the moon.

This morning, three Americans,
Frank Borman,

Jim Lovell, and William Anders, are on the verge

of the greatest adventure
on which man has ever embarked.

- The engines are armed.

Four, three, two, one, zero.

We have commit.
We have--we have liftoff.

- Oh, there's the rumble
in our building.

But what a beautiful flight.

Man perhaps on the way
to the moon

if all continues to go well.

- It seemed
almost unbelievable.

The nation collectively
held its breath

worrying about
are you going to make it?

What happens
to the astronauts--

what happens to the space
program--if we don't?

Such a miraculous thing
is against the odds, but...

Maybe. Maybe we can make it.

- Apollo 8, we have good picture.

- This is coming
to you approximately halfway

between the moon and the Earth.

We have about--

less than 40 hours
left to go to the moon.

- They actually arrived
at the moon on Christmas Eve,

and in order to get
into lunar orbit,

they have to fire the engine
on the far side of the moon

where there's no radio contact
with mission control.

- Apollo 8 will be facing
backwards in a braking maneuver.

That engine burn will actually
slow them down

from 5,700 to about 3,700
miles an hour.

They'll have put themselves
into lunar orbit,

the first men in history
to have done so

and the trickiest and most
dangerous part of their flight.

- You could have any one
of a number of things go wrong,

end up in the wrong orbit,
hit the moon.

- One minute.
All systems go.

- You have to have
absolute faith in everything

that has ever been done
to develop this rocket motor.

All they can do is point it
in the right direction.

And press a button and hope
that it works perfectly.

Apollo 8, Houston, over.

- Go ahead,
Houston, this is Apollo 8.

- We've got it.
We've got it.

Apollo 8 now in lunar orbit.

There's a cheer in this room.

- The vast loneliness
up here on the moon

is awe-inspiring.

It makes you realize just what
you have back there on Earth.

- When they were
coming around

from the far side of the moon,

Bill Anders looked through
his side window

and saw the Earth rising.

- Oh, my God, look at
that picture over there.

There's the Earth coming up.
Wow, is that pretty.

- And he snapped a picture.

- When the pictures started
coming back of the Earth

from that distance,

the sense
of American achievement,

the sense of how great
the cosmos, how small we are,

how fragile the Earth is,
all of those things

began to bounce around
like electricity in your brain

and touch a very special part
in the heart.

- Tonight the crew of Apollo 8

presents a Christmas Eve program
from the heavens.

- With a few orbits to go,

they made one last
television transmission.

The public affairs director
had said,

"There's gonna be more people
watching that television show

"than have ever witnessed
any event in human history.

Say something appropriate."

- For all the people
back on Earth,

the crew of Apollo 8
has a message

that we would like
to send to you.

In the beginning,

God created the heaven
and the Earth,

and the Earth
was without form and void,

and darkness was upon
the face of the deep.

- To have the guys
reading Genesis

was so spot-on.

Whatever your concept
of God was,

the Earth
is a beautiful creation.

- Good night, good luck,
a Merry Christmas,

and God bless all of you,
all of you on the good Earth.

- God bless them.

- Unbelievable.

Man, that--that--

that made the last week
of 1968

perhaps as hopeful a moment
as we could have expected.

- For those of us
who lived through that time,

we were reminded that darkness
does not last.

- Apollo 8,
humankind's first flight

into the orbit of the moon,

an event sure to be written
larger in the books of history

than almost any
our generation has seen.

A year of trouble
and turbulence,

anger and assassination

is now coming to an end
in incandescent triumph.

Apollo 8 achieved every one
of its major mission aims

and something else.

It lifted the spirits
of Earthbound mortals

and carried them, too,
if only for a while,

out of their own horizons.

Let there be light
in the firmament

of the heaven, said Genesis.