Original subtitles

- 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.