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CRISIS: BEHIND A PRESIDENTIAL COMMITMENT (TV)

Summary

This documentary -- the first and only documenary to show a U.S. President in the oval office making decisions in the midst of a crisis -- offers a look inside the White House during a thirty-hour period starting June 10, 1963, as President John F. Kennedy and his brother, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, are seen handling a crisis involving the racial integration of the University of Alabama. During this time the President must also face a larger issue: whether he should make a public commitment to integration as a moral imperative and risk the loss of Southern support.

As this cinema-verite-style documentary begins, a showdown looms: the narrator explains that Alabama Governor George Wallace has announced that he plans to defy a federal court order by blocking the entrance, the next day, of two black students to the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, and that Robert Kennedy is responsible for enforcing the court order and gaining entrance for the two students, Vivian Malone and James Hood.

Highlights include the following: the households of Robert F. Kennedy and Wallace are contrasted, as the two men prepare for the day ahead in McLean, Virginia, and Montgomery, Alabama, respectively; as Wallace is driven to his office, he states his belief that separation is in the best interest of both blacks and whites; Wallace briefs his staff in preparation for the confrontation with the federal government; Robert Kennedy meets with Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, whom he is sending to Alabama as his envoy; Robert Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall, and other staffers meet with the President to discuss the mounting pressures for him to speak out publicly for integration as a moral issue, and the President agrees to have a speech drafted, which he will later decide whether to deliver.

Robert Kennedy -- who is being relied upon by the President to develop a strategy to admit two black students which will deftly avoid riots or public embarrassment of the governor and the federal government -- consults by phone with Army General Creighton W. Abrams, who is in Alabama to help plan any necessary mobilization of the National Guard; in Birmingham, Alabama, Robert Kennedy's deputy John Doar briefs the students, Malone and Hood, on the practical details of the government plan to integrate them; Vivian Malone meets with advisor Jack Greenberg at the offices of the N.A.A.C.P. to discuss how she will conduct herself with the press, and what to do if her admittance is blocked; Malone is photographed for Time magazine; in an interview, Malone and Hood are asked why they wish to attend the university; Wallace gives a press conference in which he restates his separatist position; Montgomery whites praise the governor on the street; in a phone call, Robert Kennedy discusses with Abrams how Wallace should be handled if he breaks the law and bars the students' entry; Robert Kennedy lays out his specific strategy for the confrontation to the President and other officials in a meeting; in Alabama, Katzenbach briefs a group of federal marshalls who will be guarding the students the next day; Malone and Hood have final conferences with their advisors late that night; the next morning, Robert Kennedy and his team discuss various alternative measures to gain the students' peaceful entry; Robert Kennedy arranges to reduce the normal time necessary to federalize the National Guard, to avoid an embarrassing retreat if entry is physically blocked; in some lighter moments, three of Robert Kennedy's children play in his office, and Kennedy puts his daughter Kerry on the phone with Katzenbach; at the university, Katzenbach meets Wallace at the schoolhouse doors and orders him to step aside as a crowd of reporters look on; Wallace refuses, and in an alternate plan, Malone and Hood are escorted directly to their dormitories; Robert Kennedy asks the President to federalize the National Guard; General Henry Graham, commander of the Alabama Guard, confronts the governor in his new position as representative of the federal government; Wallace steps aside and returns to Montgomery by car; the students are escorted into the school; John F. Kennedy makes a nationally televised speech supporting this action on moral grounds, as Wallace, the two students, Katzenbach, and Robert Kennedy, separately, watch the speech on television. Two days later, a young black man enrolls at another University of Alabama campus without incident, and Katzenbach happily reports this news to Robert Kennedy, who passes the news along to his brother, the President. Commercials deleted.

Cataloging of this program was made possible by The Marc Haas and Helen Hotze Haas Foundation, 1996.

Details

  • NETWORK: ABC
  • DATE: October 21, 1963 Monday 7:30 PM
  • RUNNING TIME: 0:52:32
  • COLOR/B&W: B&W
  • CATALOG ID: T79:0423
  • GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
  • SUBJECT HEADING: Blacks - Education; Public affairs/Documentaries; U S - Civil rights; U S - Presidency; U S - Race relations [1963]; African-American Collection - News/Talk
  • SERIES RUN: ABC - TV, 1963
  • COMMERCIALS: N/A

CREDITS

  • Robert Drew … Executive Producer
  • Gregory Shuker … Producer
  • Richard Leacock … Filmmaker
  • James Lipscomb … Filmmaker, Narrator
  • D.A. Pennebaker … Filmmaker
  • Hope Ryden … Filmmaker
  • Abbot Mills … Assisted by
  • Patricia Powell … Assisted by
  • Mort Lund … Assisted by
  • Creighton W. Abrams
  • John Doar
  • Henry Graham
  • Jack Greenberg
  • James (Jimmy) Hood
  • Nicholas deB. Katzenbach
  • John F. Kennedy
  • Kerry Kennedy
  • Robert F. Kennedy
  • Vivian Malone
  • Burke Marshall
  • George C. Wallace