JFK - A Presidency Revealed (History Channel)
JFK: A Presidency Revealeddelves unflinchingly into the presidency  of John F. Kennedy, examining the political crises, social unrest, and  personal intricacies that marked his administration. What makes this  three-part series stand out is its willingness to admit Kennedy's  faults--in particular his troubled marriage, his infidelities, his  illnesses, and his sometimes-excessive use of painkillers to cope with the  pain of his bad back--as well as the missteps of his presidency, providing  a strikingly balanced and human portrait of this all-too-often-mythologized president. Particularly revelatory is how the inexperience  that resulted in the bungled Bay of Pigs operation led, in turn, to a far  more skilled and careful handing of the Cuban missile crisis, in which the  world came closer to nuclear war than ever before and perhaps ever since.  A wealth of film, video, photographs, and previously unreleased secret  recordings provide new insights into Kennedy's political and personal life  (Kennedy was, as this documentary makes clear, the first president to  really use the media to achieve his goals, launching an entirely new  political forum).AccompanyingJFK: A Presidency Revealedare two  episodes of A&E;'sBiographyseries--one a considerably more  hero-worshipping profile of Kennedy that nonetheless provides worthwhile  background information about his childhood and early career; the other a  profile of JFK's father Joe P. Kennedy that explores the drive and  ambition that set the entire Kennedy family on its political path. All in  all, a valuable and informative document.--Bret Fetzer