Plot Synopsis

Based on the book by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard. Follows the events that led both President John F. Kennedy and assassin Lee Harvey Oswald to Dallas on that fateful day in November 1963. While the aristocratic Kennedy ascends to the world's ultimate seat of power, Oswald seeks his own place in the world by looking to make a name for himself as a former U.S. Marine defecting to Russia. His delusions of grandeur are soon replaced by the harsh and cold realities of factory work in the remote and unforgiving Minsk winter, and he returns to the United States with his new Russian wife, Marina. Settling in Texas, the Oswalds start a family and Lee finds a Communist cause much closer to home in the geopolitically charged hotbed that is Cuba at the dawn of the 1960s. As the Kennedy mystique grows, Oswald fades further and further from relevance, trying and failing to follow his ideological heart to Cuba and growing increasingly agitated at the government's treatment of the situation there. His membership in pro-Cuba organizations draws the attention of the FBI, whose agents ultimately dismiss him as harmless. Meanwhile, his volatile temper is costing him jobs and much more, as Marina and their two young children seek part-time refuge in the home of a friend. Oswald's desperation grows and escalates to violence. On Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, Oswald rides to his job at the Texas Schoolbook Depository with a co- worker. He carries a long brown paper bag that he says carries curtain rods. Across town, Secret Service and local authorities are making final preparations for a parade though the city of Dallas. At 12:30pm, shots ring out. And while one man earns his elusive and ill-gotten glory, a nation loses its leader and its innocence. Later that evening, the world would get its first look at Lee Harvey Oswald; less than 48 hours later it would get its last, as Oswald's own assassination is broadcast live to a grieving nation.