ABC to air Jackie O. tapes this fall

ABC News is preparing to air a primetime television special featuring never-before-heard audio tapes of conversations between Jacqueline Kennedy and historian Arthur Schlesinger, The Cutline has learned.

The special, "Jacqueline Kennedy, In Her Own Words," will be anchored by Diane Sawyer. It is slated to air sometime in September.

The interviews, which serve as the basis for a forthcoming book "Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy," were recorded by the former First Lady for posterity. The "television event," as ABC is calling it, will coincide with the book's release. (ABC is expected to pull out all the promotional stops for the broadcast, with special reports on "World News," "Good Morning America," "Nightline," and "This Week with Christiane Amanpour.")

"We look at this as a chance to explore a shared time in history--a shared crossroads in American life," Sawyer told The Cutline.

Seven interviews between Schlesinger and Jackie O. were conducted in the spring of 1964. They had remained sealed until Caroline Kennedy allowed them to be unsealed for the oral history.

"I think that people think really think they have an idea about my mother, and they're certainly familiar with her look and her style," Caroline Kennedy said in April while announcing the book. "But they really don't know her at all."

According to Hyperion, the book's publisher, the official audio recordings--totalling more than eight and a half hours--cover everything from John F. Kennedy's early campaigns to the Cuban Missile Crisis, "including Mrs. Kennedy's evolving sense of herself and her role as First Lady; family and married life in the White House; and President Kennedy's plans for a second term."

For Sawyer and her booking team, it's been a good year for exclusive coups like this one. She nabbed Donald Rumsfeld's first interview since leaving the Bush administration, and one with Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' husband, NASA shuttle astronaut Mark Kelly, in the wake of this January's tragic shootings in Tucson.

Included in the television special will be an exclusive interview with Caroline Kennedy.

(Image via AP)

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