NEW YORK -- The assassination of President John F. Kennedy was a defining moment for the United States, for generations of Americans -- and for television, which came of age in those sad days 30 years gone by.

Where were you? Watching television. And watching television transcend itself during those four bleak, blank days of shock, horror and grief.

TV unified a country in mourning and burned its images into our national psyche.

Television since has lost that power to unify, and one in five Americans alive today was not yet born when Kennedy was killed. Even those who lived those strange, uncertain days may yet have forgotten.

For them all, later this month, television will attempt to do what it still does best: Television will remember.

*** ABC: "JFK: Reckless Youth,'' the best-selling biography of the president-to-be, becomes a two-night, four-hour ABC miniseries starring Patrick Dempsey and airing Sunday, Nov. 21, and Tuesday, Nov. 23.

Terry Kinney plays Joe Sr.; Diana Scarwid JFK's mother, Rose; Loren Dean his brother, Joe Jr.; and Robin Tunney and Natalie Radford, sisters Kathleen and Rosemary.

Nigel Hamilton, author of the instant best seller, said of "China Beach'' screenwriter Bill Broyles' script: "I thought it wasn't possible to translate such an enormously long and detailed book to film and move people's hearts.

And yet I found I was weeping at certain points when reading the script.'' *** CBS: "Jack,'' a two-hour special by filmmaker Peter Davis on the life and times of John F. Kennedy, airs Wednesday, Nov. 17.

The two-hour CBS Entertainment special combines archival footage and stills with a nontraditional narrative that uses interviews with Kennedy's intimates to explore JFK's well-documented family life, as well as his public persona.

Davis, the executive producer, is an Emmy and Oscar winner for "The Selling of the Pentagon'' and the documentary film "Hearts and Minds.'' He and his son, producer-director Nick Davis, have produced 21 new films in association with CBS Entertainment, which will be shown at the refurbished Kennedy Library, which reopened last month in Boston.

*** "CBS Reports: Who Killed JFK -- The Final Chapter?'' is CBS News' sixth major investigation of the assassination, airing Friday, Nov. 19.

Anchored by Dan Rather, who covered Kennedy's trip to Dallas and has been reporting about the assassination for three decades, the two-hour special uses original research and new technologies to report fresh clues, as well as new theories about the century's greatest murder mystery.

*** NBC: The "Today'' show will originate from the newly reopened Kennedy Library in Boston, on Friday, Nov. 19. During the week of Nov. 15, NBC News' morning show will look back at the Kennedy years in several segments: JFK's personal side; his myth and our fascination with it; his policies and his legacies; conspiracy theories on the assassination; Kennedy's correspondence; and the Kennedy "wit and style,'' reported by Jamie Gangel.

*** "Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald,'' is the story of Marina Oswald Porter who, at age 22, found herself alone with two small daughters -- and the widow of accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. It airs on "NBC Monday Night at the Movies'' on Nov. 15.

"For the next 15 years, she and her daughters live with the stigma of the crime,'' NBC's publicity says. "In 1978, Congress reopens the investigation into the assassination and Marina decides it is time to confront the past that continues to haunt her.'' Helena Bonham Carter ("Howard's End'') stars as Marina, and Frank Whaley ("The Doors'') stars as Oswald.

*** Cable: Turner Network Television wraps its two-day tribute to JFK around four broadcasts of "November 22, 1963: Where Were You?'' a Larry King special live from Washington, D.C., which premieres Nov. 21.

It repeats that night, the eve of the assassination's 30th anniversary, after a showing of the theatrical film "PT 109,'' and on Monday at 8 p.m. EST and 12:10 a.m. Tuesday.

King asks Americans where they were when they heard the news, and viewers can respond via a special 800 number. King also features segments with stars Barbra Streisand, Sean Connery, Jack Lemmon, Michael Douglas, Jane Fonda, Chubby Checker, Peter, Paul and Mary, Dick Van Dyke and Jerry Lewis.

Streisand recalls that she was in a jewelry shop buying "my first piece of important jewelry, a beautiful antique choker. ... I never wear it.'' In addition, King features memories from President and Mrs. Clinton; Vice President and Mrs. Gore; former presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter; journalists Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor, and tycoons Ted Turner, Lee Iacocca, Ross Perot and Barry Diller.

Lifetime Television offers a one-hour profile of JFK's first lady on "Clairol Presents: Jackie Onassis -- An Intimate Portrait,'' narrated by Sharon Gless.

It airs Sunday, Nov. 14, repeating Wednesday, Nov. 17, and Saturday, Nov. 27.

-- AP JFK IN BERMUDA -- President Kennedy is seen here relaxing by the fireplace at Government House talking to British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan at the start of the 1961 Anglo/American Bermuda Summit Conference.