How ABC got the Jackie Kennedy tapes: they quashed the Kinnear miniseries

For weeks, ABC News has been teasing an exclusive attached to the tome Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy, which features previously unreleased audio recordings from early 1964 of Onassis talking frankly about her time in the White House.

The two-hour special anchored by Diane Sawyer and airing Tuesday at 9 p.m. will include extensive audio and an interview with Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of Onassis and John F. Kennedy....

The Kennedy book also was something of a bargaining chip in the Kennedy family’s efforts to quash the History channel miniseries The Kennedys. History channel is part of AETN, which is owned by a consortium including Disney, NBC Universal and Hearst. Disney/ABC Television Group chief Anne Sweeney sits on the AETN board. And last January, sources told The Hollywood Reporter that Caroline Kennedy personally lobbied Sweeney to kill the miniseries and that Kennedy's cooperation with the book, including writing the introduction and promoting it on ABC, was part of those conversations.