Death of a President (2006 film) signed into permanent law in the U.S., stating the following: ""It has granted investigators unprecedented powers of detention and surveillance, and further expanded the powers of the executive branch"". The funeral scenes in the film include footage taken from archival coverage of Ronald Reagan's funeral, and President Cheney's eulogy for President Bush is a news clip of Cheney's eulogy for Reagan. CGI special effects and existing footage of President Bush helped to re-create the filming of his assassination. The rifle used by the perpetrator in the film was actually an airsoft replica of an AR-15. Image editing software was used
The Death of a President the trip to Dallas, through the flight and trip to Texas, the motorcade, the assassination, the hospital, the plane trip back to Washington, and the funeral. The friction between the Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson factions, the worldwide reaction, and Lee Harvey Oswald's unplanned televised execution by Jack Ruby are all discussed in painstaking detail. In early 1964, Jacqueline Kennedy commissioned Manchester to produce an account of the assassination. She and the Kennedy family wanted a definitive telling of the events to preempt other books, including Jim Bishop's forthcoming "The Day Kennedy Was Shot". Kennedy was familiar with Manchester's work