CNN documentary focuses on “Nixon’s Own 9/11"

It was 9/11 and an American president was fretting about how to confront a new wave of terror targeting commercial aviation.

Thirty-one years to the day before al Qaeda unleashed the worst terrorist outrage on U.S. soil, President Richard Nixon was already wrestling with the deadly potential of Middle Eastern terrorists who had seized U.S. civilian passenger jets.

It was a time of rapidly evolving threats at home and abroad as radical elements exploited a new age of mass international air travel and television to advance political agendas by targeting civilians.

The 1970s were truly when terrorism came of age.

In response, the U.S. federal government was called into action to address the threat of terrorism -- a responsibility that would evolve over decades into a military, intelligence and civilian operation that consumes billions of dollars a year and has changed the fabric of American life.