On Valentines Day in 1962, millions of Americans tuned in for a never before televised event: a tour of the White House .  A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy would go on to be viewed by a global audience of over 80 million in its initial airing . The black and white documentary was syndicated in over 50 countries, including the Soviet Union, and was a transformational use of American soft power through an emerging technological medium. It showed the seat of a still-young nation, powerful amid the post-World War II order, projecting an image itself not as the ostentatious shadow empire it would grow into, but as a noble, restrained republic cleaved to the egalitarian and anti-aristocratic principles of its founding.  The tour was a chance for the American public to view the large-scale renovation and historic preservation project that First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis undertook during her first year in the White House.…