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117 6 The General Election Campaign, September 26–October 21 “Accept at once without any qualifications. Agree to meet Nixon any time, anywhere.” —J. Leonard Reinsch to JFK on how he should reply to an invitation to participate in televised presidential debates “The TV joint appearances will take you into practically every home in America and millions of voters will be exposed to the idea that you talk and act more like a President than Kennedy.” —Claude Robinson to Richard Nixon In 1960, most intellectuals favored John F. Kennedy. The intellectual, though, who might have been the most influential in getting JFK elected was Charles Van Doren, a lowly Columbia University instructor of English. He assisted Kennedy by unleashing the great television quiz show scandal of the late 1950s. Van Doren was first a popular hero who captivated people with the range of his knowledge and his appealing personality on the hit TV program Twenty-One. He then became a villain when Twenty-One and other game shows were exposed for fixing their outcomes. Not for the last time, commercial television was revealed to be a sleazy enterprise that cared only about larger audiences and more advertising profits. Grand jury investigations, newspaper stories, and tearful confessions followed. So did a tidal wave of bad publicity. Television executives were desperate for ways to show themselves and their networks in a better light. Thus, sponsorship of televised debates between the presidential nominees emerged as a way to display the true civic-mindedness of the industry.1 There was a problem. The Federal Communications Commission interpreted section 315 of the federal communications law to require equal time for all candidates, including those of minor parties. In 1960 there were fourteen such candidates, and televised debates were a practical impossibility unless Congress agreed to do something about section 315. On June 27, 1960, Congress temporarily suspended it, freeing television moguls to exhibit their good citizenship. With John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon agreeing to participate in this great experiment, American politics entered 118 * Kennedy v. Nixon a new age, one in which election outcomes turned on what transpired on television. American politics would never be the same.2 Although there have been numerous other televised presidential debates (every election from 1976 to the present), none has ever matched the initial series, perhaps because they were the first and perhaps because the Kennedy and Nixon duo was more interesting than any subsequent pair of rivals. The Kennedy-Nixon encounters became the signature event of the 1960 election and dominated the campaign for almost a month. Fifty years later they remain a subject of interest and controversy. The first important question is why Richard Nixon agreed to debate. Almost everyone on the Republican side at the time thought it would be a mistake . Eisenhower argued that the candidate representing the “ins” should never take on an “out” in a debate. In the president’s opinion, “the latter is free to say anything he wants since there is no test of responsibility or ability to make good on proposals.” There were other powerful arguments against it. On the most practical level, Nixon’s biggest advantage over his rival was his position as vice president, the experience it represented, and the greater public familiarity that derived from it. Simply by appearing on the same stage with John F. Kennedy, the Republican nominee would diminish these advantages while giving the Massachusetts senator the opportunity to establish himself as the equal of the vice president. Kennedy did not have to outperform Nixon. He just had to appear equal. From this standpoint alone, the decision made no sense.3 As the representative of the incumbent administration, the vice president would inevitably be on the defensive as the challenger criticized the administration and its policies. On the domestic front, the defensive position the vice president would be forced into might be annoying, but it posed no special dangers. On foreign policy issues, there were serious problems. Kennedy could attack freely, saying almost anything that was politically advantageous to him. In contrast, as a member of the administration, Nixon’s statements could and would prejudice existing policy positions. In addition, Nixon possessed knowledge that he could not reveal for national security reasons. On these grounds as well, the vice president would have been well advised to have sidestepped the debates. Herb Klein recalled that Nixon had made this very argument; when Klein heard that Nixon had reversed himself, he “almost fell over...

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