Transcripts For CSPAN3 1960 Presidential Debates 20240712

John f. Kennedy. According to rules set by the candidates themselves, each man shall make an Opening Statement of approximately eight minutes duration and a closing statement of approximately three minutes duration. In between, the candidates will answer or comment upon answers to questions put by a panel of correspondents. In this, the first discussion of a series of four joint appearances, the subject matter has been agreed to be restricted to internal or domestic american matters. Now, for the first Opening Statement by senator john f. Kennedy. Sen. Kennedy in the election of 1860, Abraham Lincoln said the question was whether this nation could exist half slave or half free. In the election of 1960, and with the world around us, the question is whether the world will exist half slave or half free, whether it will move in the direction of freedom, in the direction of the road we are taking, or whether it would move in the direction of slavery. I think it will depend in great measure upon what we do here in the United States. On the kind of society that we build, on the kind of strength that we maintain. We discuss tonight domestic issues, but i would not want that to be any implication to be given that this does not involve directly our struggle with mr. Khrushchev for survival. Mr. Khrushchev is in new york and he maintains the communist defensive around the world because of the productive power of the soviet union itself. The chinese communists have always had a large population, but they are important and dangerous now because they are mounting a major effort within their own country. The kind of country we have here. The kind of society we have, the kind of strength we build in the United States will be the defense of freedom. You, senator kennedy. V. P. Nixon the things that senator kennedy has said, many of us can agree with. There is no question that we cannot discuss our internal affairs in the United States without recognizing that they have a tremendous bearing on our international position. What has happened to you . We find that your wages have gone up five times as much in the Eisenhower Administration as they did in the Truman Administration. What about the prices you pay . We find that the prices you paid went up five times as much in the Truman Administration as they did in the Eisenhower Administration. What is the net result of this . This means that the average Family Income went up 15 in the eisenhower years as against 2 in the truman years. Now, this is not standing still. But good as this record is, may i emphasize it isnt enough. A record is never something to stand on, it is something to build on, and on building on this record i believe that we , have the secrets for progress, we know the way to progress, and i think first of all, our own records proves that we know the way. Announcer washington journal continues. Host and welcome in our viewers joining us on cspan 3s American History tv as we are joined by Barbara Perry, president ial studies director at the university of virginias Miller Center. Barbara perry, 60 years since that first debate between thenVice President Richard Nixon and thensenator john kennedy, and if there is one thing you hear about the legacy of that debate, it is that those who are watching on tv thought kennedy won, and those who were listening on the radio thought nixon won. Is that actually true . Guest no, it is a myth. [laughter] it is a myth, but it is longstanding. It is partially true. For example, howard k. Smith, who was the moderator of that debate, and was sitting behind the candidates, so he really could not see how they were looking on camera, he was just listening to what they were saying. He said that after that, he thought that nixon had won and then he said when he watched the rerun of the debate, he actually thought kennedy had won. But the reason that popped up was that there had been a survey done by marketing firms of people who had listened on radio and they had said they , thought nixon had perhaps won it. So i asked the viewers, you can do an experiment. You can watch it and then listen and then vice versa. If nothing else, just the difference in the voices, the difference in the accents between the two men. But most people think kennedy emerged the winner from the first if nothing else because he looked better and poor Richard Nixon was suffering from an infection and he did not wear proper makeup, so he looked pretty bad and pretty nervous. Host 60 years this weekend since that first nationally televised president ial debate. There were eventually four debates between john f. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. September 26, 1960, the first one, october 7, 1960, the second, october 13, 1960, the and the final one, october 21 third, before the election. How did these four debates come together and what were the hurdles to putting them on television . Barbara perry, are you still with us this morning . We might have had a sound issue there. As we work on getting Barbara Perry back this money, let me give the phone numbers to our viewers, asking you to join this discussion. 202 7488000 for democrats to call in. 202 7488001 for republicans to call in. Independents, its 202 7488002. We are talking about the history, the legacy, of the president ial debates that took place in the fall of 1960, debates between john f. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Asking for your thoughts on it this morning, asking for you to call in and give us your take from 60 years ago if you watch ed them, or if you have watched them since. Want to play a little bit from during the second debate. Candidates asked on their positions on the issue of civil rights. Here is what they said. [video clip] mr. Vice president , you have accused senator kennedy of avoiding the civil rights issue when he has been in the south and he has accused you of the same thing. With both north and south listening and watching, would you some of your own intentions in the field of Civil Liberties . Vp nixon why do i talk every time i speak about civil rights in the south . Not because i am preaching. It is a problem for all of us. I do it because it is the responsibility of leadership. I do it because we have to solve this problem together. I do it right at this time particularly because when we have khrushchev in this country, a man who has enslaved millions , a man who has slaughtered thousands, we cannot continue to have a situation where he can point the finger at the United States of america and say we are denying rights to our citizens. What will be his policy on decision of the 1954 . What is he going to do to revive fair employment . He has been the head of the committee for government contracts and carried out two cases in the district of columbia. He has not indicated his support to provide fair Employment Practices around the country. If everyone can get a job, regardless of their race or color. Has he indicated he would support title iii, which would give the attorney general additional powers to protect constitutional rights. These are the great questions. Host we are back with Barbara Perry of the university of virginias Miller Center. Giving viewers a taste of the debates from 60 years ago. How did these debates come together . What were the hurdles to putting them on television, and who sponsored them . Guest sure. Well, the stations, the channels. We had three basic channels at that time. It is hard to believe, now that we have hundreds of them but , nbc, abc, and cbs. I was growing up in that time and i know we had a tv that only had two of the main channels, nbc and cbs. You had to have another kind of tuner to get abc. But the networks can together because they were trying to promote their news divisions at the time. Some people might remember that , for example, Walter Cronkites interview in 1963 with president kennedy around a labor day was to promote the fact that Walter Cronkites evening show was going from a 15 minute format to 30 minutes. Also they were also also coming , off the 1950s quiz show scandals. So they were trying to boost their image among the public. So they approached the candidates and kennedy jumped on the idea because he knew television was his medium. And then once he did, the nixon camp really could not refuse. So that is how they came to be. The hurdles were somewhat technological as we explained and see today with trying to do technology online, which is still a fairly new medium, same for television in those days. But they pulled it off without a hitch. Host give us a sense of the 1960 campaign at the time of the debates and what the key issues were driving that campaign. Guest number one was the cold war. Even in the first debate, which was meant to be devoted to domestic policy, people might notice kennedy, in his Opening Statement jumped right into the , cold war, which must have put nixon off a little bit. I am sure he wanted to raise his hand and say, wait a minute, this is supposed to be about domestic policy but of course , the two were so connected. The cold war, the communists, the u. S. Leading the free world after world war ii but in a bipolar world in which we were always fighting the communists, certainly fighting the soviets , but also the red chinese at the time. So that was the number one Foreign Policy issue. At home, there was a recession that had come on us in 1958. So kennedy kept bashing the Eisenhower Administration on that. So, unemployment was high for the time, in the 6 , 7 range. Civil rights, clearly an issue. Both candidates wanted to shy away from it of the bit not to put the south off, but they obviously wanted to attract the africanamerican vote. That was another issue. Farm prices medical care for the , aged. Kennedy hit hard on that. Those were the basic issues foreign and domestic in 1960. Host who was considered the better debater as they stepped into this new medium to have a debate . Guest i would say nixon. In fact, nixon had been a champion debater in college. He went to whittier college. A Quaker College near where he was born. He had gotten into harvard, but he did not have the money to travel there. He had gotten a scholarship, but his family was poor and they could not send him. They just did not have the money to send him there, and they did not have the money for incidentals either. He always had a bit of a chip on his shoulder because of that, but he was an excellent debater. If people watch all of these debates, they will see that come out. Kennedy though had gotten better as a public speaker as he went through his career from being elected to congress at the same time nixon was in 1946. He had gotten better, so by the time he gets to the 1960 debate, he is quite good too. For many years in america, he had what many thought was an odd accent, a boston accent, that people were not used to. His mother always thought he talked too rapidly. She always told him, slow down, jack, slow down. I would say nixon had the edge, but kennedy was nipping at his heels and because he looked better in the first debate, he is usually viewed as the winner there. And from that point on, it was more or less a draw. Host there is always so much focus on who the moderators are. Who were they back in 1960 . Guest the names that people would probably recognize if they are a certain age today would be those who went on to be anchors on their networks. So, howard k. Smith was the first moderator of the first debate. We also had people, like frank mcgee who went on to be a , moderator and anchorman. Those who were asking questions, also some of them went on to be anchors, most famously Walter Cronkite and the other was John Chancellor. The others, although i have paid a lot of attention in the 1960s, were still new to me. A lot of them were print journalists from the time because they wanted to have a mix between broadcast and print, and some of them were on Radio Networks that no longer exist, but i would say those four names were the ones who, by that time, and by the later 1960s, they were household names. Host a viewer on twitter says i remember the debates as a young person. Kennedy was inspirational. Nixon was not. Unlike modern times, there was little need to fact check. How times have changed. Can you comment on the role of the moderator and how the immediate responded to those debates . Guest sure. It seems to me as people tuned into them or even just washed watched one, they are impressive. Even if one does not think nixon has charisma, in some ways nixon was at his peak in 1960. That is, he was not the nasty assassin nixon. In fact, his running mate, henry cabot lodge, before the first debate said nixon had an image from a fighting communists in the 1950s. So i thought he was sort of a balanced personality and he was not the socalled new nixon who recreated himself for the 1968 run. That, to me, was he kind of became the nixon of parody. So he almost seemed like balanced nixon at that point. In terms of the moderators and fact checking, people will notice that both of these debaters are excellent debaters. They seem to have their facts right. They keep to the time limit so there is no intervention from the moderators saying you are over time or please stop now. It just goes very smoothly and it is somewhat heartening to see. It is also quite nostalgic to think that it would be great if we could have that kind of debate now. Host Barbara Perry, our guest this morning as we look back 60 years to the first nationally televised president ial debates back in 1960, joining us from the Miller Center at the university of virginia. Millercenter. Org is where you can find out about the Miller Center. On twitter, Barbara Perry is barbaraperryuva. Taking your phone lines this morning. Phone lines are split up as usual. Democrats, republicans, and independents. Maybe we will have some callers who remember those debates. We will start with joe in pittsburgh, a republican. Caller good morning. I am kind of curious i have two questions. Number one, do you think nixons big mistake in 1960 besides looking so horrible in the first debate, was this stupid 50 States Strategy that he had that he promised to visit every state during the campaign . And i think it was selfdefeating. My second question is obviously the 1960 debates were very influential to the voters. Why was there no further debates between 1960 all the way up until 1976 . Why such a gap that there were no further debates . I am just curious. Thank you very much. Host great question. Guest yes, great question, joe. The 1956, i think youre absolutely right, worked against nixon but i believe he was in an , old mode. He was thinking of whistle stop campaigns of old, where the more the campaign got out in the 20th century, anyway, the better off. That is, the more people that saw him, the better for him. Because he had that sick period before the debates before people saw him, where he got that infection in his leg and got the flu, he ran himself ragged and continued to do that through the rest of the campaign. So that really backfired against him. Having said that, kennedy had gone to 48 of the 50 states himself, but over a longer period of time leading up to 1960. Great question, joe about why no , more debates until we get to 1976. Think about this. Lyndon johnson was not the most telegenic or charismatic figure, so he did not really want to debate in 1964. Barry goldwater and kennedy, who were friends from the senate, thought about doing a kind of whistle stop debate tour and they were looking forward to that. Goldwater did not like johnson, did not want to debate him, and johnson did not want to either. Then in 1968, Richard Nixon was not going to go back and debate in either of those two president ial elections after his experience in 1960. Host across the pond we go to cole in england this morning. Listening in, watching, good morning, coal. Caller good afternoon. Congratulations to American Television on the series. Do you think jfk is the best orator, the best speaker . Do you think that won him the 1960 election . Guest yes do we think that john , f. Kennedy was the best speaker, perhaps one of the best rhetoricians in the presidency . I would say yes to that. Again, he did not start that way. He was not a natural debater or a natural public speaker. He had taken public speaking lessons. I have been doing some research on the relationship he had politically with eleanor roosevelt. She actually wrote to him in the early part of his presidency to say you need to take more voice , lessons. He wrote back and said i have been, but im a little bit busy now as president. But nevertheless as we look back now and contrast him with some more recent candidates, he does seem to be a smooth talker, a fluent speaker, a great rhetorician, a great orator. And he had the benefit of having ted sorensen as his speech crafter. So he had a lot going for him by the time he got to 1960 and certainly into the presidency. I would rank him up there among the top speakers and rhetoricians in the presidency. Host did nixon and kennedy dislike each other in 1960 . Guest no, they did not. I think that is a bit of a myth as well. They had, as i said came into , congress at the same time. The came in both in 1947 is when they began a careers, and that is when they first met at the press club in washington. They were kind of both hail fellows, well met. Although nixon always had a little bit of a chip on his shoulder. There is a famous anecdote my friend Chris Matthews talks about in his really great book on Nixon Kennedy where he says, they went up to pennsylvania to do a debate because they were viewed as the young up and comers in the democratic and republican parties, and they sat around that night after the debate and they talked baseball. Then they hopped on the train into shared a burger on the way back to washington and chatted about politics. I would not call them friends, but they were friendly. A different kind of politics that we long for now, where people could be friends across the aisle. Kennedy always said, i do not see my opponents as enemies, i see them as adversaries. Host this is john, waiting on the line for democrats. Caller hi. Along those same lines, senator kennedy had a dry run six months earlier when he debated senator humphrey as they were going for the nomination and thanks to , cspan, i had an opportunity to watch that debate. I was blown away by how two thirds of all the rebuttals were simply, i agree with senator kennedy, or i agree with senator humphrey. [laughter] that did not stop them from accusing each other of lying and so on. So my question is, how did that opportunity help kennedy prepare for the debates against nixon in the general election . Guest that is exactly correct that there had been some short of the president ial candidates debating, so we had some of that in the 1950s leading up to the 1960 president ial debate. So kennedy and senator humphrey , the senator from minnesota had , debated. Loved toennedy, he chat and debate informally. His family was famous for doing that at the dinner table. Both of his parents promoted that. I have been reading this wonderful new biography, volume one called jfk, just out from random house, and in that biography he talks about kennedys time in the South Pacific and navy and all the men who served with him said he would sit around at night, all the men wanted to play cards and kennedy wanted to talk politics. They all kind of made a note to themselves, this guy is probably going to end up in politics and he is probably going to go far. So kennedy had a lifelong experience in debating people, at least informally. Host raleigh, north carolina, this is bruce, a republican. Good morning. Caller how are you . Host doing well. Youre on with the Barbara Perry. Caller yes what do you think , about having a debate between two of the Networks Like cnn and fox news . I think it would be appropriate because there is all this talk about, you know fake news and so , on. That would be an interesting experience to watch, since we are only having two debates, why dont they throw in the networks let them debate . Host bruce do you think we get , those debates every night if you just flip your channels back and forth . Caller no, they are not together. Dont you understand . They dont sit there and talk to each other. Host Barbara Perry, what do you think . Guest well, bruce that is a , really interesting idea. The way these debates came about in addition to the networks wanting to have them was that there was a fellow called fred kohn, who is still with us. He lives in a suburb outside of washington. He was a lifelong federal bureaucrat, worked in the federal government, gave service to the federal government, and as an undergraduate at the university of maryland, he was a holocaust survivor. He believed that the country would benefit from hearing president ial candidates. As early as 1956 he started writing to people in the networks, into the Politics Around to ask them to have , debates. He did catch the eye of eleanor roosevelt. They did not succeed in 1956, but they did in 1960. So maybe bruces idea of having i suppose he meant two newscasters go at it i like that idea. Go for it, bruce. Host 60 years since those first nationally televised president ial debates, the first when taking place september 26, 1960, showing viewers parts of those debates as we talk about it here on cspan and cspan 3s American History tv, including the third debates, where candidates were in separate studios for that third debate. Kennedy was in new york, nixon was in los angeles. Here is part of that third debate. The candidates responding to a question about recent comments about president truman. [video clip] the chairman of the Republican National committee declared earlier this week that you owe Vice President nixon and the public an apology for strong charges against former president truman, who bluntly suggested where the Republican Party could go. Do you feel you owe the Vice President an apology . Sen. Kennedy i must say that mr. Truman has his method of expressing things. He has been in politics for 50 years. Has been president of the United States. It is not my style. I really do not think there is anything i can say to president truman that will coerce him at the age of 76 to change his particular speaking manner. Perhaps misses truman can. I do not think i can. If you could pass that message on to him. Any comments, mr. Vice president . Vp nixon yes, i think so. Of course both senator kennedy and i have felt mr. Trumans ire, and consequently i think he can speak with feeling on this subject. I do want to Say Something the however. I have a temper and i am sure mr. Kennedy has one. But when a man as president of the United States or a former president he has an obligation not to lose his temper in public. One thing i have noted as i have traveled around the country are the tremendous number of children who come out to see the president ial candidates. I see Mothers Holding their babies up so that they can see a man who might be president of the United States. I know senator kennedy sees them too. It makes you realize that whoever is president is going to be a man that all the children of america will either look up to or will look down to. Host Barbara Perry, what did you take away from that clip . Guest that is one of my favorites. Im so glad you all chose that one. First of all, let me tell you about thurston morton, who was the head of the rnc. He was a kentuckian and became i am from kentucky originally and he became our senator not long after that. He was a great statesman. But i love this clip because it has three profiles first of harry truman. There is an old story about truman taking some friends of his wife, bess through the white , house, and at one point he manthe word ure. Her friends reported back to her, somewhat scandalized, that her husband would refer to manure. Reportedly she said dont worry about that. You dont know how long it took me to get him to say manure. But kennedys wit in how he dealt with that, that was typical of him to divert attention away from what might be a difficult question, but get a gleam in his eye and turn up a little bit of a grin. So i thought he handled it really well. For Richard Nixon, it was poignant to me because just two days before the second debate, my mother actually took me and my two brothers to downtown louisville, kentucky to see senator john f. Kennedy campaigning through our town. Until she passed away, she would say, remember, i got there early and stood in front of the podium so you could see him. So what Richard Nixon is saying is quite true. It is quite ironic though because we know how nixons career and presidency ended and that he was not the kind of person people could look up to because of the scandal of the watergate. Say, talking about harry truman and his colorful language, both kennedy and nixon could swear like the sailors they had been in world war ii. To milton, vermont this , is lynn, a democrat. Caller my question is more of a general one. In a president ial debate, what should we be listening for . Guest really important question, isnt it . I would be listening for facts. It is always good to know that those who might be sitting in the oval office are informed. They obviously can have different approaches to the facts and different ideologies and different partisanship and different policies, but it is really helpful to understand that they know what is happening, and especially since we are facing at least three crises at this time with covid, with racial unrest, and obviously an economy that is lagging in part because of covid. So it would be helpful to know the candidates have the facts, that they have an ability to analyze the facts, and it would be helpful to know that they can be fluent in speaking about those facts and in informing the nation. That and basic personality types , i think, are very important and the next president carrying , on with the incumbent. Host one of our previous tweets that we showed, the viewer brought up fact checking. Were there such things as Fact Checkers during debates in those first debates in 1960 . I am not sure because this was such a new format that they had Fact Checkers but if you watch the debates, the candidates were checking each other in real time. They were checking each other from what they had said on the stump out campaigning, or they were checking each other on their careers and how they had voted in the past. So that is what i found so impressive about both of them, and the fact they were speaking , most of the time, seemingly without any notes. Occasionally kennedy would refer to a statement and he would want to quote from it, but they would just look into the camera and speak and they would speak fluently and speak with knowledge, and they would speak with great care given to analysis. Host do we know how Many Americans watched those debates in 1960 live or listened live on the radio . Guest we do. We believe upwards of 70 million tuned in. About 66 million tuned in for the first debate. Debate0 for the first and about 50 of americans tuned in for all four of them. But remember, there was not a lot of choice in tv watching at that time and obviously no computers and cell phones and things like that to distract people. So, there was a bit of a captive audience. Host one of the stats from cnn, some 80 Million People in 2016 watching the debates between Hillary Clinton and donald trump for comparisons sake. Less the proportion a lot because we did not even have 200 million americans in 1960, so obviously a vast proportion of americans tuning in. I can say once kennedy was elected, the same was true for his press conferences, which famously went live and were in prime time and became Great Entertainment as well as informational for the American People. Host st. Petersburg, florida. Paula, republican, good morning. Caller good morning. I am really enjoying this segment today. I remember back during that time. I was not able to vote. I am 74 now, but at the time i probably would have voted for kennedy. I think a lot of people were enthralled with him. I have, in the past, i have voted for president carter. I always try to vote for the man i think or women that i think would be the best and i just wish we could get back to that respect between our candidates and get back to what you are talking about in the fact checking. Really, it is so important today. But i am enjoying this very much and it brings back a lot of memories for me. Thank you. Host thank you, paula. Barbara perry, anything you want to add . Guest paula might want to note that in one of the debates there was a question about party labels. Both candidates, i think, related really to what paul is a is saying. Is that she chooses the candidate for whom she will vote based on who will be the best man or woman for the job and that both of the candidates in 1960 were saying, do not vote for me because i am a republican or a democrat. Yes, i do tend to follow the policies of my party, but vote for me because i am qualified, i am experienced, i am ready from day one to be president of the United States. Host a feature or some people might not describe it as a feature of recent president ial debates is the spin room, the attempt by each side to immediately claim that their candidate won the debate. What happened immediately after the 1960 debates . Was there anything like that . Guest i cannot find it, if there were. I looked specifically for this as i was preparing for today. I think because these were so new, and because you also have to remember the difference in technology on cameras, for example. It took a lot of time just for those big, heavy cameras to warm up. So, they would have had to have those cameras in place somewhere and get the candidates dare and get there people there. It was not the kind of the spin room phenomenon that we have now. I could find that at least in private, the candidates were talking to their advisors about the debates and kennedy was very pleased with his performance in the first debate and he also called up his pollster, lou harrison, and said i think i can take take him. In other words, he thought he could beat nixon after that first debate. So they talked about it privately. Nixon knew he did not do well in the first debate particularly when his mother called him and said, are you ok, because he looked so poorly. Host democrat, good morning. Caller good morning. I was a little girl when those president ial debates were on but i can remember sitting with my mother and father watching the debate and how they told me how important the debate was. Now, i believe that the Young Children and young adults do not know much about United States history and it is not being taught about how important the debates are and how important the president ial elections are. This, above all, this year, is one of the most important i believe. People should, as a family, get together and tell themselves how important this is to get the truth out. The only way some people are going to know the truth is when you do have a debate and they can have the fact checks on tv right away because of that. And i just want to say that i was so happy i do have that memory of the 1960 president ial debate. Host Barbara Perry. Guest good for the caller. I have that same memory of gathering around the tv. Some people might remember the scene in the first back to the future where michael j fox, who has come back from 1985 to 1955, he mentions that they have tvs and the mother says he must be joking, no one has two tvs. The very fact a family by the way by 1960, 80 of households , had a tv, where in 1950 it was only 20 . It was one tv and the family gathered around. There are marvelous pictures of families with Young Children sitting in front of their blackandwhite tvs in 1960 watching these debates. As a person who teaches not only students but also teachers about our history, about politics, about civics, i can assure the caller about this, that we have really good teachers out there. We need to put more emphasis on thinky and civics, but i we are doing as good a job as we can. We can always do better, but i agree with her. Gather the family around together if you can and watch these debates coming up. Host the back to the future reference i thought you would bring up is when doc is incredulous when marty says that Ronald Reagan is president in the future, and he says, the actor . [laughter] guest and he says, and jane wyman is the first lady . And i suppose jack benny is a secretary of the treasury. [no audio] [laughter] thats a great one too. Also remember the scene where michael j. Fox says to his family that he has gone back to but it is 30 years before, and , he says oh, thats on john f. Kennedy boulevard isnt it . And the father says who in the hell is john f. Kennedy . Because it is 1955. Host this morning joined by Barbara Perry on cspan and American History tv as we look back 60 years to those first televised president ial debates, taking your phone calls for about the next 25 minute this morning. Democrats, it is 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. This is joy, alexander city, alabama republican. , good morning. Caller good morning. My question, my husband called me a nerd for watching this on a sunday morning before church, but my question is, given the history behind the two candidates, both had things in their past, nixon was angry and kennedy had personal indiscretions, if you will, and all of that, if those two candidates were to run today, how do you think they would fare given social media, given the way news is just split second everywhere you turn, that kind of thing . How do you think they would fare . Host thank you, joy, for the question. No nerds here. Maybe we are proudly all nerds. Guest i just think of us as historians. Wonderful question, because it seems like we have come, in some ways, full circle. That is that, yes, if you would think of people knowing about kennedys and joy put it very discreetly his indiscretions, that would be all over the media. Look what happened to bill clinton because of that. He was impeached, not convicted, but impeached because of indiscretions. Now we get to the point where we have a president who seems to have many indiscretions in his background, but it did not matter to people, apparently, who voted for him. So, it seems like, in that case, we have come up fullcircle. In nixons case, no one said that nixon had personal indiscretions involving pat,thfulness to his wife, but his anger, yes, and some corruption issues or how he went about his campaigning. He had kind of a scorched earth approach to campaigning. That seems to be the road to the white house now and in terms of corruption, watergate seems almost mild by todays standards. So in some ways it seems that we would have more information about those two candidates from 1960, but we seem to have come full circle and that, perhaps, we are so satiated with all this information that it no longer seems to matter. Host new jersey, this is martin, a republican, good morning. Caller good morning. Host martin, turn down your television so we can hear you. And just talk into your phone. Caller i am. Can you hear me now . Host yes, sir. What is your question or comment . Caller i have a comment that has been bothering me for a while. I just think that our news has become propagandized too much. I look at one channel. If i am hearing someone speak, and then i turn channels and i am getting all different answers for it is rhetoric. It is not true. I feel like the news should be less biased, and i do not think we have ever been at the peak of propagandization ever in our news. Host that is martin out of new jersey. Barbara perry . Guest well it is an important , question and one that we can all ponder. I would not say that we have never had what he calls propaganda. We have had times in our press history going back to the founding. I am sitting here in charlottesville, virginia and Thomas Jefferson was excoriated by the press on the opposite side of the political aisle for years. So, we have had partisan press, the press became more professional in the 20th century. I would just say to viewers, if you are watching cspan, you are getting real time news that you can judge for yourself. But i would always say to students, read newspapers. Now you can get them online. So they are much easier to read. Know when you are reading a hard news story versus a feature, versus an oped, versus an opinion column, and get a variety of sources, and then make your own judgment. I think that has always been true, but i think it is true now more than ever. Host steve on twitter wants you to dive into the relationship between ike and nixon. Steve saying, ike disliked nixon. He thought he was a sleazy politician, but he was drafted to be a candidate and he took nixon as Vice President to placate the right wing of the gop and then was stuck with him for eight years. Steve saying, ike was right. What do you think . Guest i think steve is right. He is right about the history and he is right about analyzing how eisenhower felt about nixon. He was really ready to dump him , i think prior to the checker , speech in 1952, but then nixon interestingly enough on the new medium of television. But famously in the debate, one of the newscasters on the panel asks about this very question. That is that when eisenhower was asked in 1960, can you give an example of Vice President nixon helping with a decision, or really having decision on how you operated as president , eisenhower said, well, if you give me about a week perhaps i can come up with one. That was really damning and really damaging towards nixon. I think that is the example i think the caller is talking about. Host detroit, democrat, good morning. You are next. Caller yes, hello. In 1964, i was 24 years old and living in chicago. And what was it . Or face thess johnson and goldwater squared off . It was on a thursday night. Host Barbara Perry . Something you know about . Guest i am unfamiliar with that particular program, but that was very common in those days. As it is now. The socalled sunday talk shows. Meet the press, face the nation, and kennedy loved being on those programs. You can watch them on youtube going back to the mid50s and even early 1950s. He would take every opportunity to sharpen his skills in debate and take questions, but i am not familiar with that particular show. I do know, as i say, that goldwater was not friendly towards johnson, did not want to debate him, and johnson knew he was not as skilled a debater as kennedy would have been. He was always being compared and contrasted unfavorably with kennedy, particularly without kennedy left office sadly because of assassination. So, johnson was just not interested in trying to debate goldwater officially, formally, as in the 1960 debate. Host do we know if kennedy was looking forward to president ial debates in 1964 . Guest we are told yes. I have read that several times, that he was. Again, because he was friends, or at least friendly with goldwater. Again, people across the aisle did not see each other as mortal enemies in those days. Well, i am sure a few did, but kennedy did not and apparently goldwater did not. They had Mutual Respect for each other. They knew they differed on the issues. They were both military veterans and they were excited about going out on the stump and going around the country and debating. Host about 15 minutes left this morning with Barbara Perry from the Miller Center at the university of virginia, looking back 60 years to those first nationally televised president ial debates. We have shown you clips from the first, second, and third debates. Here is a clip from the fourth debate from the candidates closing statements from that final debate held october 21, 1960. [video clip] sen. Kennedy i said i have served this country for 14 years. I served it in the war. I am devoted to it. If i lose this election, i will continue in the senate to try and build a stronger country. But i run because i believe this year the United States has a great opportunity to make a move forward, to make a determination here at home and around the world that it is going to reestablish itself as a vigorous society. My judgment is that the republican has stood still here in the United States, and it is also stood still around the world. We are using about 50 of our steel capacity today. We had a recession in 1958. We had a recession in 1954. We are not moving ahead in education the way we should. We did not make adjustments in 1957 and 9056 and 1954 that outerspace should be important. If we stand still, if we appoint people to ambassadorship and positions in washington who have a status quo outlook, then the United States does not maintain its influence and if we fail, the cause of freedom fails. Vp nixon in the years to come, it will be written that one or the other of us was elected and that he was or was not a great president. What will determine whether senator kennedy or i, if im elected, was a great president . It will not be our ambition that will determine it, because greatness is not something that is written on a campaign poster. It will be determined to the extent that we represent the deepest ideals, the highest feelings and faith of the American People. In other words, the next president , as he leads america in the free world, can be only as great as the American People are great. So i say, in conclusion, keep americas faith strong. See that the young people of america particularly have faith in the ideals of freedom and faith in god, which distinguishes us from the atheistic materialists who oppose us. As members of a new political generation, Vice President nixon and senator kennedy have used a new means of communication to pioneer a new type of political debate. The character and courage with which these two men have spoken sets a High Standard for generations to come. Surely they have set a new precedent. Perhaps they have established a new tradition. This is quincy howe. Good night from new york. Host and those comments coming just days before the 1960 election. Barbara perry on those closing messages. Guest notice kennedy focusing on movement, on moving forward. And both of them of course are focusing on freedom, because of the cold war and tangling with the communists, in particular the soviets. But kennedy was trying to distinguish himself as the person who would ultimately be the youngest elected president , at age of 43, replacing eisenhower, who at that time at age 70, was our eldest president we had ever had. So, he wanted to make that distinction. In nixons case, it is an irony it seems to me that he talks about the greatness of a president and the fact that we know ultimately how his career ended, and he is usually placed at the bottom in president ial rankings, whereas kennedy, if he is not among the greatest president s, those usually are viewed, for obvious reasons, as george washington, Abraham Lincoln, fdr. But that kennedy continues in the public consciousness to be at or near the top of peoples favorite president s or president s the most approve of i , think because he was young, because he was inspirational, and certainly because of the horrific way in which he died. There is this burning into the american psyche of his persona. But again, i think if you look back at those two closing statements, we could be proud of them as americans. I do love the reference nixon makes to the atheistic materialistic communists. That was the key issue at the time, and both candidates could agree on that. Host a good time to promote cspans president ial rankings survey a ranking of , all the greatest president s. You can find it on our website at cspan. Org. That survey of president ial historians putting Abraham Lincoln in first place, the 2017, survey coming in followed by franklin roosevelt, the util roosevelt, and dwight eisenhower. All available at cspan. Org, if you want to sort through those charts. As we hear from bill in northbrook, illinois an , independent. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. My question is this. The format to debates has remained the same for 60 years. It is, i think, a very unrevealing format. In that the people can have canned answers, canned responses. Now, the Lincoln Douglas debates, i mean, they debated a small topic of slavery in the territories. But to me, it would be far more revealing to have the two candidates discuss health care. What is the future of health care . What is Foreign Relations . Without a moderator, to just see what develops. In other words, i do not know why we have never really thought about the format of the debates. I would like to just hear your comments about what you think about this format. Guest bill, i like that idea. I like that idea of taking one topic, particularly Something Like health care. I know that they have topics lined up for this upcoming first debate on tuesday, and certainly that is one of them. The Supreme Court is another. The covid epidemic is another. So, they have about a half dozen but in that short period of , time, i think you are right, they dont get to really delve into it and they tend to come up with canned, pat answers. I question whether the lincolndouglas debate format where, as i understand it, that was for the senate in illinois, could stand up for an hour, go on each, then debate each other back and forth. I do not think we could hold onto an audience in this day and with each hour each candidate speaking. One format change that has happened since 1960 is the town hall format change. I am not sure we are going to be doing that this year, but i tend to like those better than having a panel ask questions. I think getting those questions from the American People can be very helpful. It can help us know what they are thinking about. Obviously those are carefully screened but i think back to the , 1992 debate with ross perot, George H W Bush and bill clinton, where someone asked a question about the economy and george h. W. Bush did not seem a relatable or relating to the question whereas bill clinton approached the person and said i come from a small state. If somebody loses a job, i tend to know who they are and what job they lost. And that was a turning point net in the 1992 election. Host that town hall format is happening this year in the second debate and we happen to know the moderator of that debate. Usually sits in this chair on sunday morning. Filling in for him this morning, just a few minutes left with Barbara Perry of the Miller Center at the university of virginia. This is terry in oregon, a democrat. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you so much. Miss perry, i have really enjoyed this segment with you. First i tweeted in my question, and i got so carried away with everything in watching the old clips, which i viewed on our tv at the age of about 12. I found it fascinating. Anything on tv at that time, you watched, and it was just great. My question is, is the women league of voters. Either this is going to be part of my contribution to the history, or i am going to get a History Lesson from you. But didnt we have the women league of voters, they ran those debates. They put pamphlets out. As a first time voter, for me, i found that really helpful and then it was taken over by i think corporations, if i am not mistaken. I will get off the air. Thank you so much. I will take your answer off the air. Bye. , really gooderri point. You are right on in terms of the history of the league of women voters. I believe the league over the took over the debates to run them as a Nonpartisan Organization that promotes voting. They ran them in 1976, 1980 and 1984. At that point as they let up to 1988, they really grew so disheartened by trying to deal with the two parties and the two sides and all the demands they were making, that they literally stepped out from organizing any further president ial debates, and it has been taken over by, not corporations, but the National Debate commission. And that has been led pretty well by the heads of the two parties. I think they have done as good a job as they can in putting these together. But i really liked having the league of women voters in control because, again, nonpartisan and always looking out for the good of the american electorate. Host elk grove, california. This is robert, a republican. Good morning. Caller good morning. Our current president is a businessman. Did nixon or kennedy have a business background, or did they come to the debates as politicians . There is a difference between the thinking of both groups. Guest neither man had gone into business or worked in business themselves, but in nixons case, his father was a small businessman, and not a very successful one. His father had run a Grocery Store in Southern California and had not done well in that business. The family was very poor. Had a number of children. Nixon had several brothers, a couple of whom ended up with tuberculosis, so they had Real Health Problems in the family. They had a hard time making ends meet. That is why nixon was not able to take advantage of his admission to harvard. In kennedys case, he certainly came from business. That is, his dad was a wall hollywood mogul. So, kennedy came from business but was not interested in going himself andess ha both of these men were military veterans, as i mentioned, from world war ii, nixon and kennedy, and then decided they wanted to serve their country as public servants. Host rose is in chicago, a democrat. Good morning. Caller hi. Just a little note, just because someone says they are a businessman does not actually mean they are a businessman. Donald, you know received , everything from his father. We are not sure what donald has done with business. Now, actually i was going to ask about the league of women voters myself, but barbara answered that. But getting back to the debates as far as fox or msnbc or cnn, i think that is sort of a great idea too. I think it was last week, steve scully had compared sean hannity to Rachel Maddow. So, Rachel Maddow is a rhodes scholar, so we could have her on the debates, and we could put sean hannity on the debate, and maybe bring wolf blitzer onto the debate. I think the three of them, having them debate on whether media should or should not be, since that is what we hear about the media all the time, might be a great avenue into talking about what brian lamb used to talk about, american exceptionalism. Out maybe we could find when america was great. Host that is rose in illinois. Barbara perry . Guest that scene has returned about having the debates among those in the news. Again, i like that as an opportunity to see how people think of things differently. If we could bring back our aller center friend, member of our board in such a lovely man, i would like it if jim would have been able to moderate the debate between fox and msnbc. Host in the last 30 seconds or so, i wonder, do you think a president ial campaign can happen any time in the future without president ial debates . Could there be what happened after that 1960 debate . A gap in having televised debates . Guest it is hard to imagine that would happen it is hard tot would happen. If one candidate says i am not going to debate, there was some talk about. Trump said he may not want to debate because the format and the operation of the debate was biased. If one candidate said i would not debate, the other would take issue with that. If both major candidate parties did not want to debate, they could step aside. Who knows what technology holds. I think we will have president ial and Vice President ial debates. Barbara perry of the university of virginias president ial center. Thank you so much for joining us on cspan and cspan3s American History tv. I appreciate the time. Guest thank you. My honor. Host you are watching American History tv, on cspan3. John f. Ratic senator kennedy of massachusetts and Richard Nixon met for the last of four debates prior to the 1960 president ial election. The debate focused on Foreign Policy issues and was moderated by quincy how of abc news. Quincy howe of abc news. The candidates debated questions posed by correspondence, including Walter Cronkite of cbs and John Chancellor of nbc. Senator kennedy prevailed over Vice President nixon in the election by a narrow margin. Im quincy howe of abc news saying good evening from new york, where the two major candidates for president of the United States are about to engage in their fourth Radio Television discussion of the present campaign