I think first of all, our own records prove that we know the way. There were essentially four debates between john f. Kennedy october 7, nixon, 1960, the second. October 13, 1960, the third. Time il o talk every speak about civil rights in the south . It is because i am preaching. It is a problem for all of us. It is a responsibility of leadership. I do it because we have to solve this problem together. I do it at this time khrushchev, because a man who has enslaved millions, man who has slaughtered thousands, we cannot have a situation where he can continue to point a finger at the usa and say we are denying rights to our citizens. Those trying to carry out the situation what will he do to provide fair employment . He has been the head of the committee on government contracts and he has not indicated his support of providing fair employment around the country so everyone can get a job regardless of their race, nor has he indicated that he would support title iii, which would give the internally attorney general additional powers to host we are back with Barbara Perry. 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 . The stations guest the stations, the channels. We had three basic channels at cbs. Time, nbc, abc, and we headed tv that only got two of the main channels. Only got totv that have the main channels, nbc and cbs. Some people might remember that for example Walter Cronkites interview 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 a 30 minute format. We were also coming off the 1950s quiz show scandals. We were trying to boost to boost their image among the public. They were trying to they approach the candidates and kennedy jumped on the idea because he knew television was his medium. Once he did, the nixon camp could not really refuse. Technological. Medium,ill a fairly new same for television in those days. Of theive us a sense 1960 campaign during dutch at time of the debates campaign at the time of the debates. Guest the cold war. The first debate was meant to be devoted to domestic policy, kennedy and his Opening Statement jumped right into the cold war, which must have put nixon off a little bit. 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 communists,ing the certainly the soviets but also the red chinese. At home there was a recession so kennedyn in 1958 kept bashing the Eisenhower Administration on that. M unemployment was high for 7 range. In the 6 , both candidates wanted to shy away from civil rights so as not to put the south off, but they wanted to attract the africanamerican vote. Medical care kennedy hit hard on that. Those were the basic issues foreign and domestic in 1960. Host who is considered the better debater . Uest i would say nixon nixon was a champion debater in college. He went to whittier college. He had gotten into harvard but he did not have the money to travel there. He had gotten a scholarship, but they did not have the money for incidentals. He had a bit of a chip on his shoulder because of that but he was an excellent debater. 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. 1960e time he gets to the debate, he is good too. He had an odd accent people were not used too. His mother always thought he talked to rapidly. I would say nixon had the edge, hiskennedy was nipping at heels and because he looked better in the first debate, he is usually viewed as the winner there. From that point on it was pretty much a draw. Host there is always focus on who the moderators are. Who were they in 1960 . Guest the names people would probably recognize would be those who went on to be anchors on their networks. Howard k smith was the first moderator. We also had people like frank mcgee who went on to be a moderator. Questions,ere asking some of them went on to be encouraged, most famously Walter Cronkite and don chancellor. The others, although i have paid a lot of attention, were still new to me. A lot of them were printed 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 those four names were household names. Host a twitter user rights and saying i remember the debates as a young person. Kennedy was inspirational. Accent was not. There was little need to fact check nixon was not. There was little need to fact check trade how times have changed. Can you comment on the role of the moderators . Impressive, even if one does not think nixon has nixon wasin some ways at his peak in 1960. He was not the nasty assassin nixon. His running mate before the nixon hadte said that an image from a fighting communists. I thought that he was sort of a balanced personality and he was not the socalled new nixon who recreated himself for the 1968 run. He kind of became the nixon of parody. He became a balanced nixon at that point. In terms of moderators and Fact Checking, people will notice both of these debaters are excellent debaters. They have their facts straight. They keep to the time limit so there is no intervention from the moderators. It goes very smoothly. It is quite nostalgic to think wouldnt it be great if we could have that kind of debate now . Host Barbara Perry are guest now as we look back 60 years to the first nationally televised president ial debate 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. Phone lines are split up as usual. Democrats, republicans, and independents. We will start with joe in pittsburgh, republican caller . Republican. Caller do you think nixons big mistake in 1960 besides looking so horrible in the first debate was this stupid 50 states a strategy he had that he promised to visit every state during the campaign . I think it was selfdefeating. My second question was obviously 0 debates were influential. Why were there no more debates and 1976 . 0 guest great question. The 50 state strategy i think joe is right it worked against nixon. I believe he was in an old mode. He was thinking of us. Campaigns of old where the more the candidate got out in the 20th century, the better off. More people saw because he had that period three weeks before the debate, he had an infection and had the flu, he ran himself ragged and continue to do that through the rest of the campaign. That backfired against him. Kennedy went to 48 of the 50 states himself but over a longer period of time. The question about why no more 1976. S until we get to Lyndon Johnson was not the most charismatic figure, so he did not want to debate in 1964. Very goldwater and kennedy who were friends from the senate odd about doing a whistle stop debate tour thought about doing a whistle stop debate tour. Who is running in 1968 but Richard Nixon . He was not going to go back and debate after his experience in 1960. Host we go to nicole in england incoal in england cole england this morning. Jfk, john f. Think kennedy is the best orator . Do you think thats why he won the 1960 election . Guest possibly one of the best rhetoricians in the presidency, i would say yes to that. He did not start that way. He was not a natural public speaker. He had taken public speaking lessons. I studied the relationship he had with eleanor roosevelt. She wrote to him in the early part of his presidency and said you need to take more voice lessons. 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. He had a lot going for him the time he got to 1960 and did to the presidency. I would rank him up there among the top rhetoricians in the presidency. Host did nixon and kennedy dislike each other in 1960 . Guest no, they did not. Congress at the same time. They both came in in 1947 and that is when they first met at the press club in washington. Y were both pale fellows hail fellows well met. A famous anecdote my friend Chris Matthews talks about in his book on nexen and Kennedy Nixon and kennedy, they went up to pennsylvania to do a debate because they were seen as the young up and comers in the democratic and republican parties and then they talked baseball. They hopped on the train into shared a burger on the way back sharedington and and a burger on the way back to washington. Politics we long for now where people can be friends across the aisle kennedy always said i opponents see my as enemies, i see them as adversaries. Guest along the same caller along the same lines, kennedy had a dry run when he debated senator humphrey as they were going for the nomination. Cspan had an opportunity to watch that debate and i was blown away by how two thirds with i agree with senator humphrey, i agree with i agree with senator kennedy. How did that opportunity help kennedy prepare for the debates against nixon in the general election . Guest that is correct. Short of the president ial candidates debating, we had some of that leading up to the 1960s yes, theyal debate, had debated. I think that helped but more to the point for kennedy was he loved it to chat and debate informally. His family was famous for doing that at the dinner table. Both of his parents promoted that. Reading this biography called from a random house, and in that biography he talks about kennedys time in the 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 made a note to themselves this guy is probably going to end up in politics. Carolina,igh, north this is bruce, republican, good morning. Youre on with the Barbara Perry. Guest caller what do you think about having a debate between the Networks Like cnn and fox news . I think it would be appropriate because there is all this talk about 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 and have them debate . Thosedo you think we get debates every night if you just flip the channels back and forth . Ander they dont sit there talk back and forth. An interesting idea. The way these debates came about in addition to the networks wanting to have them was there was a fellow called brett 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 and as an undergraduate at the university of maryland, he was a holocaust survivor. He believed the nation would benefit from hearing president ial candidates. He started writing to people in networks and ask them asking them to have debates. Idea t may be bruces maybe bruces idea of having to newscasters debate, go for it, bruce. The firstears since nationally televised president ial debates, showing viewers parts of those debates , including the third debates where the 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] it was declared that you owed a public apology for strong charges made by harry truman who doy suggested that the you believe you owe the Vice President and apology daca an apology . Way oftruman has his expressing things. He has been in politics for 50 years. It is not my style. I do not think there is anything i can say to president truman that will coerce him at the age. F 70 maybe misses truman can. Any comments, mr. Vice president . Of course senator kennedy and i and ielt trumans desire think he can speak with feeling on this subject. We all have tempers. 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 numbers of children who come out to see the president ial candidate. I see Mothers Holding their babies up so they can see a man who may be president of the United States. I know senator kennedy sees them to. 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 down to. Host what do you take away from that clip . Guest that is one of my favorites. Im so glad you all chose that one. Let me tell you about morden, who was the head of the rnc. Hewas a kentuckian and became our senator after. A great statesman. I love this clip because it has three profiles first of harry truman. There is an old story of truman taking from some friends of his wife and at one point he used the word manure. Besss friends were scandalized by his use of the word manure. Kennedys wit and how he dealt with that, that was typical of him to diverge attention away from what might be a difficult question, but get a gleam in his eye and turn up the grin. He handled it well. For Richard Nixon, it was poignant to me because todays before the second debate, my mother 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 i got there early and stood in front of the podium so you could see him. What he is saying is true. It is ironic as we know how his presidency ended and he was not the kind of person people could look up to because of the scandal of the watergate. Anding about harry truman his colorful language, both kennedy and nixon could swear like this so sailors they had been in what two. In world war ii. Caller in a president ial debate, what should we be listening for . Really important question, isnt it . I would be listening for facts. It is always good to know that those who may 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 helpful to understand that they know what is happening and especially since we are facing at least three crises at this time with covid, racial unrest, and obviously and the economy that is lagging in part because economy that is lagging in part because of covid. It is important to know that they can be fluent in speaking about those facts and informing the nation, that and basic personality types are important. Previous tweets that we showed, the viewer brought in Fact Checking. Where there such a thing as Fact Checkers in those first debates . Guest im not sure because this was such a new format that they formally had Fact Checkers. Checkingdates were each other in real time. They were checking each other for what they had said on the stump or they were checking each other on their careers and how they had voted in the past. 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, but they would look into the camera and to speak and speak fluently and with knowledge and with a great care given to analysis. Host do we know how Many Americans watched those debates in 1960 live or listen live on the radio . Guest we do. We believe upwards of 70 million. Rds of 66 million tuned in for the first debate. 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. There was a bit of a captive audience. Host one of the stats from cnn host one of this thats from cnn, some 28 Million People watching debates between Hillary Clinton and donald trump. Guest guest a lot less guest , because we did not even have 200 million americans in 1960. Once kennedy was elected, the same was true for his first rest conferences which famously went live and were in prime Time Press Conferences which famously went live and were in prime time. Host st. Petersburg, florida, paula, republican. Caller i am enjoying this segment. I remember back during that time and i was not able to vote, but at the time i probably would have voted for kennedy. I think a lot of people were enthralled with him and then the past i have i voted for president carter. I always try to vote for the man or woman who would be the best, and i just wish we could get back to that respect between our candidates, what you were talking about, and the Fact Checking is so important today. I am enjoying this very much and it brings back a lot of memories for me. Host thank you, paula. Inst i want to note that one debate there was a question about party labels, and both candidates i think related really to what paul is saying. She chooses the candidate for as who wouldd vote be the best man or woman for the job. Candidates were saying, dont vote for me because i am democrat or republican but vote for me because im qualified, experienced, ready from day one to be president. Of recentature president ial debates, the spin room, the attempt by each side to immediately claim their candidate won the debate. What happened immediately after the 1960 debates . Was there anything like that . Guest i cant find it if there is. I think because these were so to remembero have the difference in technology on cameras, for example. It took a lot of time for those big, heavy cameras to warm up so they would have had the cameras in place, get the candidates and their people there. It was not the kind of spin room phenomenon we have now. I could find that at least in private, the candidates were talking to their advisors about the debate. Kennedy was pleased with his performance in the first debate, and he called up his pollster, lou harris, and said, i think i can take him. They talked about it privately. Nixon knew he had not done well