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Out With the Old
One
of the most historic events in the Post-World War II years, and one that
set the course for the Defining Generation, was the televised debate on
the evening of September 26, 1960. Though political debates were broadcast
on radio in 1948 and on television in 1956, this was to be the first
television broadcast of a debate between the Democrat and Republican
presidential nominees. Prior to 1960 a televised debate would have only
limited impact; in 1950 only one in ten American families owned a
television set. Ten years later the trend had reversed and only one in ten
American families DID NOT own a television set. For this reason, the
historic moment was witnessed by a large segment of American society,
estimated at 80 million viewers.
By 1960 most baby boomers
were entering their teens but were still too young to vote. Ironically
therefore, it was our parents who set the pace for the decade that would
eventually usher in a broader rejection of the traditional, and generate a
desire for something new and different. Much of this came as a result of
the Presidential election of 1960, which itself was decided in large part
on the basis of the first of four presidential debates.
These debates pitted Vice
President Richard Nixon against the younger-looking Senator from
Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy. Both men were members of the World War II
generation; and each had served as U.S. Naval Officers in the Pacific
Theater. At the time of the debates Nixon was 47 years old and Kennedy was
4 years his junior. Regardless of who won, the election marked the first
time since 42-year old Theodore Roosevelt ascended to the Presidency after
the death of William McKinley in 1901, that any man under the age of 50
would hold that office. In the years since Theodore Roosevelt, the average
age of our Presidents at inauguration had been 55.
Though the age difference
between the two candidates in 1960 was minimal, in the election campaign
of that year Richard Nixon came to represent the old, the traditional, and
the status quo. Eight years as Vice President marked him as a professional
politician, which perhaps for the first time since the election of Andrew
Jackson more than a century earlier, became a liability rather than an
asset.
Immediately prior to the
first debate Nixon had been ill and he was still suffering the lingering
effects of hospital recuperation. Despite this, the day before the first
debate the Vice President addressed five different rallies in Chicago,
then awoke early on the morning of the 26th for a speech to the
Carpenters’ Union. For the Vice President it was politics as usual. He
refused to rehearse for the televised event, insisting that he knew how to
debate, which indeed he had demonstrated through a successful political
career.
Nixon had chosen Chicago as
the site for the first debate; it was a city steeped in traditional
politics and recognized for all the dubious insider dealings that greased
the wheels of the establishment. He was first to arrive at the studio of
Channel 2, the CBS affiliate. While exiting his car he bumped his knee,
which was still healing from an infection. Shaking off the pain his face
could not belie, Nixon went into campaign mode and deftly working the
phalanx of television executives, photographers, and reporters. It was the
tried and true way of politics. This time, it didn’t work! |
