How Did Nixon Fumble the First TV Debate?

HISTORY This Week

This episode explores the historic first televised presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960. It details the beh

Key takeaways

• CBS President Frank Stanton lobbied for years to amend Section 315 of the Communications Act to allow televised debates without minor candidates.
• Richard Nixon entered the debate physically compromised by a 102-degree fever and a recent knee infection.
• The 'myth' that Nixon won the radio audience while Kennedy won the TV audience is largely unsupported by historical marketing data.
• Kennedy utilized modern media strategies, including studying camera angles with producer Don Hewitt and using specific lighting adjustments.
• Nixon's reliance on 'Lazy Shave' powder and his physical state contributed to a visual perception of illness on screen.

Main topics

• 1960 Presidential Debate
• Impact of Television on Politics
• Frank Stanton and CBS News

Notable quotes

Nixon looks like death.

Conclusion

The episode provides a nuanced correction to the simplified narrative

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) The History Channel original podcast. Speaker 3 (0:03) History This Week, September 26th, 1960. I'm Sally Helm. Speaker 3 (0:16) CBS Studios, Chicago. CBS president Frank Stanton is down in a low-ceilinged garage by the loading dock, surrounded by reporters and other TV execs. Everyone is waiting because presidential nominees Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon are on their way to the studio. They're going to debate live on TV. for the first time in American history. Up until recently, a televised presidential debate like this one wasn't even legal. And no one really knows how it's going to go. But as it turns out, the die seems to be cast from the very beginning. Vice President Nixon arrives first in a sleek sedan. It pulls through the garage door and up to the loading dock. Nixon starts to step out of the car, but then... He bangs his knee so badly that he can barely stand. It must feel to the vice president like he's got some kind of knee-banging curse because he has only just gotten out of the hospital after an infection in his knee that he got hitting it on another car door. He still has a 102-degree fever. And from the moment he steps out of the car for this first-ever televised debate, Things just go from bad to worse to legendarily terrible. It is a story that people still tell to explain the state of American politics, even many decades later. Today, the Kennedy-Nixon debate. How did the country decide to allow television to enter presidential campaigns in such a big way? And was it really JFK's mythical good looks that won the day? Or is that just how we've come to remember it? Speaker 4 (2:20) Okay. Are you ready? I'm ready. Speaker 3 (2:22) The 1950s was the decade when TV really took off. By 1960... Speaker 1 (2:28) It's part of American daily life. This is people's evening recreation. Speaker 3 (2:36) David Greenberg, professor of history, journalism, and media studies at Rutgers University. Speaker 1 (2:41) It's cutting into moviegoing because now television is the main form of entertainment. Speaker 3 (2:48) But some people think TV could be more than entertainment. People like CBS president Frank Stanton. Stanton joined CBS when he was in his early 20s. A little more than a decade later, he's running the place. And he's an early advocate for TV. He thinks it could be a bona fide public service. So he makes some changes. He'll expand the nightly news slot. Speaker 4 (3:14) Good evening from our CBS newsroom in New York. Speaker 3 (3:17) Create a weekly investigative series called CBS Reports. Speaker 4 (3:21) This is CBS Reports. Speaker 3 (3:23) And set his sights on his personal white whale. A live, televised presidential debate. Speaker 3 (3:33) Stanton knows a debate would be a ratings bonanza, but he also thinks it would help voters make more informed decisions. Speaker 1 (3:41) There is an understanding that there is some value in having the American public see these two competitors side by side, size them up, take their measure, hear their policy positions, see what their personality is like, and that... A live televised debate in particular would be able to convey that in ways that simply reading their position papers would not be able to satisfy. Speaker 3 (4:10) There's a big obstacle in his way, though. A federal law. Section 315 of the Communications Act, which basically said that broadcasters had to give equal airtime to all candidates running for the same office, even the fringe ones. If Speaker 1 (4:27) you had these... top two candidates from the two major parties, but you also have to include all these minor party candidates, which would turn the thing into kind of a circus or freak show. Speaker 3 (4:40) To do this the way that Frank Stanton imagines it, you'd actually have to change the law. And starting in the early 1950s, that's exactly what he tries to do. He testifies before Congress. writes op-eds in the papers, trying to convince lawmakers and the public that Section 315 is getting in the way of the democratic process, that it's limiting election coverage because broadcasters are too afraid of equal time challenges. But Congress is worried that unequal coverage of candidates could swing elections, and they don't want to give TV execs that kind of power. In the end, the whole question kind of fizzles because Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican nominee, gives Stanton a flat-out no to a debate. He won't do it. And then he stays in power for eight long years. But in 1960, Eisenhower's on his way out. So Stanton is trying again. And the stakes of this election really couldn't feel higher. Speaker 1 (5:45) This was sort of the peak of the Cold War. Nuclear anxieties were running high. The arms race was accelerating. And so there was a real concern about who is going to lead the country, who is going to help face the threat of communism without leading us recklessly into what could be a war that could blow up the planet or certainly wreak tremendous damage. Speaker 3 (6:09) Stanton's like, voters should be seeing and hearing from the guy with the nuclear codes. And Congress actually seems more receptive. But Stanton will also have to get the candidates on board. Washington, D.C., 1960. Frank Stanton walks down the halls of Congress to Lyndon Johnson's door. Speaker 3 (6:35) Johnson is the Senate majority leader, and he's a major contender in the Democratic primaries. He and Stanton go way back. Johnson is in a meeting when the CBS president shows up at his door, but he stops mid-conversation and says, in a friendly way, what the goddamn hell do you want? Stanton pitches him on the debate, and Lyndon Johnson is not interested. But he says, why don't you ask Jack? John F. Kennedy pokes his head out from behind a wingback chair and says hello. Stanton didn't know that's who Johnson was meeting with, but Kennedy is another contender for the Democratic nomination. So Stanton asks him, would you do the debate if you win the primary? Kennedy smiles and says, sure. A couple months later, in July of 1960, Kennedy wins the Democratic nomination, with Johnson as his VP. Speaker 4 (7:27) Let me say first that I accept the nomination of the Democratic Party. Speaker 3 (7:31) And things are looking good for Frank Stanton. There's real movement in Congress around changing the law. But there is, of course, one other person that he has to convince. The Republican nominee, Vice President Richard Nixon. Speaker 2 (7:47) On the one hand, this is an easy sell. Nixon was a champion Speaker 3 (7:52) debater at Whittier College. Debate is famously his strong suit. And he had shown that before on national television. Speaker 4 (8:01) He Speaker 1 (8:02) has a debate with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in an exhibition kitchen in the late 50s. Speaker 3 (8:10) It's called the kitchen debate. It's not a formal debate exactly. There's no moderator or anything. But Nixon and Khrushchev wind up going head to head. And it's broadcast back in the U.S. To the American public, Vice President Nixon emerges as the clear winner. Speaker 1 (8:29) He returns, I wouldn't say conquering hero, but certainly