Kennedy and the debate that changed everything

He is surely one of the most popular presidents of the 20th century. However, in 1960, John Fitzgerald Kennedy caused surprise by being nominated candidate of the Democratic camp. And it is thanks to a televised debate, a novelty, that he will definitively take the advantage over his republican adversary Richard Nixon. In the fourth episode of the podcast Mister President by Europe 1 Studio, Olivier Duhamel tells you how JFK rose to the top of power before being tragically murdered. 

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The 1969 election was the first election in the screen age, a sort of tele-election. Eisenhower has presided over the country for eight years. Very popular, it cannot however represent itself. The 22nd amendment to the American Constitution of 1789 entered into force a few years earlier. It now prohibits a President from serving more than two terms. It was just a custom, established by the first President George Washington at the end of the 18th century. Franklin Roosevelt did not respect it by being re-elected a third time in 1940 and a fourth in 1944. Hence the decision to amend the Constitution. For Republicans, Richard Nixon, Ike's vice president, seems the legitimate candidate. Coming from a very modest background, his father was a Methodist Protestant who raised his children according to the rules of this religion: neither drink, nor dance, nor swear. Nixon liked to quote Eisenhower: "We were poor but the splendor of this situation is that we did not know it". 

Quite the opposite of Nelson Rockefeller, grandson of an oil tycoon and a senator. The billionaire freshly elected governor of New York State wants a time to compete for the nomination. He goes around the country and finds that Nixon enjoys a very large number of support from the Republicans. He gives up. The Republican Convention, gathered at the end of July 1960, is no more than a formality for Nixon. Rockefeller not wanting the vice-presidency, it is a former senator who became the ambassador of the United States to the UN, Henry Cabot Lodge who is designated.

The JFK surprise

Nothing that simple among Democrats. Seven candidates vie for the nomination, including the majority leader in the Senate, Texan Lyndon Johnson, Minnesota senator Hubert Humphrey or the eternal candidate Adlai Stevenson. Johnson and Stevenson decide not to appear in the primaries. Remains Humphrey, son of pharmacist, passionate about politics, became mayor of Minneapolis in 1942, and senator of Minnesota in 1948. And the young forty-something man John Fitzgerald Kennedy, senator from Massachusetts. John, nicknamed Jack, 2nd in a family of 9 children, Joseph's son who made a fortune in the 1930s, notably by fiddling, or even in the illegal sale of alcohol during the Prohibition, and had decided to make one of his children the President of the United States, and son of Rose, herself the daughter of the mayor of Boston. JFK with brilliant studies, at the LSE in London, then the prestigious Harvard University. JFK who, on the orders of his father, ended his affair with a married Danish journalist, former Miss Denmark. Jack who married Jackie, the beautiful and elegant Jacqueline Bouvier in 1953. 

Surprise, JFK defeated Humphrey in the Wisconsin primary. His wife and brothers campaigned across the state. Humphrey comments after his defeat: "I felt like a small trader facing a chain of stores". He hopes to take his revenge in the primary of West Virginia, where the Protestants dominate. A televised debate is organized between the two contenders. Kennedy wins. And he won the primary with 60% of the vote. Humphrey gives up.

The matter is not settled however. Everything will be played at the Democratic Convention in mid-July in the city of Los Angeles. Johnson and Stevenson announced the previous week that they were candidates again. Many delegates have no affiliation. Kennedy is attacked on his health: his opponents say that he suffers from Addison's disease, an adrenal insufficiency which forces him to take hydrocortisone constantly. His press adviser, Pierre Salinger, denies and publishes a medical certificate. Johnson is the most dangerous rival for Kennedy. The Texas senator offers a televised debate to the delegates. JFK accepts. And wins. Robert Kennedy, the younger brother, works the delegates to the corps. JFK won in the first round with 53% of the votes (806 delegates) against 27% at Johnson, the rest divided among the other six.

The choice of the vice-president was not obvious, and history has not yet unraveled all its mysteries. What is certain: Kennedy proposed to Johnson to come on the ticket. Why ? Hoping that he refuses, according to some. To have the support that matters in the southern states, according to others. Third thesis: Kennedy was allegedly blackmailed by Edgar Hoover, the powerful boss of the CIA. He was threatened with revelations about his extramarital affairs, according to the secretary of Kennedy who declared, thirty-three years later, to have heard a conversation in this direction between the two brothers, John and Bob. In any event, Kennedy proposed Johnson as a candidate for the vice-presidency, which was unanimously accepted by the Convention.

Experience vs novelty

Each camp with its candidate, the real campaign begins. Nixon insists on its experience, which is lacking in its competitor. Kennedy insists on the need for novelty. Each of them mobilizes large and enthusiastic crowds, meeting after meeting. Nixon decides to campaign in each of the 50 states, Kennedy to focus on the most populous.

Nixon, the Republican candidate, has no shortage of assets. Eight years that he has been vice-president, that attests to his experience. At the start of the campaign, he was in the lead, narrowly but in the lead, in the polls. Disability: Eisenhower's blunder questioned in August about Nixon's contributions under his two terms, he replied: "If you give me a week, I might think of one. I don't remember". "If you give me a week, I may find one. I don't remember." A sign of Ike's great fatigue ... But the Democrats rushed at the opportunity and broadcast an advertisement: "President Eisenhower could not remember, but the voters will remember." "President Eisenhower does not remember, but voters will remember." Kennedy also has strengths, the desire for change, his charismatic look. And what is still considered a handicap: a Catholic has never been elected in a country which then has a quarter of Catholics and two thirds of Protestants.

The first televised debate

Neither candidate dominates until the decisive moment. 1960, we are in the middle of the Cold War. Fidel Castro has just come to power in Cuba, at the gates of the United States. Domestically, racial desegregation divides the country. The American people expect a true leader. Then comes the momentum, the decisive moment. On the evening of September 26, in Chicago, the national televised debate, the first between two presidential candidates, takes place on CBS in front of 30 million viewers. It is in fact broadcast simultaneously by the three major channels CBS, ABC and NBC which affect 90% of Americans! One hour during, between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., eastern time, 22 Eastern States time. On the merits, the two pretenders are fairly close, saying that we must strengthen national security in the face of communism, and offer a bright future for the United States ...

But bad luck covers Nixon. It started two weeks earlier when in the North Carolina campaign, one of his knees got infected after hitting a car door. Rebelote: he hits his knee when arriving for the debate. Nixon appears emaciated and with a waxy complexion. Kennedy, on the other hand, shows up fresh - he moved to a nearby hotel two days before to get ready and rest. Fresh and tanned. The two refused the proposed makeup, but Kennedy was put a bit before by his team. That of Nixon put a powder to him to mask his beard growing back too quickly. Problem, a part melts under the spots and lets pearl its perspiration. To make matters worse, he wears a gray suit that accentuates his waxy complexion, Kennedy chose a dark suit that highlights his smile. The Chicago Daily News headlines the next day: "Was Nixon a victim of makeup artist sabotage?" Let us add that Kennedy, with each of his interventions, looks at the camera - Nixon sometimes fixes the journalist who asked the question and even more the pendulum on the wall, which gives him a fleeting look. Revealing, we will learn that those who heard the debate on the radio found Nixon the best. Quite the opposite for those who followed him on television, the vast majority. Jackie Kennedy, six months pregnant, follows the debate with some friends from the family summer residence in Hyannis Port. Questioned by reporters at the end of the debate, she said: "I think my husband was brilliant". We learn that, on the other hand, Nixon's mother calls her son at the same time to ask him if he is sick. 

The following three debates do not allow Nixon to raise the bar. Yet he wins in Ohio, he leads in 26 states against 23 for Kennedy - two successes that have always allowed those who obtained them to arrive at the White House. But for the first time, not this time. Kennedy wins the election. Just in the popular vote: 49.7% against 49.5%. Clearly among the big voters: 303 against 219.

Half of the voters, polled after the election, will say that they were influenced by the debates and 6% that it is by the debates that they decided to vote. 6%: thirty times more than the 0.2% difference between the two candidates.

Lesson 5: A televised debate can make the election. The one between Kennedy and Nixon has gone down in history. Like that of 1974 when Giscard launched to Mitterrand: "You do not have the monopoly of the heart". But Kennedy will not rule long. A drama will turn everything upside down. To be continued in the next episode.

Mister President by Europe 1 Studio "is a podcast imagined by Olivier Duhamel

Preparation: Capucine Patouillet
Production: Christophe Daviaud (with Matthieu Blaise)

Editorial project manager: Fannie Rascle
Distribution and editing: Clémence Olivier
Graphic design: Mikaël Reichardt
Archives: European 1 sound heritage with Gérard Alcan (July 13, 1960) and Maurice Lemay (November 9, 1960)

English voice-over: Julie Delazin, Robert Thomson