The big 5 myths of the Kennedy-Nixon debate!
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Fifty years ago today, John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon faced off in the first televised presidential debate in US history. The upstart Kennedy came off as cool and collected, while the vice president sweated under glaring TV lights—a result that many say eventually won Kennedy the hard-fought contest. Now, JFK speechwriter and confidante Ted Sorensen debunks six myths from that debate in today’s New York Times:
- Kennedy was nervous: “Kennedy—who had no debate coach and almost never rehearsed—arrived in Chicago the day before the debate and, after a long morning reviewing potential questions and issues in the sunlight on his hotel roof, was sufficiently relaxed to nap. (Nixon, by contrast, had holed up for the weekend in a hotel suite with a debate coach.)
- Nixon ‘won’ on the radio: Even without the visuals of Nixon sweating, listeners in the second debate could still hear the veep’s “surprising reluctance to disagree with or even answer Kennedy on many points.”
- Kennedy won on delivery and looks. “There was far more substance and nuance in that first debate than in what now passes for political debate in our increasingly commercialized, sound-bite Twitter-fied culture, in which extremist rhetoric requires presidents to respond to outrageous claims.”
For the rest of Sorensen’s list, including whether the debates swung the election to Kennedy, click here.
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Kennedy was a natural speaker with the ability to inject humor with perfect timing.
Nixon was a insecure schemer who lacked wit and the ability to think on the fly. Not saying he wasn’t intelligent, just not quick.
The debates were probably a poor decision on Nixon’s part as it highlighted Kennedy’s strength and exposed Nixon’s weakness.
Interesting man.I’d always believed most of those,except for the “Kennedy nervous” one and probably only cause I’d never heard it.
As I was 2 years old I missed it.
I’m so so glad I was 2 years old…;-)