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Oct 4, 2012 · Yet if you heard the event on radio, Vice President Richard M. Nixon was the clear winner. That was the assessment of 60 Minutes founder Don Hewitt, the producer-director of the first-ever ...
Sep 26, 2017 · But Kennedy had debate experience in the primaries and said, “Nixon may have debated Khrushchev, but I had to debate Hubert Humphrey.” The debate took place in Chicago and CBS assigned a 38-year-old producer named Don Hewitt to manage the event. Hewitt went on to create “60 Minutes” for CBS.
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- HISTORY Vault: U.S. Presidents
When John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon squared off in America's first televised presidential debate in 1960, image suddenly mattered—more than ever.
The “Great Debates,” as they were billed, had attracted enormous attention even before Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon stepped in front of the cameras at CBS studios in Chicago. There had never been a true presidential debate prior to 1960, but the two candidates had agreed to square off in four of them during the run-up to Election Day.
Even more groundbreaking was that the meetings would be broadcast on television. Voters had previously known their politicians only as voices on the radio or pictures in the newspaper. Now, for the first time in history, the candidates would have the chance to speak “face-to-face” to the roughly 70 million Americans watching the debates from the comfort of their living rooms.
America 101: Why Do We Have Presidential Debates?
John F. Kennedy knew the debates could be the shot in the arm that his campaign needed. The 43-year-old Massachusetts senator had emerged from relative obscurity to become the Democratic nominee, but he was still struggling against the perception that he was too inexperienced to be Commander in Chief. He spent the hours before the contest cramming his head with facts and figures and having his aides quiz him on possible debate questions.
Knowing that his face would be beamed to millions of black and white TV sets, he also took a long nap and worked on his tan on the roof of his Chicago hotel. When Kennedy finally arrived at CBS studios on the evening of September 26, he was rested and ready for action. Even Richard Nixon later wrote that, “I had never seen him looking so fit.”
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Oct 15, 2020 · The first debate between any two presidential candidates in the general election was held in a Chicago TV studio between Vice President Richard Nixon, andSenator John F. Kennedy. RICHARD NIXON: I agree with Senator Kennedy's appraisal generally in this respect. JOHN F. KENNEDY: I think Mr Nixon is an effective leader of his party.
60 Minutes founder Don Hewitt directs Richard Nixon before the first-ever televised debate in 1960. Nixon debated a young, Sen. John F. Kennedy.
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Sep 26, 2005 · The presidential debate between Sen. John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon in 1960. WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The first televised debate between presidential candidates, which took...
