The Mother of All Debates: Nixon v Kennedy. September, 1960

Inasmuch as we are in an American election season, and we’ve got hundreds of political debates and Cialis commercials under our belts (joke) and more to come, for some odd reason I felt like revisiting the mother of them all. This was Kennedy and Nixon in 1960. 

I actually watched this live myself at the late age of 8.  Nostalgia was part of the re-visitation, but I also wanted to see what has changed in political rhetoric in about a half-century.

Here’s the link to the debate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbrcRKqLSRw

And to the transcript:

http://bit.ly/1U8dJkI

I plowed through these both today and found a lot of interesting stuff.  And I expect that you shall too.

If you want to read any further on the post, please be advised that there is history, personal experience, and personal opinion below, full stop(.). 

 

Fair disclosure:  my father wrote radio and television advertising for Kennedy and other Democrats prior to and after Kennedy.  That influenced me quite a bit and it gave me access to things like policies and ideas that were debated via both dominant parties in our living room.  I was enlisted by my parents to campaign for Kennedy in our small town, passing out leaflets, lapel buttons, and so forth.  I gave these things to kids at my school to take them home.  I did what I could.  Come to think of it, I got to understand the whole democratic process as a result.  Most stuff went way over my head.  But even then I realized that if you could explain all this to me, maybe a lot of other people might want to hear the same explanation, regardless of age, where they lived, who they were, or what they do.   Unfortunately, few could do this which is why politics turned to TV so as to distill political and economic concepts into metaphors like groceries in a few seconds. 

In the U.S. in 1960 television had only been around for maybe 15 years or so in a black and white format, but it took a while to make these appliances affordable and distributed.  But by 1953 or so in the U.S., you could have a TV up and running in your home, which my family did.  Like radio, years and years before it, the whole shebang was financed by advertising and programming whose staple was entertainment and news.

Thanks to a steady diet of radio, television and whatever printed material I could get my hands on, at age 6 or 7, the framework of the world was taking shape.

It seemed to me that Dwight Eisenhower, whom we didn't like, was a stale old bald guy and anybody associated with his administration was blah. I knew he was the war hero and I'd already consumed several years of war films so I pretty much knew what the back story was, including his WWI record.  But even as a kid I knew that America had become incredibly boring.

I was already reading science fiction.

When the Sputnik was launched in 1957 and I saw it overhead (I really did), then there seemed to be a way out of the boredom and into space.

The whole idea of transitioning from the 1950's to a new era beginning with "1960" really excited me. For some reason, I felt like the International Geophysical Year (http://bit.ly/1RxbLFI) was some kind of leap into this new decade. 

 

I also knew that Communism was the big enemy. It wasn't the Nazis, like in the movies, it was Communists.  There's always an enemy, right?

And I also knew about atom bombs, because when you were my age, you were expected to deal with and be destroyed by them at any minute.  People were creating bomb shelters, which I studied, but my parents didn't seem to be interested. (next installment: Cuban Missile Crisis).  For a couple of months, at age 7, I wanted to be a nuclear scientist, but neither I nor anyone else knew what they did or how you become one at age 7, so I wandered around the house in a lab coat for a few days and then abandoned that idea, although the lab coat came in handy for other pursuits.

Everything around us was changing. Look at architecture, fashion, publishing, music, writing, aeronautics, graphic design, and thousands of other pursuits at the time: 1960.  To be honest, there wasn't much visible commercial tech change until several years later (color TV), but they'd invented transistors and if you had a transistor radio you could go to the beach with it and do whatever you want.

As for the car industry, not much tech innovation there either other than slicking up the old steel with fins, some interesting design, color and commercials.  Seatbelts were not yet part of the deal.  In retrospect, I have to credit Eisenhower for the highways and transportation infrastructure he created.  However, a pretty dramatic increase in highway deaths were part of what you got at that time.  Most of them from new cars with fins.

Now, here you have your entire life (of 8 years) on this cusp and there is this American presidential election which is basically about doing lots of boring stuff that has been done in the past versus doing things that look like the kind of space age things you ought to do when you go from 1959 to a new decade and a new future.  Then here comes a night in September 1960 when I get to watch Kennedy and Nixon debate on live TV.  

The future, in my mind, is at stake.  

Kennedy turns up in a dark suit and is as smooth as silk.  Nixon is in an ill-fitting grey suit with buttons that he couldn't figure out and he is sweating.  There was a makeup duel between the two that would later be revealed, but what I remember was that Kennedy edged the debate into something about a new future while Nixon dwelled on defending Eisenhower's administration and stuttered.  I mean literally stuttered.

Everything that dealt with farm subsidies, congressional bills here and there, votes in the senate, social security, and all that, meant nothing to me at the time.

But from this debate, Kennedy managed to form an armature of a presidency that would care for people in this country, support and encourage young people, reach out to third worlds, and stand firm against what seemed or was an over-reach of the USSR.

 

That first televised debate created today's concept of being “telegenic”: very good on the camera, passionate, cool, intelligent, well-dressed, organized, thoughtful, and caring.  Today you could argue that narcissism, lies, bluster, mugging, slandering, threatening, cursing, and general theatrics have taken over debates on television.  I hate to say this (no I don’t), but it’s like when I used to go into the zoo and went into the “monkey house” and the things start freaking out, screaming, jumping all around, and then you have to leave really fast. 

When I viewed this replay, I was taken by how polite Kennedy and Nixon were to each other.  Nixon in particular was incredibly gracious and on revisiting this, decades later, I am surprised by that.  Nixon of course was a snake, and Jack Kennedy was not exactly an angel when it came to getting his way.  But the decorum in the debate is rather impressive by contrast to what we get with the current bloom of spitters that get on a stage and make advertisers really happy by yelling, throwing punches, and cavorting; no different from prize fights, monkey houses, and “reality” TV shows, which at least one current candidate seems to know a good bit about. 
   

Surprisingly, the topics aren't actually that different, although as you would expect, the economic frames of reference are.  The Republicans voting down a bill for a minimum hourly wage of $1.25 cents, as revealed by Kennedy, is of note.

Also during the debate, one of the reporters brings up President Eisenhower’s response to a press query about what Nixon had actually achieved while serving as Vice President.  His response, “Give me a week and I’ll think of something”, was probably one of the most scathing rebukes by any boss anywhere, much less coming from the President of the United States.  Faced with this question, Nixon stutters and goes into some kind of bizarre and wandering litany of various countries he visited as Vice President and made recommendations about, none of which he seems to know if anyone paid any attention to.  He briefly mentions 300 students from the Congo.

In cutaways, we see Kennedy watching this mess happen and Nixon is starting to sweat profusely.  Kennedy was one of the most elegant gentlemen.  He looked like he was carved out of Mount Rushmore while this meltdown was going on just a few feet from him. 

In this bit of history, we look for similarities to what’s going on today.  There are quite of few and if you watch this, I’m sure you will find more.

In his comments Kennedy specifically mentions Jimmy Hoffa, who led a labor union known for, let’s say, running things, and he was like Al Capone in Chicago; knocking off, paying off, and generally terrorizing anyone he wanted to in the country.  If you’re looking for analogy to the flag of maniacs today who spray assault weapons, do some research about Hoffa’s organization

Balancing budgets, deficits, social security, tax revenue, state responsibility versus federal, helping aged people, subsidizing farmers, lousy education, defeating Russians – it’s all in there and it’s all the same!  This is 56 years ago!  Kennedy by the way is the only one to mention racial inequality. 

At the time, we were worried about the Soviets atom bombing and taking over America.  Sound familiar?  For years prior we had a nuclear escalation with the Soviets, but it was Kennedy who, once elected, drew the line and got their ass out of Cuba, which was just a little too close for comfort.  That was another event covered live by television.  Today, unfortunately, Cold War II is pretty much in progress, but I’ll leave that analysis to others

.

When Kennedy was elected, we had the sense that we had a guy who could really sail this country and I had the personal sense that he was going to do something with 1960, the future, and beyond.

 

I cannot describe my delight at watching President Kennedy’s inauguration speech in January, in which he said we were going to the moon.  If there was a symbol of stepping out of the first 60 years of the 20^th Century, this was it.  And I was onboard. 

 

Kennedy taught me about how to advance rights for people in the U.S., how to understand people around the world, how to be selfless and volunteer when I can, and he told me to get educated and serve.  “Ask not what your country can do for you, but for what you can do for your country.”

 

I’ve done my best in my life, however limited, in his honor.

The only reason I’m serving this up is so we can get a little perspective while we have the opportunity to choose someone who is not going to embarrass, invite retaliation, or otherwise cause more harm to the United States than it has already invited.

I always hated Richard Nixon and still do.  He was a complete fraud and a criminal and then ultimately became President thanks to people who felt that getting a Republican into office was useful.  Spiro Agnew, his Vice President, went down before Nixon for his own criminal activities.  Then Nixon went down because of his own criminal activities, embarrassing this country like you can’t believe.

Donald Trump, current front runner in the Republican field in the presidential race, has more legal and moral garbage trailing behind him than Nixon ever did, all of which will pile up upon the American people when his motorboat starts slowing down.

Basically his whole career has been primping, bullying, preening, doing hair, suing people, getting sued, not settling, going to court, paying a lot of accountants and lawyers, paying people to write books about him, licensing his fake name (which is really Drumph), selling snake oil real estate all over the world, losing money in huge speculative real estate bets, bankruptcies, threatening everybody that does or doesn’t do business with him, buying the Plaza, divesting Atlantic City holdings, selling the Plaza, creating specious things like Trump University which has done nothing other than create more lawsuits, creating nauseating television programs (reality?) for himself, wearing red ties, creating some kind of lousy wine brand as well as wine-flavored condoms that don’t work terribly well, and wedding hot chicks (immigrants) from Eastern Europe (what, American girls aren’t good enough?), dumping those that get a bit older.  And, hello, we have no experience in government other than throwing money (bribe?) at politicians!!

Everything he has done, be it golf courses, high-rise condo buildings with his name on them, various other real estate and business deals, has been for the 1% out there and that's where his life, contacts, experience, and complete orientation is. If you do not have a net worth of at least $10 million, you are ignored and that's that. 

But -- and this important -- we have some kind of multi-billion-dollar outfit (business?) based on real estate (real?) whose “valuation” fluctuates by billions depending on the season, the setting, currency rates, the context, what money is coming in from squeezers, and who’s looking at court settlements, violations, IRS issues, and so forth.  Determining the solvency, conflicts of interest, and the actual value of Trump’s empire would take 20 years.

Nixon was a choir boy compared to this cat. 

 

If you want to see another corrupt President of the United States go down like Nixon, vote Trump. 

 

Yes, the world is different from when I was 8.   But you don't learn from history unless you look at it.  Even if, it's again.  Or for the first time.

Fly me to the moon.  (CUE SINATRA)