THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL TV DEBATE – A REMEMBRANCE – AT 8:51 A.M. ET:   The first-ever television presidential debate was held in Chicago on September 26, 1960, between Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon.

I was in Glenview, Illinois, that night, a place famous for the Glenview Naval Air Station.  I was a senior at the University of Chicago, but also working as an intern for U.S. Senator Paul Douglas.  Douglas, a distinguished liberal in the age of true (and great) national-defense liberals, had been a University of Chicago economics professor and a Marine hero of World War II.  He had also been the oldest man to ever go through Marine Corps boot camp.  He'd been 50 during that episode, in the midst of the war.  He bore permanent wounds – with no use of his left arm – from the battle of Okinawa. 

We watched the debate at a rally in Glenview.  All we had back then were a series of small-screen, blurry, black-and-white TV's.  Most in the audience, which of course was partisan Democratic, felt Kennedy had won.  Polls of radio listeners at the time had Nixon as the winner.  Kennedy looked superb, but Nixon was better on the issues.  Looks count.

We were told that Kennedy would ride out to Glenview after the debate to join the rally, and he did.  The atmosphere, of course, was electric.  The race was tight.  Polling was rudimentary compared to today, but the professional pols knew that this was going to be tough.  Kennedy was Catholic.  How would it play?  He was very young, seeking to succeed Dwight D. Eisenhower, who'd been a five-star general in the war in which Kennedy had been a young lieutenant.  There were stories of Kennedy being a playboy, not taking his work seriously.  There were rumors of a weak marriage.  Even many Democrats were skeptical.  Senator Douglas, a close friend of Kennedy's, described him to me as "brilliant but cold." 

But we were still excited.  Kennedy could, at his best, ignite a room.  And we disliked Nixon intensely. 

Kennedy was driven out to Glenview in a police car.  Not quite the caravan we have today.  I was sitting at a table with a group of Chicago politicians as the candidate arrived.  These were Chicago street Irish, not Boston upper-crust Irish.  They'd gone to the school of hard knocks, not Harvard.  They were proud that a Catholic was heading the ticket, but weren't all that crazy about him.  He was of them, but not by much.

Kennedy entered the room.  Burst of applause.  But the first thing we noticed was that his hands were shaking.  His face was drawn and tired.  My first thought was, "He wants to be president?"  Remember, this was an age of giants – Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower.  The pols around me were similarly unimpressed.   

Kennedy came to the lectern.  He started speaking.  He stumbled constantly.  He was obviously nervous, wondering how he'd done in the debate.  But we sensed he realized he'd done well.  He started reading the list of candidates he was there to endorse.  He stumbled again, getting many of the names wrong.  Frankly, it was embarrassing.   We wanted it to end.

He was only in the room briefly.  He wasn't impressive, but the impact of his debate performance – at least on those who saw it rather than those who only heard it on radio – would be lasting. 

That was a moment in history, a very human moment.  It taught me that presidents aren't characters in history books, but living, breathing people.  They can be on one moment, off the next.  They stumble.  Their hands shake. 

The next time I saw Kennedy was November 4th, 1960, in Chicago, when he proposed the Peace Corps.  He was a different man – confident, eloquent, forceful, and on his way to a narrow victory four days later.

October 3, 2012