JFK+50: Volume 5, No. 2101
KENNEDY-NIXON DEBATES NOTHING LIKE CLINTON-TRUMPWashington, D.C. (JFK+50) Michael Collins of the USA Today Network writes in a front-page story in today's Knoxville News-Sentinel that the "Kennedy-Nixon debates were civil---unlike Clinton-Trump."
Collins says that JFK's debate adviser, fellow Senator Al Gore Sr. of Tennessee, told him to NOT call Vice-President Richard M. Nixon a liar, but to "....be quick to point out inconsistencies."
Michael Collins reminds us that in last week's second debate between Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump, that the latter branded the former not only as a liar but also "called her the devil" and to top it off "threatened to throw her in jail" if he is elected POTUS.
Senator Gore, who discussed his role in the 1960 Debates in an oral interview for the JFK Library in 1964, suggested to his party's nominee...
"Do not try to discuss topics in detail. Keep hammering away. Sooner or later Nixon will feel the pressure and begin to make mistakes."
Despite the fact that the first debate focused on domestic issues, Senator Gore urged JFK to be wary that Nixon might bring up Soviet Chairman Nikita Khrushchev's visit to the United States "to score points."
So Senator Kennedy brought it up first by saying even though they were discussing domestic issues...."I would not want...any implication to be given that this does not involve directly our struggle with Mr. Khrushchev for survival."
It is widely agreed that JFK won that first debate with Nixon and that was a huge factor in his narrow election victory in November 1960.
SOURCE
"Kennedy-Nixon debates were civil--unlike Clinton-Trump," by Michael Collins, USA Today Network--Tennessee, Knoxville News-Sentinel, October 17, 2016, www.knoxnews.com/
Second Kennedy-Nixon Debate
WRC-TV, Washington, D.C.
October 7, 1960
UPI Photo
