TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=93HT1050> <link 93XP0443> <link 93XP0209> <title> 60 Election: Kennedy-Nixon Debate:Falling Leaves </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1960 Election </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> October 31, 1960 THE CAMPAIGN Falling Leaves </hdr> <body> Falling Leaves. Examining the tree leaves last week, nature lovers read the autumnal message written in color in the falling foliage: "Jack Frost was here." There was a comparable message to be read by the leaf rakers in the candidates' camps, but the delight was hardly as universal. It read: "Jack Kennedy Was Here." Inhaling the crisp autumnal political air, Democrats around the country sensed victory. Kennedy was more exhilarated and confident than ever. His sweep into New York City last week was a Niagara of ticker tape and enthusiasm. By contrast, the Republican mood was splotched with dark worries. Dick Nixon's entrance into New York hardly got any notice. He spent the few days before Debate No. 4 holed up in his Waldorf suite, chairing strategy sessions, and making no effort to match crowds in Democratic Manhattan. Evidence of the Kennedy surge was growing: the polls and the reporters showed that New York State (45 electoral votes) has moved into the Kennedy column. For Nixon and Lodge the word from California (32 votes) and Texas (24 votes) was more heartening. But the total picture was more uncertain for them than at any time in the campaign. Tired Rerun. The cumulative effect of the TV debates only served to underline the Nixon lag. Last week's go-round gave the Democratic candidate yet another chance to exhibit the Kennedy charisma--the smile, the cataract of words, the repeated promise to move forward--that has put Nixon at a disadvantage before the Big Eye. Debate No. 4 in itself gave little new substance to their views, though, as before, the tension of the confrontation made the occasion dramatic. The inflexible format and generally inept questioning by TV newscasters produced a disappointing, almost high schoolish, rerun of oft-stated positions and oft-used phrases on both sides. On the Cuba question, Nixon called Kennedy's assertion that the U.S. ought to encourage an anti-Castro revolt "probably the most dangerously irresponsible [statement] that he's made in the course of this campaign," and one that might lose the U.S. its friends in the U.N. and Latin America, perhaps lead to civil war and an "open invitation to Mr. Khrushchev." Kennedy countered that the U.S. economic embargo of Castro was too little and too late. And even though both Kennedy and Nixon now agree substantially on the Quemoy-Matsu policy, Nixon still wanted to hear Kennedy say, "I now will depart, or retract my previous views. I think I was wrong in 1955. I think I was wrong in 1959"--and as Nixon spoke, the TV cameras switched to a grinning Kennedy, a grin which better than words indicated how little he felt inclined to oblige. On the everlasting question of whether U.S. prestige is at an alltime high or alltime low, Nixon accused Kennedy of weakening the U.S. image by harping on its failures. On "every one" of Kennedy's criticisms, declared Nixon, the Democrat has been "wrong--dead wrong. And for that reason, he has contributed to any lack of prestige." Dead Mike. Kennedy rejoined with a flash of fire: "I really don't need Mr. Nixon to tell me about what my responsibilities are as a citizen. What I downgrade, Mr. Nixon," said he, "is the leadership the country is getting, not the country. You yourself said to Khrushchev [in the famed Kitchen Debate], `You may be ahead of us in rocket thrust, but we're ahead of you in color television.' I think that color television is not as important as rocket thrust." Shaking a forefinger at the Vice President, Kennedy insisted again that he shares Administration views that Quemoy-Matsu is a sore point with the U.S. Cried he, in the one moment of greatest heat: "I challenge you tonight to deny that the Administration has sent at least several missions to persuade Chiang Kai-shek's withdrawal from these islands!" As Kennedy completed his sentence, viewers saw Dick Nixon speak, but heard nothing, for his microphone was off. "I'll do better," Nixon started to say. But then he was cut off by the moderator. Pep Talk. When the debate was over, each man departed with hardly a word to the other. For the two weeks remaining in the campaign, each had set a grueling windup program for himself. Both were off on their final drives in the key Midwestern states. Each had to deal in his own way with the wind-whipped campaign foliage--the religion issue, the direction of U.S. economy and foreign policy--that seemed to hover stubbornly, like leaves that are swept from draft to draft and never seem to come to rest. With Jack Kennedy moving ahead, the heavier concern rested with Dick Nixon. In California last week, President Eisenhower had a quiet pep talk for nervous local Republicans: "I've been through a number of these campaigns, and there comes a time toward the end when the opposition looks 14 feet tall and everyone takes alarm. But pessimism never won a battle." What he said was heartening to Republicans: the fact that he found it necessary to say it was a measure of national G.O.P. concern. Jaunty Candidate. Ticker tape drifted over Broadway in vast, swirling clots. All the way to City Hall it sifted onto the block- deep mob that surged past police barricades, shoved between cars of the motorcade, slowed the parade to a hesitant crawl. Atop the back seat of an open convertible rode Jack Kennedy, grinning, waving, reaching out to touch one after another of the forest of hands; Wife Jackie sat beside him in white coat, hat, gloves and wide-eyed wonder at the crush ("It felt like the sides of the car were bending"). Even Mayor Robert Wagner, whose good Democratic organization had helped get out the crowds, recoiled like the sorcerer's apprentice at the milling million. Said Jackie, tugging at Jack's sleeve as he grabbed a microphone to make a speech: "Make it fast, Jack, make it fast--they're having a difficult time with the crowds." "I Love Him." It was the kind of difficulty that Jack Kennedy was learning to enjoy. Earlier in the week, in such Republican precincts as London, Ohio (pop. 6,000; registered Democrats: 380), he drew a surprising curbside turnout. One man held his young son high overhead for a clear view and shouted to the boy: "There he is, the next President of the U.S. I love him. I love him." Kennedy, relaxing with evident self-assurance, joshed the Londoners with effect: "There's a terrible rumor that this is a Republican community. I'm sure it's not true." They liked it. Kennedy's toughest chore of the week was to address the annual American Legion convention in Miami. Most Legionnaires remembered that in speaking against a Legion-sponsored veterans' pension bill in 1949, Kennedy said on the floor of the House: "The leadership of the American Legion has not had a constructive thought since 1918." Noting wryly in passing that he had "learned a good deal about the Legion, especially since 1949," Legionnaire Kennedy then delivered a call for strong defenses--suggested an airborne SAC alert, called for a crash program for Polaris and Minuteman missiles, a jet airlift for the country's conventional armed forces. Judging by applause, the Legion rated Jack Kennedy as its third choice--behind J. Edgar Hoover and Dick Nixon, who made headlines with a speech proposing a U.S. veto of any future admission of Red China to the United Nations and an economic "quarantine" of Castro's Cuba (next day, as if by prearrangement, the State Department ordered a U.S. embargo on shipments to Cuba). Like Casey. In Manhattan, Kennedy had another audience which, somewhat surprisingly, was not on his side. When he turned up for the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner at the Waldorf (a politician's command performance) in black tie and found Nixon in white tie and tails, he seemed so comfortable that Nixon was moved to comment that whichever man won the election would outlaw the agony of full dress. In his speech, Kennedy produced some spirited quips. Only the host, Francis Cardinal Spellman, he said, could have brought together at the same banquet table two political leaders "who have long eyed each other suspiciously and who have disagreed so strongly, both publicly and privately--Vice President Nixon and Governor Rockefeller." He went on to crack to this knowledgeable audience that Casey Stengel's firing was proof that "perhaps experience doesn't count." The $100-a-plate diners had already made it plain in their welcoming ovations that they were enthusiastically pro-Nixon. And on any applause meter, Nixon, who gracefully shelved partisan politics for the evening, came out ahead. But the pattern remained the same. Kennedy looked and talked like a man who knew he was in the lead and was willing to take a few irreverent chances. While Nixon dropped out of the public eye for three days, Kennedy stayed on the move, savoring the loud encouragement of enthusiastic crowds around New York whenever he stepped outside. New York's police commissioner wisely refused to play the usual numbers game about the Broadway ticker-tape parade, but agreed it might be the biggest since Lindbergh's in 1927. On other days, thousands waited through heavy rain to see Kennedy in suburban Yonkers, thronged against his 15-mile motorcade through Brooklyn. At first, opponents had put the enthusiasm in the Kennedy camp down to the Kennedyites characteristically aggressive confidence, then rated the enthusiasm as just bandwagon psychology, finally conceded that the spirit was based on a clear expectation of victory. Kennedy workers cautioned one another against overconfidence. Kennedy himself, observed New York Post Columnist Murray Kempton, acted "as though the campaign were over and there remained only the thanking of the troops." </body> </article> </text>