January 15, 2011 06:23 PM UTC

The first Kennedy - Nixon debates - 1947

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• by: allyncooper

The Kennedy Nixon televised presidential debates in 1960 are of course well known. Many believe Kennedy, establishing himself as a worthy adversary against the more experienced vice-president, won those debates and it made the difference in his razor thin victory over Nixon for the presidency. ( That and perhaps the dead people who voted for him in Chicago, but I digress).

However that wasn’t the first time John Kennedy and Richard Nixon went one on one. In 1947 in my hometown of McKeesport,  Pennsylvania, a blue collar steel mill town outside of Pittsburgh,  the two young Congressmen met at the Penn McKee Hotel at the invitation of the local Chamber of Commerce to debate the Taft Hartly bill that was under consideration by Congress. Taft Hartly was an anti – union bill that Nixon supported and Kennedy opposed. Not surprisingly it was agreed that Nixon won that debate given the 150 pro business attendees, with Kennedy even receiving some catcalls when advocating a point not popular with the Chamber of Commerce crowd.

In 1984 Frank Gannon, who had been a Nixon White House staffer and gone on to a career in journalism, did a series of interviews with Nixon, and Nixon related the story of that first debate.

He (Kennedy) was very young looking, and of course he was about three years younger than I. I was thirty-three at that time, and he was about twenty nine or so. We were both thin, and remained that way, and I’ve taken on a little more weight, but let’s face it, we were young. And I remember -the thing I remember about Kennedy more than anything else in that period was when we debated. Well the first debate was not in the ’60 campaign, where 70 million people listened to the first presidential debate on TV, but the first one was in a little town called McKeesport, Pennsylvania.

The silver haired congressman, Democratic congressman, from that District, very much of a go-getter, by his local Chamber of Commerce had been asked to get a couple of young congressman to come and debate the Taft-Hartly Act. And he talked to me, and he talked to Kennedy, and we both agreed to go. I don’t know why we did it, but you know, we didn’t get many invitations in those days, and there was no honorarium. And so we went up and debated before the Chamber of Commerce. I think I had a little of the better of it, because I think the Chamber of Commerce were more on my side. But be that as it may, it was very friendly and gentlemanly, and we expressed our opinions on the Taft Hartly Act.

We went back by train to Washington from McKeesport. It was a night train because we had to get back for a vote the next day. And so we drew as to who got the upper berth and who got the lower berth, and I won, one of the few times I did against him. I got the lower berth, but it didn’t make a lot of difference, because all night long, going back on the train, we talked about our experiences in the past, but particularly about the world and where we were going and that sort of thing. I recall that was the occasion too, as we were going back on that train, we—I told him about me being stationed at Vella LaVella, and found that his PT boat had put in there, and we reminisced about whether we might have possibly met on that occasion. So we each assumed we did.

Two young congressmen, one born of privilege and wealth, the other of hardscrabble roots, whose lives were inextricably linked in history.   Both would go on to the presidency – and both would have their presidencies end suddenly before their terms,  John Kennedy’s of course from fatal wounds on that tragic day in Dallas,  Richard Nixon’s  from the self-inflicted wounds of a paranoid personality that in the end was judged unacceptable by a nation weary of deceit and dishonesty.

A personal historical footnote:  My father also served in the US Navy in WWII and was stationed at Vella LaVella for a time, so he may very well have met fellow Navy men Jack Kennedy and Dick Nixon. On a bright sunny Saturday on October 13 , 1962 , Kennedy returned to McKeesport to campaign for candidates in the midterm elections, and my father and I waved to him as he passed by in the open top Lincoln.

That Monday morning back in the White House, Kennedy was given his first intelligence briefing about Soviet nuclear missiles being installed in Cuba. The young Navy Lt. Commander whose character was tested in combat in the South Pacific, was about to be tested again as Commander in Chief.

“Any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction ‘I served in the United States Navy’ ”    

                                                          John. F. Kennedy, Annapolis, 1962