In the Presidential Election of 1960 John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Richard Milhouse Nixon were in a series of debates that were different from past The three biggest national television networks arranged for thedebate to be televised on all three stations. The Democratic candidate,Senator Kennedy from Massachusetts, and Vice President Nixon both agreedon the televised debates.Each debate was given a subject matter that the candidates agreed tocorrespond their answers with the subject. The first debate was for the issuesconcerning domestic questions, the second was centered around the area offoreign policy, and the third and fourth debates were basically a repetition ofprevious topics. During each debate four news representatives askedquestions to each candidate. On September 26, 1960 the first debate took place in Chicago. Themoderator was Howard K. Smith, and his job was to introduce the candidatesand controlled the question and answer segments of the debates. Heinstructed the candidates to give their 8 minute opening speech and their threeminute closing speech. The first introduced by Smith was Senator Kennedy.Kennedy’s concept throughout his opening statement was that theworld would move in the same direction that the U.S. moved. That was inregard to how the U.S. moved ahead toward freedom. He also stated that theAmerican people should be aware of the communists, Khrushchev in theSoviet Union, the Chinese Communists, how they were on the move andAmerica had to counter and move towards freedom. Kennedy said thatAmerica had to be a strong as possible to keep the world moving in the rightdirection. Another point he made was the lack of American progression, andthe way we weren’t utilizing our natural resources. “I believe in effectivegovernmental action. And I think that’s the only way the United States isgoing to maintain its freedom. It’s the only way that we’re going to moveahead. I...
