The Television Debates - A Revolution That Deserves A Future

American Association for Public Opinion Research
The Television Debates: A Revolution That Deserves a Future

Author(s): Richard S. Salant
Source: The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Autumn, 1962), pp. 335-350
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Association for Public Opinion Research
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THE TELEVISION DEBATES:
A REVOLUTION THAT DESERVES
A FUTURE
BY RICHARD S. SALANT
Against the background of evidence of the effectiveness of the presidential
debates in 1960, a case is here made for the continuance of such debating in
future presidential campaigns, as well as in other political contests.
Richard S. Salant is President of CBS News. This article is based on a paper
presented at the 1961 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science
Association held in St. Louis, Missouri, September 6 to 9, 1961.
N The Making of the President I960, Theodore H. White described
the first broadcast debate between candidates for the office of the
President of the United States as "a revolution" in American presi-
dential politics "born of the ceaseless American genius in tech-
nology; its sole agent and organizer had been the common American
television set." The revolution, he said, lay in the simple fact that
television permitted "the simultaneous gathering of all the tribes of
America to ponder their choice between two chieftains in the largest
political convocation in the history of man."'
It is the purpose of this paper to discuss some aspects of this revolu-
tion-its origin, its implications, its significance, and its future, if any.
As of now, the four face-to-face joint appearances of Vice President
Nixon and Senator Kennedy must remain as a singular revolution, with
no subsequent history and no subsequent evolution. For at midnight of
Election Day 1960, the Federal law which made that revolution possible
expired by its own terms. Section 315 of the Communications Act-
the equal-time provisions of the law-automatically revived. And so
today, as the law stands, whenever there are more than two candidates
for any office-certainly when there are fifteen, as there were for the
office of the Presidency of the United States in 1960, and thirteen, as
there were for the office of Governor of New Jersey in 196i-this
revolution in the use of broadcasting in campaign politics is ended,
so impractical and unwieldy as to be foreclosed in the future.
Is this good or bad, wise or unwise? Would the democratic processes
be better served if the same American geniuses who invented television
I
Theodore H. White, The
Making of
the President
1960,
New
York, Atheneum,
1962,
p. 279.
336 PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY
and radio could disinvent them altogether-at least for political pur-
poses? Or, instead, should there be a new set of Federal controls and
specifications, a nev set of ground rules so that broadcasting can be
of greater benefit to the American voter? Is there anything the broad-
casters themselves can prescribe to govern political use of their facilities
so as to reduce the dangers of abuse and increase the opportunities of
the voters to make an informed and intelligent choice among those who
aspire to serve as their political leaders?
These questions can, perhaps, be better answered by reviewing what
we know about the impact and influence of radio and television, what
the dangers of abuse are, what the potentials-for good or evil-are,
what was right and what was wrong with the joint appearances and
other uses of broadcasting in 1960, and what the future holds or can
hold, given a change in Section 315.
THE ROLE OF RADIO AND TELEVISION IN
POLITICAL CAMPAIGNING
Communication is, of course, the essence of a political campaign.
Candidates must, in one way or another, communicate with the citizens
whose vote they seek.
It is a curious historical footnote that political observers identify
two types of communications at opposite extremes of the spectrum as
having been among the decisive factors in the making of the President
in 1960.
At one extreme was that most limited and focused of all communica-
tions, the person-to-person telephone call. In October 1960 Martin
Luther King was arrested and jailed in Georgia for participating in
a "sit-in" in a department store. On October
25,
as Theodore White
describes it, John Kennedy "From his room at the [O'Hare] Inn [at the
International Airport in Chicago], without consulting anyone, . . .
placed a long-distance telephone call to Mrs. Martin Luther King,
assured her of his interest and concern in her suffering and, if necessary,
his intervention."2
In one of the rare cases of documented conversion in political cam-
paigning, White describes what happened as a result of this communica-
tion: "The father of Martin Luther King, . . . who had come out for
Nixon a few weeks earlier on religious grounds, now switched. . ..
Across the country, scores of Negro leaders, deeply Protestant but even
more deeply impressed by Kennedy's action, followed suit....93
According to White, this caused a swing of the Negro vote in a number
2
Ibid.,
p.
322.
3 Ibid., p. 323.
THE TELEVISION DEBATES 337
of key states which Kennedy won by a narrow margin. Thus one
extreme of communication-a telephone call from one person to
another-appears to have been a decisive factor which led to the
election of a President.
At the other extreme of communication were the joint appearances
of the two candidates on radio and television. Here the communication
was not to one person but to over one hundred million. The general
consensus is that these broadcasts, too, were decisive, that without
them Kennedy would not have won. Many Republicans are persuaded
that these broadcasts were a mistake fatal to Nixon. And President
Kennedy, after the election, stated, "It was TV more than anything
else that turned the tide."4
The point here is not to propose a final judgment concerning what
won for Kennedy or lost for Nixon, or to determine the precise influ-
ence of the broadcast appearances. Rather, it is to consider these two
extremes of communication in juxtaposition, recognizing the proba-
bility that without either of them Nixon would have won.
These contrasts in decisive communications serve to provide the
perspective in which to consider the impact and influence of broad-
casting-to remind us that mass communications, even television, pro-
vide only one means of communicating, only one means by which voters
form or (more likely) confirm their judgments. Only if this is recog-
nized can the use of broadcasting in politics be sensibly evaluated.
The critical issues, then, are (i) the reach and penetration of the
broadcasting media and, once the reach is measured, (2) their grasp.
MEASURES OF RADIO AND TELEVISION
The reach of the broadcasting media. The pervasiveness of radio and
television are well known. Over i68 million radios are in use in the
United States today. Almost
go
per cent of American families-more
than 40 million-have one or more television sets; they use them, on
the average, more than five hours a day.
In these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that the political
campaigns are followed on radio and television by tens of millions of
Americans. It is worth noting, if only parenthetically, that this great
attention the public pays to electronic political campaigning comes
about because of the enormous attention the public pays to radio and
television in general. It is, after all, the popular entertainment which
motivated the initial purchase of receivers, and which keeps the public
in the habit of turning to their radios and television sets for political
campaigns. Tens of millions of American citizens do not suddenly begin
4 Ibid., p. 294.
buying the Reporter or the Saturday Review or even the New York
Times during political campaigns; their circulation remains substan-
tially the same. Similarly, because it is their habit, the tens of millions
of citizens turn to radio and television.
How many tens of millions?
A total of about 115 million people attended, through radio and
television, at least some part of at least one of the four 1960 debates.
The average television audience for all four debates was 71 million.
The typical family tuned in its television set to these debates for 54
minutes of every hour-in sharp contrast to the high tune-out during
paid political broadcasts.
The four debates attracted television audiences averaging 2o per cent
larger than the entertainment programs for which they were substi-
tuted. In contrast, the average half-hour paid political broadcast in
1960 attracted only 70 per cent of the audience of the program it
replaced. But, it is to be noted, even the paid political programs aver-
aged audiences well in excess of 2o million-a figure which might be
compared with the estimate of a total of io million people who saw
Nixon in person during his extended and strenuous fifty-state cam-
paign tour in 1960.
Another quantitative measure of the reach of the broadcast media
in political campaigns is the extent to which people rely-or say they
rely-on these media for their political information and impressions.
The evidence indicates that this reliance is heavy.
A survey conducted in Wayne County, Michigan, in 1956 by Professor
Samuel Eldersveld of the University of Michigan showed that 38 per
cent of the people stated that they received most of their political
information from television, 38 per cent from newspapers, and 9 per
cent from radio. University of Michigan studies in 1956 and 1961 and
a study by an advertising agency5 strongly confirm this evidence. A
study conducted by Elmo Roper for CBS showed that 93 per cent of
those who followed the 1960 conventions (69 per cent of the respond-
ents) did so through television, 47 per cent through newspapers, and
i6 per cent through radio.6 These findings indicating the importance
of the broadcast media, and particularly television, as a major source
of political information to voters are substantially paralleled by find-
ings relating to British voters.7
5 Television and the Political Candidate, New York, Cunningham & Walsh, 1959.
6
Elmo Roper, "Election Study II: Concerning Issues and Candidates," October
1960, unpublished.
7 Joseph Trenaman and Denis McQuail, Television and the Political Image, Lon-
don, Methuen, 1961, Chap. V.
The impact and
influence
of the broadcasting media. These several
findings, then, serve to establish that the reach of the broadcast media
is long indeed; they have come to serve as the major source of political
information and impressions during campaign periods. But does their
grasp match their reach: to what extent, if any, do they influence and
persuade, or affect voting behavior?
Here we are on slippery ground, a probe of the minds (or deeply set
emotions and instincts) of millions of men and women to discover why
they vote as they do. This is an exercise in mass analysis; it concerns
ethnics, history, parental relationships, the influence of peers (and the
determination of who are peers), interpersonal relationships-the whole
congeries of factors whose influence has been so difficult to isolate.
Nevertheless, there seems to be a strong consensus among the social
scientists on the answers to these questions. While their conclusions
appear to contradict the claims of some broadcasters (and the charges
of some critics of broadcasting) that television can indeed mold men's
minds like clay, they seem eminently reasonable.8 Briefly, the social
scientists conclude that the mass media play only a relatively small part
in persuading the voter to vote differently from the way all the other,
deeper influences would have led him to vote.
Klapper, in The Effects of Mass Communications, comments on the
"plethora of relevant but inconclusive and at times seemingly contra-
dictory findings," yet he proposes that social scientists now know con-
siderably more about communication than they thought they did.9
By combining the results of research surveys and "the considered con-
jecture of reputable and acute thinkers," a remarkably clear picture
of the effect of the media emerges. Klapper confirms Lazarsfeld's classic
1940 findings in The People's Choice that mass communications are
far more likely to reinforce convictions than change them. He also
concludes, as did Trenaman and McQuail,l1 that there is a barrier
between communications and the political attitudes and opinions of the
electorate, and he notes that these "ego-involved attitudes are peculiarly
resistant to conversion by mass communication.""
Berelson summed it up somewhat moodily, but perhaps as accurately
as possible when dealing in general terms, that "some kinds of communi-
cation on some kinds of issues, brought to the attention of some kinds of
8
See Raymond A. and Alice H. Bauer, "America, 'Mass Society' and Mass Media,"
Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 16, No. 3, 1960, pp. 3-66.
9 Joseph Klapper, The Effects of Mass Communications, New York, Free Press of
Glencoe,
196o,
p. 3.
10 Op.cit.
11
Klapper, op.cit., p. 45.
people under some kinds of conditions, have some kinds of effects."'2
Mass media-even television-are likely to have the least effect, in
terms of persuasion and conversion, in the areas of deeply held beliefs,
among which must be numbered politics. It is here that the distinction
must be drawn between ideas, such as political beliefs, and products
and merchandise. There can be little question that television is an
enormously effective merchandising medium; it sells products. But
there is a sharp distinction between goods and beliefs. Television can
persuade a viewer to buy a refrigerator or a toothpaste or an electric
shaver if he is about ready to buy one and is on the verge of making a
choice among products which serve the same purpose and differ from
one another in only a few characteristics. The general public normally
does not have deeply held beliefs about the relative merits of one
cigarette over another, and so many cigarette buyers are most certainly
persuadable over a period of time. The situation differs for most voters
and political beliefs. The trends, the influences, the directions are
deep-seated and to a considerable degree fixed. Persuasion and conver-
sion are far rarer and more difficult in this field.
Why, then, are legislators deeply concerned about equal time, and
why do politicians wage elaborate television campaigns? One answer
is that television is important to candidates even if it does not convert.
Torchlight parades, motor cavalcades, political rallies in Main Street
and in Madison Square Garden do not convert either, but they do
inspirit the faithful, raise their flagging hopes, provide them with the
fervor and rationalizations to serve their cause. Paid political rallies
on television serve the same purpose of reinforcement. Republicans
still must reach Republicans, and Democrats, Democrats. Television
rallies are a quick and effective means to serve that purpose, for we
know that the vast majority of those tuning in to Republican television
broadcasts are Republicans, and to Democratic broadcasts, Democrats.
More than this, as both Berelson and Klapper have said, in some
circumstances, on some issues, television will have some influence on
some people. While quantification is a dangerous business here, we have
some evidence that some people are converted to some extent-or
think they are.
In its study of the 1958 New York gubernatorial campaign, Cunning-
ham and Walsh reported 56 cases of "switching" out of a total sample
of 537-people who said that they
voted for a different candidate from
the one for whom they had expected to vote.13 Two to three times the
12
Bernard Berelson, "Communications and Public Opinion," in Wilbur Schramm,
Communications in Modern Society, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1948, p. 184.
13
Television and the Political Candidate, pp. 27-28.
number of voters among these 56 switched from Harriman to Rocke-
feller than vice versa. A few of these switchers said they changed
because of the candidates' television appearances, which included at
least one joint appearance.
A more comprehensive indication of persuasion and possible con-
version is provided by Elmo Roper's surveys for CBS News during the
last campaign.14 In one of these surveys, which went into the field after
the fourth debate and before Election Day, interviewers asked whether
the interviewees had watched the candidates on television, and whether
they had watched the debates. Roper reported that 44 per cent of
the respondents who voted said that the debates had "influenced" their
decision. About 5 per cent-projecting to 3,400,000 voters-ascribed
their final voting decision to the debates alone. Of these 3,400,000
voters, 884,000 (26 per cent) voted for Nixon and 2,448,ooo (72 per
cent) voted for Kennedy (2 per cent did not reveal their vote). The
debates, according to these figures, yielded Kennedy a net gain of
1,564,000 votes-over 13 times greater than his winning margin of
about 113,000.
The Cunningham and Walsh and Roper surveys are not, of course,
final proof of persuasion or conversion by television. They indicate
only that some number-in the case of the i960 presidential cam-
paign, a decisive number-think, or say, that certain television broad-
casts were the critical factor in their voting decision. Even so, taking
the responses in the Roper study at their face value, the net change
caused by the debates was only 2 per cent of the total vote.
In any event, the figures may well be inapplicable to ordinary politi-
cal broadcasting and apply only to these unique debates, in which,
according to all surveys, one of the participants had a decisive edge.
It may be-although the evidence surely is inconclusive-that debates,
involving as they do joint appearances and face-to-face arguments, have
a greater impact and produce more conversions than single, set appear-
ances controlled by the candidate.
TELEVISION AND POLITICS-ABUSES AND USES
It thus appears that we know that (1) television's reach is enormous-
through it, a candidate can reach almost all Americans, and, given the
proper programming and chemistry, as in the case of the debates, hold
their attention; and (2) by a large margin, television's grasp is exceeded
by its reach (even if television's ability to convert is limited, however,
it may be a decisive factor). With these facts, television's dangers and
14
Roper, op.cit.
promises as an instrument of democratic processes can be more mean-
ingfully judged.
The dangers. Many have considered television a dangerous medium-
in politics as in other fields. After the Second World War, when tele-
vision began to grow rapidly, its enormous potential alarmed many
thoughtful observers and writers. With the union of television and
advertising, it was felt that candidates would eventually be sold like
soap; that only those with pleasing television personalities would be
selected as candidates; and that charlatans with acting talent, backed
by make-up men, ghostwriters, and teleprompters, could be elected to
the highest office in the land.15
Over the years, fears of television were to some extent dispelled.
Television was, as we have seen, becoming the most important source
of information to the voter, yet there was an extremely high tune-out
of sets during paid political broadcasts. It also became apparent to
politicians that there was a point beyond which candidates saturated
the airwaves at their own risk. In 1952, after pre-empting prime evening
time, Governor Stevenson received the now famous wire: "I like Ike
and I love Lucy. Drop dead" (an example, it may be noted, of the
reinforcement of which social scientists write).
Psychologists pointed out that with political advertising there is a
built-in safety valve. When people begin to feel that their freedom
is being threatened by a massive political advertising campaign, they
are likely to react so violently that the campaign can be a serious
liability to the candidate it means to promote.
Further, television can be a probing and revealing medium. As John
Crosby has noted, it "throws a merciless white light on phoniness. The
candidate had better know what he is talking about.... It is not his
looks that television puts under scrutiny; it is his ability." Or as Walter
Cronkite observed in his article in Theatre Arts, "Television has an
eerie ability to X-ray the soul. I think it can detect insincerity as quickly
as a more orthodox X-ray can detect a broken bone."
A second major danger which has disturbed some observers is that
television gives an enormous advantage to the candidate, and the party,
with the largest purse. Television's costs are enormous-over $1oo,ooo
for time alone (exclusive of program and production costs) for an
evening hour on a network.
To guard against that danger, it has been suggested that broadcasters
be compelled to give a certain number of hours of free time to candi-
15
See, for example, John G. Schneider, The Golden
Kazoo,
New
York, Rinehart,
1956; and "Government by Hooper Rating," Theater Arts
Magazine, November
1952,
p. 30.
dates for office. Aside from the fact that this ignores the enormous
number of national and local candidates in an election year, and that
television might become nothing but an election medium if it were
forced to grant them all free time, this provision hardly seems fair.
Nobody has yet suggested that a newspaper or a magazine, in return
for the second-class mailing privilege, offer the candidates free adver-
tising space; nobody has suggested that the airlines transport candidates
free-although they are licensed to use segments of the nation's limited
airspace, just as television stations are licensed to use a portion of the
electromagnetic spectrum.
The fact is that compulsory free time is an artificial remedy for an
artificially created problem. In campaigns prior to 1960, candidates had
limited access to free television time because of Section 315. For, under
that provision, free time to any candidate meant free time to all his
opponents for the same office. Faced with campaigns with a dozen or
more candidates for a single office, broadcasters were driven to adopt
a policy of selling rather than giving time. Ironically, Section 315 is
satisfied if time is offered for sale equally; the section is indifferent
to the unequal ability to buy.
Before the 1960 campaign, this problem was alleviated by a number
of amendments to Section 315. In 1959 Congress permanently amended
Section 315 to exempt from the equal-time requirements regularly
scheduled newscasts, on-the-spot coverage of news events (such as
acceptance speeches at conventions), and regularly scheduled news
interview programs such as "Washington Conversation" and "Meet
the Press."
And, of course, of even greater significance, on the eve of the i960
campaign Congress temporarily suspended the application of Section
315 to presidential and vice presidential campaigns, making the debates
and a number of other radio and television programs possible during
the campaign.
Thus, for the presidential campaign in 1960 the danger of the long
purse was minimized. For, not counting the regularly scheduled news-
casts, the CBS Radio and Television Networks devoted a total of 16?
hours to personal appearances of the Democratic and Republican
candidates in 1960, at no charge to them. In addition, in i1960, 16 hours
were devoted, free to the parties, to supporters of the major candidates.
The monetary value of these 1960 broadcasts exceeded $2 million.
Additional time offered by CBS to the candidates but not accepted
amounted to $700,000.
The clearest and most direct protection, then, against the danger
of a bought election by obliterative purchase of television time is to
repeal Section 315, thus assuring to all significant candidates free time
in quantities apparently beyond their desires.
It is therefore apparent that the major dangers attributed to political
broadcasting-the phony candidate and excessive costs-are, in fact,
not grave at all and can be minimized.
The benefits. The benefits to democratic processes that television can
bring, and has in a measure already brought, far outweigh the real or
imagined dangers.
One of the problems in our expanding and increasingly complex
democratic society is remoteness, lack of citizen participation, apathy
and indifference born of the absence of direct communication between
candidates and most of the voters. Radio and television have con-
siderably closed these gaps. They have provided a direct link between
politician and public; they have permitted voters to see and hear for
themselves first-hand, without having to rely on the filter of a news-
paper reporter whose selection of what and how to report, whose
impressions and choice of words, are necessarily his own.
After the 1952 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Philip
Hamburger wrote in the New Yorker:
Television, covering affairs of this sort, makes the viewer a member of a
community vastly larger than his own without demanding that he sacrifice
any of his individuality. It does not require him to judge, nor does it judge
him-a nightmare envisioned by Orwell and mercifully not in prospect....
In a sense, television coverage of a national convention turns the entire nation
into a huge town meeting... 16
Mr. Hamburger concluded that "the proceedings themselves were irre-
sistible, being a manifestation of the right of every delegate-and, by
extension, every citizen-to take a direct part in the choosing of his
President."
In 1952, the Saturday Review put it another way when it stated:
That vast public which is too untutored or too indifferent to apply itself with
assiduity to evolving a clear conception of a candidate from his speeches as
reported in the press, is now able to follow his course through political events
with the least possible effort over television. . . . The America of 150,000,000
souls is nearer today to the era when politicians and people met face to face
than in many a long decade.17
16
Philip Hamburger, "Television: Back to Chicago," New Yorker, Aug. 2, 1952,
p. 38.
17
Amy Loveman, "Town Meeting by Oscillation," Saturday Review, Aug. 9, 1952,
p. 20.
THE CHANGING USE OF TELEVISION-THE NEAR PAST
AND THE FUTURE
It was not, however, until the i960 campaign, when broadcasters
were able to operate under the
1959
amendments to Section 315 and its
temporary suspension as far as presidential and vice presidential candi-
dates were concerned, that the real potential of television began to be
realized. For the first time, the political diet in television was not the
set speeches by the candidates, the carefully staged rallies,
the screened
and rehearsed "telethons," but rather the more meaningful beginnings
of a national dialogue and a systematic portrait of the nature of the
candidates.
Under the 1959 amendments, as noted, it was possible for the first
time to present the candidates on press interview broadcasts. James
Reston of the New York Times has described press panel broadcasts
such as these as "important antidotes to one-way campaigns"; he has
urged their use to offset the candidates' reliance on what he calls "the
techniques of modern salesmanship."
Programs of this nature proved effective and revealing in 1960. They
will doubtless be more widely utilized in future campaigns if the re-
quirement in the 1959 amendments that they be permitted only if part
of "regularly scheduled" series do not prove too limiting, as they might.
A second and important new technique, developed under the tempo-
rary suspension of Section 315 (and so unavailable in the future with-
out further Congressional action), was the informal conversation with
the candidate. In "Person to Person" and "Presidential Countdown"
on CBS, and in "The Campaign and the Candidates" on NBC, there
were unrehearsed conversations, quiet and often revealing, between a
newsman and the candidate, dealing less with the immediate issues
than with the nature of the man, his philosophy, his background, and
his character.
In the excitement over the debates, these portraits have too often
been overlooked. Yet they proved to be an effective use of television,
affording the voter the all too rare opportunity to learn for himself
what manner of men these were who sought to lead this nation. They
provided some rare insights.
The third new technique, of course, was the debates. Before these
joint appearances were possible, Stanley Kelley, Jr., presented a per-
suasive case for debates among candidates as an important technique
for quickening the election pro-cesses.18 The campaign discussion, Kelley
18
Stanley Kelley, Jr., Political Campaigning, Washington, D.C., The Brookings
Institution, 1960.
wrote, should help voters make rational voting decisions. A rational
voter must have discerned what is at stake in an election, and (he
quotes from John Stuart Mill), "the only way in which a human being
can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject is by
hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of
opinion" (italics mine).
Unfortunately, Kelley pointed out, the political campaign has degen-
erated into a kind of "adversary proceeding." Each side puts its best foot
forward and distorts the efforts of the opposition. "Under such condi-
tions the ability of the individual voter to get an accurate picture of
the views and records of parties and candidates will depend . . . on
whether or not he is exposed to the communications of both sides."'9
Kelley observed that argument elevates the observer (if not neces-
sarily the participants); that debates promote rational discussion; that
audiences for rival candidates are usually separate, each group seeking
to reinforce its own convictions; that the political rally fosters this
partisanship, celebrating unity, while the old-time face-to-face argu-
ments enabled the audience to grasp the arguments for both sides.
In the senatorial debates between Jacob Javits and Robert Wagner in
1956, Kelley points out, "the stands of the two parties [on the issues of
civil rights and foreign policy] were less distorted than they were in
the Eisenhower-Stevenson speeches." In other words, the issue was
joined-as it rarely is in political campaigns-and the result was
greater clarity.
The case is summarized in a quotation from a veteran Southern
politician, discussing, in 1889, the demise of the political campaign
debates: "Forty years ago constant practice had made our public
speakers so skillful in debate that every question was made clear. ...
For the last 2o years this practical union between politician and people
has not existed. Only one party is allowed to speak and the leaders of
that party no longer debate, they simply declaim and denounce. Upon
this crude and windy diet, the once robust and sturdy political con-
victions of our people have dwindled into leanness and decay."20
The debates in 1960, with all their faults, thus provided the most
important changes in the use of television in campaign politics. Walter
Lippmann called the four debates "a bold innovation which is bound
to be carried forward into future campaigns and could not now be
abandoned." James Reston described the debates as "a great improve-
ment over the frantic rushing about the nation, roaring at great howl-
ing mobs at airports and memorial halls." Roscoe Drummond called
19
Ibid., p.
14.
20
Ibid., p.
153-
them "an invaluable innovation.. . . Even without any changes, I vote
for their continuance." Marquis Childs wrote that they "added a new
dimension to politics," and President Kennedy called the debates "a
significant advance in American politics."
But there were some dissenters. Among those who rejected the
debates altogether were Max Ascoli of the Reporter, who wrote that
"the very fact of arousing the interest of the millions further lowers
the level of the campaign oratory."21 Another critic was the noted
historian Henry Steele Commager. In an article entitled "Washington
Would Have Lost a TV Debate," Professor Commager called the
debates "televised press conferences
[which]
in future campaigns could
be a disaster." Lincoln, Professor Commager says, "was not quick in
the give and take of politics. . . . Indeed, of our major Presidents,
probably only Franklin D. Roosevelt had the wit, the resourcefulness,
the self-assurance, to do well in such televised press interviews.'22
I disagree with both these critics. I disagree with Ascoli because I
believe the American voter neither wants platitudes nor is deceived
by them. I believe he wants facts and conflict, wants to be shown a real
difference of opinion between the candidates, so that he can make an
intelligent choice between them. The high interest in the debates, and
the low interest in paid political speeches (in which, as Reston has
noted, nobody has a chance to answer back), is evidence that this is true.
Fundamentally, Ascoli's quarrel seems to be with democracy itself.
If "arousing the interest of the millions" can be achieved only at the
expense of the intellectual, the philosopher, and other minority groups,
then that is one of the prices we must pay for democracy. As Tocqueville
noted in 1835, "the very essence of democratic government consists in
the absolute sovereignty of the majority.... No obstacles exist which
can impede or even retard its progress, so as to heed the complaints of
those whom it crushes upon its path."
We would all prefer to have the candidates sit down with us in small
groups and go into the issues in detail, or even talk to us in town
meetings. But this is no longer possible. Nixon estimated that on his
grueling fifty-state campaign he may have been seen in person by
lo million people, about one-seventh of the total number of people
who voted, but more than 75 million people watched the first debate
and almost as many watched the last. Their interest was sustained not
only throughout each debate, but throughout all four debates. Cer-
tainly the candidates aimed their remarks at what they felt was the
21
Max Ascoli, Reporter, Nov. io, 1960, p. i8.
22
Henry Steele Commager, "Washington Would Have Lost a TV Debate," New
York Times Magazine, Oct. 3o, 1960, pp. 13, 79.
largest common denominator of the electorate, but they nevertheless
sustained the interest of the many minority groups that made up the
majority.
Commager does little to support his own argument about the major
Presidents' ineptitude at debate by pointing out that Lincoln, in seven
stirring debates with Douglas, succeeded in educating "not only the
voters of Illinois, but posterity as well."23 My own view is that Lincoln
would have been magnificent in debates-on or off television; I join
President Kennedy, who wrote before the election that "the quiet
dignity of Lincoln.. . would have been tremendously effective on TV."
So, too, it is not unreasonable to suppose that Washington, despite his
methodical manner and false teeth, would have had the appeal of an
Eisenhower. To believe that the people would have rejected Washing-
ton is to criticize, not television, but the people.
A third critic, Norman Cousins, wrote in the Saturday Review that
the debates put a premium on superficiality and failed to reveal the
inner nature of the candidates. He criticized the debates as running
"counter to the educational process. They require that a man keep
his mouth moving whether he has something to say or not. It is made
to appear that the worst thing that could happen to a candidate is to
be caught without an instant answer to a complex question. Thoughtful
silence is made to appear a confession of ignorance."2' Theodore White
made this same point, in The Making of a President I960, commenting
on the snap replies required of the candidates.
I agree that the format of the debates was imperfect. CBS, as well as
the other network organizations, preferred a more traditional debating
format in which the candidates would be allowed to question each
other. Indeed, CBS proposed these joint appearances as only a part of
a more comprehensive plan of eight hours of broadcast, the first and
last (on the eve of the election) of which would have been divided
between the candidates for their own uninterrupted arguments and
summaries, and the remaining six of which would have included direct
debates as well as press interviews and portraits. But the candidates
themselves would not agree to these arrangements.
Time to complete arrangements was short. It was important to make
a start, to begin the evolution of a political tradition which, we are
sure, will make even more significant contributions in the campaigns
to come. The format which was used, therefore,
was the result of
23 Ibid., p. 8o.
24
Norman Cousins, "Presidents Don't Have to Be Quiz Champions," Saturday
Review, Nov. 5, 1960, p. 34.
compromise; without agreement between the networks and the candi-
dates, there could have been no joint appearances at all.
Nevertheless, the view is mistaken that a format that requires con-
stant mouth moving or permits only snap replies is necessarily bad.
As Nixon pointed out at the time, "Whoever is President is going to
have to make some decisions very speedily at times, so that the people
at least get a chance to see how both of us react under fire." And,
actually, nothing in the programs or their format required that the
candidates shoot from the hip or answer a particular question with-
out deliberation. Perhaps each candidate came to the conclusion that
he was compelled to do so, but if he did he underestimated the Ameri-
can people. One can doubt that the candidates would have been
censured-indeed, they might have been more appreciated-by the
audience had they taken the time carefully to consider an answer.
While no one knows in what form the debate format will come to
maturity, we may some day see candidates pausing, reflecting, and
taking the time to make considered answers to questions.
Cousins also felt that the debates did not really show what manner
of man the candidates were, that the "battle station atmosphere" did
not lend itself to the kind of question that should have been asked.
On the other hand, it is reasonable to conclude that the confronta-
tions showed qualities of the candidates that might not have been so
apparent under less demanding circumstances. I am sure that most
people thought them more revealing than carefully planned and
rehearsed political speeches, where the audience reaction is carefully
cued and the speech itself is a product of half a dozen skillful minds-
not necessarily including the candidate's. This manufactured image
certainly may bear little relationship to the inner man.
More than that, there were in fact, as we have noted, a number of
broadcasts other than the joint appearances which were designed to
meet the objective Cousins emphasized-to shed light on the kind of
man the candidate was.
CONCLUSION
In sum, it would seem that the press interview broadcasts, the
conversational self-portraits, and the debates, in combination, provided
significant advances in the use of television in campaign politics. In
1960, to a greater extent than in any other campaign in American
history, the broadcast media afforded the voter the opportunity-only
partially realized, but still the opportunity-to know the men and the
issues at first hand.
But, indeed, it was only a beginning. Much is left to be done. Section
315 must be repealed so that these new techniques can be continued,
improved, and applied to all levels of elective office. Broadcasters must
sharpen their techniques and experiment with more direct debates, with
less confining formats, and with other kinds of programs.
As we broadcasters feel surer of our ground, as we mature, we must
insist on high standards in politics, just as we must in all other kinds
of programming. We must devise fair but clear rules to prevent-or
force disclosure of-rehearsed political interviews and actors who play
the part of men-in-the-street questioners-steps which CBS News has
already taken. We must guard against the practice by political parties
of buying time simultaneously on all networks, thus depriving the
public of any choice-another step CBS News has taken. We must use
all our persuasive powers to avoid the curtailment of debates during
the last two weeks before Election Day-as happened in 1960 at the
insistence of one of the candidates, who wanted to control his appear-
ances during the crucial two weeks before November 8. We must con-
sider imposing our own limits on the amount of time that may be
purchased in the final days of the campaign, so as to avoid the dangers
of a last-minute one-sided saturation, when it is too late to answer
arguments and charges.
Above all, we broadcasters must conscientiously use our tools to
implement the democratic process, having as our only criterion not
what candidate or party the new techniques may help but whether
these techniques will better inform the public, enabling them to make
more intelligently that most vital of all public decisions, the choice
of their leaders.
Partly because of Section 315, television has barely begun to play its
full and responsible role in the complicated and critical process of
selecting and electing political candidates. It has the duty, and surely
it has earned the right, to go forward free of Section 315 to fulfill its
enormous potential as an instrument of democracy in the vital business
of politics.

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The Television Debates: A Revolution That Deserves a Future

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