CO-HOST MATT PORTER: The 60/20 podcast is produced by the JFK Library Foundation and made possible with the help of a generous grant from the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation.
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GEORGE W. BUSH: The top 10 changes I'll make in the White House.
DAVE LETTERMAN: Oh here you go.
GEORGE W. BUSH: Are you ready?
DAVE LETTERMAN: This is right up your alley.
GEORGE W. BUSH: Yeah. Number 10-- to save taxpayer dollars calls to winning sports teams will be collect.
CO-HOST JAMIE RICHARDSON: During the campaign of 2000, while running for president, George W. Bush appeared on Late Night with David Letterman.
GEORGE W. BUSH: Number 9-- new rule at cabinet meetings-- you can't talk until you ride the mechanical bull.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: It was a chance to reach a wide audience and project the kind of down-to-earth personality that Bush hoped Americans could relate to and welcome into their living rooms.
GEORGE W. BUSH: Number 6-- just for fun, issue executive order commanding my brother Jeb to wash my car.
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JAMIE RICHARDSON: George W. Bush was not the first presidential candidate to appear on late night, nor would he be the last. These kinds of appearances had become rites of passage for candidates seeking the highest office of the land-- a way to show voters, or at least try to show them, what the candidate was really like in a more relaxed setting-- all through the medium of television. How and when did this begin? And how did television change the playing field of presidential politics? We'll answer those questions and more in this episode of 60/20.
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RICHARD M. NIXON: While it is dangerous to see nothing wrong in America, it is just as wrong to refuse to recognize what is right about America.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: Today our concern must be with our future, for the world is changing, the old era is ending. The old ways will not do. It is time, in short, for a new generation of leadership.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: 60 years ago, Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon would face off in one of the closest elections in the nation's history. The election would leave lasting impacts on future races right into today. In today's episode, we'll look at how JFK and his team, including his family, developed new approaches to using television in 1960, and how these innovations set examples for campaigns in the decades ahead. We'll also look at Richard Nixon's television strategy and how for someone who had once pioneered the use of television and politics, his approach in 1960 had fallen behind the times. This is 60/20.
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[VINTAGE COMMERICAL] CHORUS SINGING: 🎵 Dawn to dawn, it's radio that turns them on swinging. 🎵
JAMIE RICHARDSON: By 1960, the era of radio had passed, and America was quickly becoming a TV nation.
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[VINTAGE COMMMERCIAL] MALE ACTOR: Mrs. Porter, I've got the next best thing-- a new invention from Procter & Gamble. It absorbs like magic.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: In 1950, a little more than 10% of Americans had a TV in their home.
[MUSIC FROM "RAWHIDE" TV SERIES] MALE SINGING: 🎵 Move 'em on, head 'em up, rawhide. Let 'em out, ride 'em in. 🎵
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Just 10 years later, 9 out of 10 Americans had a television in their living rooms.
[VINTAGE COMMMERCIAL] MALE ACTOR: Only Scotties give you tissues that float up gently one at a time, and come out in neat handfuls, too.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Throughout the 1950s, politicians had begun experimenting with a new medium during their campaigns. In her book If Then, historian Jill Lepore notes that the most watched ad of the 1952 campaign was an animated short produced by Disney Studios.
[VINTAGE EISENHOWER CAMPAIGN COMMERCIAL] WOMAN SINGING: 🎵 You like Ike. I like Ike. Everybody likes Ike for president. Bring out the banners, beat the drums. We'll take Ike to Washington. 🎵
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Lepore writes of the Eisenhower campaign hired the ad agency BBDO to sell the World War II general like laundry detergent, and then brought on Rosser Reeves who created Eisenhower's "Man from Abilene" ad.
[VINTAGE EISENHOWER CAMPAIGN COMMERICAL] MALE ACTOR: The man from Abilene.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Lepore talks about how Reeves influenced Eisenhower.
JILL LEPORE: The Eisenhower campaign somewhat reluctantly brought on the services of Rosser Reeves, who was a famous Madison Avenue ad man, kind of the proverbial mad man. He was his best known for the M&M candies ad-- melts in your mouth, not in your hand. He had this whole idea that politics would be greatly improved by reducing the stump speech to a 1-minute advertising spot.
And he kind of famously had this meeting with Eisenhower. Rosser Reeves convinced him that the best way to get people to vote for Eisenhower, which would require them to essentially switch brands, was for Eisenhower not to televise his speeches, which was the strategy of Eisenhower's opponent, the Democrat Adlai Stevenson, but for Eisenhower to appear in highly scripted television ads. This was so controversial at the time-- the first time a presidential candidate had advocated for himself on television-- that the Stevenson campaign went to the FCC to try to see if what Eisenhower was doing was illegal.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: While the rules of the game were still being written in the 1950s, it was clear that the medium and its importance in politics wasn't going away. Historian Fredrik Logevall explains the rise of TV leading up to the 1960 election.
FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Television was relatively new, but let's remember this-- four years before-- 1956-- CBS and NBC had hundreds of people on site, dozens upon dozens of cameras, lots of reporters, and you see that the person maybe who benefits the most in '56 is none other than JFK.
JFK, in the speeches he delivers in '56-- they get rapturous applause. He becomes a kind of star of the convention. So in this regard, 1960 follows a kind of breakthrough convention in '56. But there's no question that in 1960 that the networks understand in a way that they didn't even in '56 that this is great theater. This is something that the American people want to see. We're gonna be there. We're gonna to report on this. We're gonna showcase what these candidates and what the delegates are doing in a way that we've never done before.
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JAMIE RICHARDSON: One way Kennedy pioneered television campaigns was to turn events from the campaign trail into made-for-TV moments. In the last episode, we highlighted JFK's speech to the Houston Ministerial Association. The speech was televised live across Texas.
[SPEECH TO THE HOUSTON MINISTERIAL ASSOCIATION] JOHN F. KENNEDY: I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant, nor Jewish, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all. For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew, or a Quaker, or a Unitarian, or a Baptist. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may you.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Before television, the Houston event would have been covered mainly in local newspapers. But after broadcasting the speech live in Texas, JFK's team decided to distribute a slightly edited version of the event across the country. This would also be the largest ad buy of the campaign. Historian Tim Naftali explains.
TIM NAFTALI: Well, what they decided was that they would take on the issue in a speech in Houston. And Kennedy would make clear that he was going to be president of all Americans. So Kennedy decided he would take the issue on in a big way-- in a national way. The speech was televised, and the campaign took clips from the Houston speech and distributed it to various local television stations. So there it was run and rerun all across the country.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: For JFK with his ability to perform in these situations, this was nothing new. He had done it in his convention debate with LBJ, and also in responding to former President Harry Truman's criticism on the eve of the convention.
[PRESS CONFERENCE ON JULY 4, 1960] JOHN F. KENNEDY: If we are to establish a test for the presidency, whereby 14 years in major elective office is insufficient experience, and every president elevated to that office in the 20th century should have been ruled out, including the three great Democratic presidents-- Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry Truman himself.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Here again, the response to Truman was about more than performance. It was about creating a made-for-television event, as Robert Kennedy had been working behind the scenes to make sure it was covered live on NBC and CBS.
What each of these events showed was an understanding of how media worked in the age of television. JFK's team realized televising live events was an opportunity to provide kind of story lines and drama that TV networks were looking for. In turn, they multiplied the size of JFK's audience. Instead of talking to dozens or hundreds of people at a local event, he could talk to thousands and sometimes millions of viewers across the country.
As David Halberstam, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and historian wrote, JFK's team learned that drama worked. Kennedy discovered that quote, "even in a hostile press conference with hostile questions, there was drama, and he could benefit from the drama," end quote.
From TV spots that showed JFK answering tough questions on the campaign trail in West Virginia, to ones that featured JFK in action during his debate with Nixon, the Kennedy campaign's use of actual events in campaign ads took the viewer into the reality of the campaign. Kennedy would even use material from one of President Eisenhower's own press conferences as a forerunner to the type of attack ads we see today.
As you'll hear, the spot uses President Eisenhower's own words to undercut the role that Vice President Nixon had played in the Eisenhower administration.
[KENNEDY CAMPAIGN COMMERCIAL] MALE ACTOR: Every Republican politician wants you to believe that Richard Nixon is quote, "experienced." They even want you to believe that he has actually been making decisions in the White House. But listen to the man who should know best-- the President of the United States. A reporter recently asked President Eisenhower this question about Mr Nixon's experience.
REPORTER: I just wondered if you could give us an example of a major idea of his that you had adopted in that role as the decider and the final.
DWIGHT EISENHOWER: If you'll give me a week, I might think of one. I don't remember.
MALE ACTOR: At the same press conference, President Eisenhower said--
DWIGHT EISENHOWER: No one can make a decision except me.
MALE ACTOR: And as for any major ideas from Mr. Nixon--
DWIGHT EISENHOWER: If you'll give me a week, I might think of one. I don't remember.
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JAMIE RICHARDSON: Within a week, JFK's team packaged the ad and kept it running until election day. Prior to 1960, the damaging quote from Eisenhower's press conference would have been a one day news story, but JFK's team moved quickly to turn the piece of news into an advertising opportunity.
FRED LOGEVALL: And I think they were nimble-- the Kennedy people. They were fast. They also had a much larger staff than the Nixon people, so they had more people able to focus on this. But the fact that they understood that they could do this, I think is just absolutely fascinating.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: The Kennedy ad team produced a wide range of commercials. Some featured testimonials from celebrities and stars like Harry Belafonte.
HARRY BELAFONTE: Hi. My name is Harry Belafonte. I'm an artist, and I'm not a politician. But like most Americans, I have a great interest in the political and the economic destiny of my country.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: And Henry Fonda, the quintessential all-American actor of the time, narrated an ad on JFK's World War II experience. The action-packed campaign spot used B-roll footage of boats at sea, explosions, and crashing waves to enhance the dramatic story of Lieutenant Kennedy's heroism and fight for survival in the South Pacific.
HENRY FONDA: I know another man like that, with the same strong character, the indomitable will to live. This I have known for over 15 years, ever since I read an article in The Reader's Digest by John Hersey about a young naval officer in the Solomon Islands during some of the darkest days and nights of World War II.
The PT boat is cruising quietly. At the wheel is our captain, Navy Lieutenant John F. Kennedy. Suddenly, out of the dark knight a Japanese destroyer bears down at 40 knots and rams the PT boat in two. Thrown on his back on the deck, Lieutenant Kennedy stares up to see the destroyer pass through his boat. But half the PT boat stays afloat, and Lieutenant Kennedy helps 10 other survivors hang on.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: In contrast with a cinematic Henry Fonda spot, the Kennedy team also developed ads to evoke a certain realism to show that JFK was listening to the concerns of the everyday voter. Here's an ad where JFK visits a presumably ordinary American family in their home.
[KENNEDY CAMPAIGN COMMERCIAL] MALE ACTOR:: This is the Sills family. Recently, John F. Kennedy visited the Sills.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: Mr. And Mrs. Sills are facing one of the great problems that all-American families are now facing, and that is the great increase in the cost of living.
MRS. SILLS: Our rent has gone up, our food, our cleaning of our clothing, buying of the clothing, our gas and electric, and our telephone bills have gone up.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: What's been your experience, Mr. Sills? As far as keeping those two daughters of yours growing.
MR. SILLS: We're very concerned with their future. We would like both of them to go to college.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: Have you been able to put much aside [INAUDIBLE]?
MR. SILLS: No, unfortunately not right now.
MALE ACTOR: Yes, we can do better. But to do so, we must elect the man who cares about America's problems.
[COMMERCIAL ENDS] JAMIE RICHARDSON: By today's standards, this ad may feel a bit stiff, but in 1960, the ad demonstrated a new way to be relevant to the concerns of real people. And by bringing JFK into the living room of the average American, it made JFK appeared more real and relatable.
This was important back then, and for Amy Dacey, former head of the DNC and Executive Director of the Sine Institute of Policy and Politics conveying this sense of authenticity is still important today.
AMY DACEY: The biggest thing is-- and I think this would be the same for President Kennedy as any candidates running more recently as well-- is that authenticity matters. And I think that whether these mediums help you to be inauthentic and share who you are as an individual and as a leader with possible voters, that's what matters. And so each tactic just has to capitalize on that authenticity and sharing the story that is your candidate with these voters.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Though authenticity mattered, the Kennedy team used one type of advertising that was a staple to political campaigns of the time-- the campaign jingle.
[KENNEDY CAMPAIGN COMMERIAL] CHORUS SINGING: Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy for me.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: With its constant repetition of JFK's name, it was a classic ad for the time period and right out of the Rosser Reeves advertising playbook.
[KENNEDY CAMPAIGN COMMERIAL] CHORUS SINGING: You cast your vote for Kennedy and the change that's overdue, so it's up to you, it's up to you, it's strictly up to you.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: With it's up to you refrain, the ad also presented a psychologically empowering message that JFK would echo in the debates and in ads that featured the debates. Take a listen.
[KENNEDY CAMPAIGN COMMERIAL] JOHN F. KENNEDY: These were the years when the United States started to move again. That's the question before the American people, and only you can decide what you want-- what you want this country to be, what you want to do with the future.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Fredrik Logevall sums up the ad team's efforts.
FREDRIK LOGEVALL: What I would say on the ads is that they were by the standards of the time-- and I would argue even much later-- pretty sophisticated, certainly in comparison to those put out by the Nixon people.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: As for ads from the Nixon campaign, Logevall reminds us that Nixon was no stranger to the power of television.
FREDRIK LOGEVALL: We should note upfront that Nixon fully embraced the importance of television. Nixon understood television advertising to be a really important component, so that should be said up front.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Nixon knew how to perform. He had been a lead actor in high school and was a champion debater. He used his ability to perform in 1952 when he faced accusations of misusing a political expense fund for personal purposes, including getting a dog named Checkers as a gift. Known as the Checkers speech, he spoke on national television to defend himself and save his position on the Eisenhower ticket. Nixon came across as humble and contrite throughout the telecast, but as for Checkers--
RICHARD M. NIXON: You know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog. And I just want to say this right now-- that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Jill Lepore describes how Nixon connected with the average American during that televised performance.
JILL LEPORE: Well, I think Nixon-- what he did in his Checkers speech so famously was turn the Republican Party, which had been the party of business, into the party of the little guy-- like the besieged little guy. I think most viewers thought that he was in his own den at his own house. He was on a set. You know, everything about it was fake, but he so leaned into the fakery that came across as though you were intimately visiting him in his den and he was revealing his true self to you. So yeah, he was an incredibly sophisticated television performer because he was so cynical.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: As the 1960 campaign began, Nixon's advertising team included people like Ted Rogers, who had helped produce the Checkers speech. And Rodgers was joined by Carol Newton, who was a top ad man from Madison Avenue.
The Rogers Newton team developed a range of ideas designed to utilize television to present the different sides of Richard Nixon. One portrayed Nixon as a family man who could connect with the average American. But Nixon rejected their ideas and stuck to the advertising style of the Eisenhower campaigns-- ads focused purely on the issues with little or no drama.
[NIXON CAMPAIGN COMMERICAL] MALE ACTOR: Mr. Nixon, what is the truth about our ability to fight the growing menace of communism?
RICHARD M. NIXON: Well first, we must recognize communism for what it is. Mr. Khrushchev understands only strength and firmness.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: The content of these ads was certainly important, but the style was outdated and stilted. Nixon seemed perched on a desk with his hands folded in his lap, staring straight into the camera and barely moving as he spoke.
RICHARD M. NIXON: When Mr. Khrushchev says our grandchildren will live under communism, we must answer his grandchildren will live in freedom.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: The spots showed no creativity, no humanity, and as Logevall explains, little variety.
FREDRIK LOGEVALL: I think it's also the case that if you look at what the Nixon campaign produced, they were pretty repetitive ads. They tended to have a particular look. They often hammered on a special theme. You didn't have the kind of variation or the sophistication in terms of production values that you saw on the Kennedy side.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: To Nixon's credit, his television media buys-- how and where the campaign bought television ads-- were more strategic. Just like the Kennedy campaign, the Nixon team focused much of their TV budget on the battleground states. But Nixon's ads lack the creativity and range of those produced by the Kennedy team, and they lack the relatability that Nixon had shown in the Checkers speech eight years before.
[NIXON CAMPAIGN COMMERICAL] RICHARD M. NIXON: But Pat and I have the satisfaction that every dime that we've got is honestly ours. I should say this-- that Pat doesn't have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat, and I always tell her that she'd look good in anything.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Nixon hadn't forgotten these stories from his Checkers speech. In fact, he continued to use them on the campaign trail. But on TV, where he could reach millions of voters multiple times, Nixon seemed to forget that television provides a unique opportunity to highlight an increasingly important part of the campaign-- the candidate as human being.
As we look back to 1960, we don't know which ads were most successful. But the shear range of work from JFK's team, and its readiness to experiment with a new medium of television, is in stark contrast to Nixon's approach. The Kennedy team was innovative and opportunistic, quickly turning campaign news and events into ads of all lengths and sizes. In this way, they set the model for future political advertising, setting the stage for rapid response ads as we see today with the Lincoln Project's videos, released on an almost daily basis.
[ANTI-TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN AD] MALE ACTOR: In April, he admitted a herd immunity plan was deadly.
DONALD TRUMP: And if we did follow that approach, I think we might have 2 million people dead.
MALE ACTOR: This week, he admitted it's his real plan.
DONALD TRUMP: With time with those many deaths-- and you'll develop-- you'll developed like a herd mentality. It's going to be-- it's going to be herd developed, and that's going to happen.
MALE ACTOR: Say goodbye to your parents.
FRED LOGEVALL: Any self-respecting campaign down to state legislatures or maybe even school boards now are thinking in these terms. And you can go back to '60 and see some really interesting early examples.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Putting all this into context, political strategist David Axelrod says the most successful campaigns are always the ones willing to think outside the box and be able to adapt.
DAVID AXELROD: Good campaigns do make a difference. Generally, you don't see candidates who run bad campaigns getting elected. It's always the campaign that is pushing the envelope, thinking about how to use the newest technologies and the newest devices that are available to them to try and achieve their goals.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: TV was clearly changing the playing field of politics, but John F. Kennedy and the rest of his family were skilled at leveraging more traditional types of media as well. We'll take a look at that next.
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CO-HOST MATT PORTER: Are you listening to our podcast, wondering if there's more to the story? Of course there is. If you want to learn more about what you've heard today, we have links to resources from the JFK Library's archives, including photos, films, and primary source documents. We also have oral history interviews from some of the key members of Kennedy's campaign. Visit JFKLibrary.org/6020 to get started.
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JAMIE RICHARDSON: Television was clearly having an impact on the 1960 campaign. As JFK would later say, quote, "it was TV more than anything else that turned the tide," unquote. But other media, like print ads and news coverage, still had a key role to play. Tim Naftali points to the importance of print advertising in 1960.
TIM NAFTALI: Televisions were far more important than they had ever been in American elections. But what still mattered was print advertising-- newspaper advertising.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: In addition to print advertising, candidates relied heavily on print news coverage, both in local papers and national weeklies. Richard Nixon himself would comment on the continued importance of print coverage in major magazines.
Shortly after the election, he noted that 15 million Americans read Time Magazine, Newsweek, and US News and World Report quote "every week, and usually swear by them as a political authority," unquote. Fredrik Logevall agrees with Nixon.
FREDRIK LOGEVALL: The other thing, I suppose, that's worth saying is that glossy magazines, and maybe in particular Time and Life-- part of Time, Inc.-- I think we're really important. Time in particular, maybe, I think was in most middle class households, and therefore had a lot of influence. Millions of people read these magazines on a weekly basis-- helped shape the narrative, if you will. And also some others-- Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Reader's Digest.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: And in print magazines, Logevall says that the Kennedy's increasing celebrity gave him another advantage.
FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Kennedy, I think, understood this from an early point-- that these magazines-- these weekly magazines he could utilize to his benefit. And he did. Editors found that when Jack and Jackie were on the cover, they sold way more magazines. This was just-- it was a telegenic couple, handsome couple. People who are interested in the Kennedys, and it worked for them.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: And, of course, the Kennedys were more than just a celebrity couple. JFK came from a well-known political family that was used to the spotlight and political campaigning.
FREDRIK LOGEVALL: There is a celebrity element already to the Kennedys-- no question about it. I think this has been building. I think in a very low key way-- minor way-- we see some of this already in the first JFK congressional race in 1946 in the 11th district in Massachusetts-- that this is a very photogenic family, it's a very talented family. It's a family where pretty much everybody are involved in one way or another to get this young, skinny 29-year-old elected to the House.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: His mother Rose had a special relationship to politics, which would later help her sons as they ran for office.
FREDRIK LOGEVALL: She had grown up with a father who was a prominent Boston politician, and she had loved politics as a child. She was just comfortable in the glare of the campaign trail and the media spotlight.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: With her daughters Eunice, Pat, and Jean, she played the role of hostess in campaign events for JFK, known as Kennedy teas. Even though televisions were not in many houses yet, the Kennedy team also translated these in-person teas to a televised event, giving them the chance to speak to more people at a time.
Rose hosted the program called "Coffee with the Kennedys," giving the viewers at home the feeling that they are there with this famous family in their living room. Speaking from her home, or at least a television set made to look like her home, Rose spoke about her son's experiences, and then the candidate himself asked viewers to call in with questions for him. His sisters were standing by. This provided an extra level of interactivity and access to the Kennedys.
The program was repeated for his re-election campaign in 1958. Rose Kennedy opens the program sharing with the audience at home all the additions to the Kennedy family since 1952.
[1958 TV SPOT “COFFEE WITH THE KENNEDYS”] ROSE KENNEDY: But we have a charming addition in the presence of Jacqueline, Jack's wife, who has been campaigning with him during the last few months, and whom I know many of you have not.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: In 1953, John F. Kennedy, one of the nation's most eligible bachelors according to one source, married Jacqueline Bouvier. She would join her husband on the campaign trail as he ran for Senate and later the presidency. And Jacqueline Kennedy would also join the rest of the women in his family on television.
[1958 TV SPOT “COFFEE WITH THE KENNEDYS”] JACQUELINE KENNEDY: We visited 184 communities, and I think slept in nearly every city in Massachusetts. And we must have shaken hands with nearly everyone in Massachusetts, too.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: For the 1960 race, she and her husband would go on television in October for the program "Coffee with Senator and Mrs. Kennedy." This wasn't her only foray into television that year, though. The campaign used her ability to speak many languages in an ad directed to Spanish speaking voters.
[KENNEDY CAMPAIGN AD IN SPANISH LANGUAGE] JACQUELINE KENNEDY: Queridos amigos, les habla la esposa del senador John F. Kennedy, candidato a la presidente de Los Estados Unidos.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Though she was highly educated and had a career as a journalist and photographer before marrying the senator from Massachusetts, the gender politics of the day necessitated that her public facing role focus on being a wife and a mother. Tim Naftali explains that political wives and first ladies had more limited roles than they would come to have years later.
TIM NAFTALI: And one thing that doesn't happen in the Kennedy years-- you don't have the same kind of relationship publicly between the president and the first lady, in terms of policy substance, that you would have with Rosalynn Carter and Jimmy Carter, Bill and Hillary Clinton. That's not-- that's not the relationship the American public is introduced to, and it certainly wasn't the way in which Pat Nixon and Jackie Kennedy were introduced in the 1960 campaign. They were introduced as filling very, at the time, traditional roles.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: And so in another spot, she's asked questions focusing on her role as a young mother expecting another child and as a politician's wife. The viewer sees a tight shot of Jacqueline Kennedy seated in an armchair. Her almost three-year-old daughter is seated on her lap, occasionally fidgeting and trying to get her mother's attention. It's a familiar relatable image, and the closeness of the camera makes it all the more intimate and engaging. She answers a question if she was raising her daughter according to pediatrician Dr. Spock's advice.
JACQUELINE KENNEDY: I suppose I do. I always imagined I'd raise my children completely on my own. But once you have them, you find you need help. So I do need Dr. Spock a lot, and I find it such a relief to know that other people's children are as bad as yours at the same age.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: But even with a media savvy family and intelligent and attractive wife, no Kennedy would receive more coverage than the candidate himself. We'll talk about how the media covered the so-called Kennedy mystique next.
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MATT PORTER: Are you enjoying the 60/20 podcast? This podcast is just one of many initiatives, programs, and resources supported by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. The JFK Library Foundation is a non-profit that provides financial support, staffing, and creative resources for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Learn more about the JFK Library and foundation at JFKLibrary.org.
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JAMIE RICHARDSON: John F. Kennedy had a celebrity-like magnetism, unlike his opponent. And this was something he knew how to use to his advantage.
TIM NAFTALI: He was not unaware of the seductive qualities of his campaign and of his person. He was able to move a lot of journalists who were just-- they became entranced by him. I think it would be a little much to say in love with him, but entranced by him.
Whereas Nixon-- you got the sense with Nixon that he was always under control, always tightly controlled. There was a sense that there was a facade. There was a Nixon facade, and something else was behind the facade. What it was, you weren't sure. And that in a person-- that it's harder to feel any real empathy for.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Fredrik Logevall says Kennedy's background may have been one reason for why he got along so well with the press.
FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Let's also bear in mind that Kennedy was himself a former reporter, so he could have been a reporter, and he understood reporters. He liked them. Some of this he got from his father, who also saw the value of courting journalists and spending time with them.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: New York Times reporter Bill Laurence, who had covered both candidates in 1960, was asked if he minded covering Nixon during the campaign. Laurence responded, quote, "No. I think I can do Jack more good when I'm with Nixon," unquote.
And according to the famous newsman Charles Kuralt, Nixon's aloof approach with the press probably hurt his coverage. Kuralt said Nixon accused the press of being on JFK's side, and quote, "the outcome of the election might have been different if Nixon had been able to put up his feet at the end of the day and relax with reporters," unquote.
Logevall agrees that the preference from reporters gave Kennedy an edge.
FREDRIK LOGEVALL: I don't think there's any doubt, however, that reporters were drawn to John F. Kennedy. I think by and large-- I think it did color their reporting-- their coverage.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Tim Naftali explains how JFK, unlike Nixon, was able to connect with journalists on a human level.
TIM NAFTALI: So part of it, it was just the persona. Now, John Kennedy could be aloof, but there was something about Kennedy that made him attractive, interesting-- hold your attention. And he was such a contrast from the political heavyweights of the Eisenhower period, and that drew a lot of journalists to him.
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JAMIE RICHARDSON: By 1960, the Kennedy persona had already been a few decades in the making. And in the age of television, it would be shared with millions of people-- people who may not have been reading the newspapers every day, but could now connect with the candidate from the comfort of their living rooms on the evening news or even on late night television.
JACK PAAR: I would like to now to give a real Tonight welcome to the senator from Massachusetts, Mr. John Kennedy.
[APPLAUSE]
JAMIE RICHARDSON: In June of 1960, Kennedy became the first presidential candidate to appear on late night television with a visit to the Tonight Show with Jack Paar.
JACK PAAR: Would it be rude of me if I called you John?
JOHN F. KENNEDY: No, it'd be fine.
JACK PAAR: Because if you make it, it would be nice for my daughter to know you.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Appearances on late night television were yet another way in which JFK's team would make use of the new medium-- an opportunity to reach new audiences in new places, where the candidate could be seen more as a human being rather than a politician.
But there was some hand-wringing about how this would affect future races. That summer, after Nixon appeared on the same program, New York Times columnist James Reston wrote, quote, "The implications of this and the current election are fairly obvious. It adds a new test and a new hazard to the campaign," unquote.
Despite that, we do know that JFK's interview with Jack Paar coincided with a period of JFK's biggest gains in the tracking polls against Nixon. Fredrik Logevall talks about the Kennedy strategy and how it would influence candidates in the decades ahead.
FREDRIK LOGEVALL: But it's really in '60-- and I think more to the point here, I think Kennedy and his people understood that to be humanized-- to humanize the candidate by having him go on some entertainment shows to appear in a fairly relaxed setting and make him more human-- make him seem more like the rest of us-- I think there's no question that it helped him, and that it would become, as you suggest, a feature of future politics, and of course would become much more pronounced.
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JAMIE RICHARDSON: Exhibit A was Bill Clinton wearing sunglasses and playing "Heartbreak Hotel" on the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show in 1992.
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Logevall suggests that this focus on the human side of the candidates has helped voters build stronger connections to them, but also diverts their attention from issues of substance.
FREDRIK LOGEVALL: I mean, it's also acceptable and inevitable and perhaps in some ways a good thing that we're wanting-- we the voters are wanting to be able to relate to candidates in a certain way, and we want to see that human side of them. So maybe that-- maybe the answer is a kind of healthy mix, and arguably we've gone much too far in one direction.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: But just as reaching new audiences worked for JFK, so too would it work for Bill Clinton. Clinton's appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show, combined with another appearance on MTV a few weeks later, coincided with a turnaround in his polling. As the Baltimore Sun's David Zurawik concluded, quote, "it wasn't the first time that television was the place where America found the pictures that would shape its vision of the future," unquote.
[KENNEDY CAMPAIGN COMMERIAL] CHORUS SINGING: And the change that's overdue, so it's up to you.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: For that, we'll have to go back again to 1960--
[KENNEDY CAMPAIGN COMMERIAL] CHORUS SINGING: Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy.
JAMIE RICHARDSON: --where we'll explore another way in which television shaped that election and impacted races to come, next time on 60/20.
[KENNEDY CAMPAIGN COMMERIAL] CHORUS SINGING: Kennedy!
JAMIE RICHARDSON: Thank you for listening to this episode of 60/20. Along with Matt Porter and myself, Jamie Richardson, 60/20 is made possible with help from our co-producer, Rick King. Thank you to our research assistants Megan McKee and Cassie Marando. Special thanks to our foundation colleagues, in particular Meaghan Hohl and executive director Rachel Flor.
Our music is composed by Blue.Sessions and artwork by Brian Kang. We also thank all of our guests for lending their voices and expertise to this podcast. And of course, none of this would be possible without the work by archivists and other staff at the JFK Library and Museum, who make much of the material discussed available to all online and to visiting researchers.
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October 1, 2020