Act One

The show started off as if someone had switched the scripts, or at least the sourcebooks. Kennedy quoted Abraham Lincoln, and Nixon invoked the "Let's take a look at the record" maxim of Al Smith. Nixon, who has not built a reputation for this sort of thing, then went on to tell 70 million Americans that his opponent Jack Kennedy was sincere. So, of course, Nixon added, was Dick Nixon, although Kennedy, to give him credit, never committed himself on this point.

Things had to warm up a bit after all this saccharine, and they did. Still, Monday's first installment of the "great debate" was a remarkably genteel affair. No one really called anyone a liar (Kennedy came closer, but then, Nixon came closer to lying); Kennedy even accepted without comment or quarrel Nixon's assertion that the two candidates differ not on the goals for America, but only on the means by which to attain them. There is, after all, a point at which a difference on means becomes in effect a difference on ends.

For example, on David Susskind's Open End program last month, Governor Mark Hatfield of Oregon expounded the same ends-means line, saying that the difference between the parties was that to solve the same problems, the Democrats relied too much on government action while the Republicans preferred to exhaust private means before turning to the government. Paul Ziffren, California's former Democratic National Committeeman, asked, "How many old people have to go without adequate medical care before the Republicans think it's time for government action? How many children must go to school on double session before the Republicans think the Federal government ought to act? How depressed must a depressed area be before private means of relief are considered exhausted?" There were several more in a series of these questions, and to all of them Hatfield's reply was something like, "Well, I'm glad you asked that question, because it's a very good question, and I'd like to answer that question, and I wish I could."

Nixon does not fluster quite that easily, although his performance Monday night may leave some doubts in that regard, but he gave Kennedy the same kind of opening that Hatfield gave Ziffren, and Kennedy did not respond. It must be assumed that Kennedy passed up this and other opportunities by choice and not by incapacity.

In fact, one of the most interesting features of Monday night's episode was the inhibitions both men seemed to feel; both Nixon and Kennedy have been known to exhibit an "instinct for the jugular" in dealings with their party colleagues, yet neither was willing even to try to finish off his man before 70 million television viewers. Although a little ruthlessness may well be what the Presidency needs (and although both candidates have in the past displayed adequate supplies of this rather debatable virtue), ruthlessness does not sell well on television, so Kennedy and Nixon have thus far avoided any stunning attack or counter-attack that might in some way inspire public sympathy for the victim.

So the debate was tame, but it was still, as both candidates remarked, "useful." Face-to-face confrontation is much more revealing than arguments carried out days and thousands of miles apart; it also disposes of some of the more obvious distortions. For example, although in his day-to-day campaigning Nixon continues to make much of Kennedy's alleged "I would have apologized to Khrushchev" remark, he didn't dare bring it up with Kennedy on the same stage ready to place it in its proper context.

Similarly, each man got burned Monday night when he strayed a bit from the facts in fields where his opponent was well-briefed: Kennedy was caught using a recession year to prove the United States' low rate of economic growth; Nixon was caught, perhaps more significantly, misrepresenting the provisions of bills on Federal aid to education and medical care for the aged.

Although not so sharp is the Hatfield-Ziffren exchange, the debate made clear to those who were looking closely that there is some difference in basic attitudes between the candidates and between the parties.

Kennedy put on a good performance, and he may finally have converted the recalcitrant Stevensonians, a large group (particularly in the key states of New York and California) that wasn't planning to vote for Nixon but was seriously considering not voting at all. Nixon, on the other hand, probably did best with those already firmly in his camp; he was most effective in discussing fiscal responsibility and the higher taxes he thinks the Democratic program would require.

The jury, however, is still very much out on the 1960 election, and it will take more than one kid-gloves debate to sway the large group of undecided voters. Nixon, in particular, will have to do better in the succeeding episodes.

And for the next installment, a few irreverent words of advice: Mr. Nixon, you do not look earnest on camera when Mr. Kennedy is speaking; you look positively malevolent; do something about your face. Mr. Kennedy, this "half-slave, half-free" bit is tired; find a new lead. Mr. Nixon, anyone who knows the President's news conferences would know that he was not being facetious when he said that if he were given a week, he might think of a major idea you had proposed; he was merely having his usual troubles with the English language; of course, that's rather difficult to explain to 70 million people.