John F. Kennedy - "The New Frontier"
The 1960 election campaign was dominated by rising Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first man made satellite to orbit Earth. American leaders warned that the nation was falling behind communist countries in science and technology. Three years later, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over Soviet territory and its pilot captured. The incident led to the cancellation of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's planned trip to Moscow and the collapse of a summit meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
In Cuba, the revolutionary regime of Fidel Castro became a close ally of the Soviet Union, heightening fears of communist subversion in the Western Hemisphere. Public opinion polls revealed that more than half the American people thought war with the Soviet Union was inevitable. |
Things do not happen. Things are made to happen. The DebateKennedy then challenged the vice president to a series of televised debates. Many in the Nixon camp, including President Eisenhower, urged the vice president to reject the debate proposal and deny Kennedy invaluable national exposure. But Nixon confidently agreed to share a platform with his rival on nationwide television.
In 1950, only 11 percent of American homes had television; by 1960, the number had jumped to 88 percent. An estimated seventy million Americans, about two-thirds of the electorate, watched the first debate on September 26th. |