However, there was so much more to Elmer. He and I corresponded for several
years until 2011 when he died. He had a breadth and depth of knowledge in
American journalism, politics and history that was unsurpassed in my
experience. I met him first in 2003 when I was researching Watergate. He told
me he couldn’t really help as he was out of the Washington loop by the
beginning of Nixon’s second term. However, he had met and interviewed all US
Presidents since Hoover. During a long, warm afternoon in the Hamptons, I was
given the best history lesson of my life.
Elmer talked quite a bit about the 1960 election between Nixon and Kennedy.
He told me that he had suggested the debates to his ABC masters but other
networks also cottoned on to the idea. He didn’t comment much on the first
debate but here is an unedited extract of my taped interview about the second debate:
“The
debates, I’m sure you’ve got plenty of stuff on the debates. I was the host to the second one and
timekeeper. Well, the second debate was at WRC at Washington. I think this is
something that probably hasn’t been fully reported. The Kennedy camp knew
they’d won the first debate and they were sure that NBC was going to do
something to even up the odds and make it even for Nixon. So when they came in
they wanted to see every little detail in the whole studio, the whole station,
and first Jack Kennedy would get up and stand at his lectern and Bobby would go
into the control room and look at every picture, every lens, every change of
lens and they did this for half an hour and then Jack would go in and look at
the pictures and Bobby would stand at the lectern. They were so afraid they were going to lose
their advantage. When Nixon’s people came in they were greatly relaxed. They
didn’t ask anything, they said hello, we’re off to the Green Room to prepare
and relax until it was time to go on.
“Nothing really much
happened in the debate. They did a lot of arguing about two islands off the
coast of China and they went on from there.
But anyway Ross Tulliver and I were there as timekeepers. It was a fairly simple system though, no
crisis or anything but it was a lot of fun doing it. The two people who I consider the authorities
on that first debate that CBS carried because they drew the straw on it were
Don Rather of 60 Minutes, he was the director on that occasion. The producer in
fact was my old boss, Sid Nicholson, who is now dead, but the guy who asked the
dirty questions of Nixon in that debate was a guy who worked in England for a
long time going way back in the 50s. He was asking the dirty questions.
How interesting that the Kennedys
were onto the importance of image even in 1960. I wonder what
Elmer would think of Monday night’s debate. I’m pretty sure I know what he would say about Trump
as a candidate. But what of Trump and Clinton as debaters? Had I asked him the question, In suspect
Elmer would have given me an old-fashioned look, reminded me he reported news, not gossip. and
would have limited any comment to a mild criticism of the moderator for letting both candidates,
especially Trump, off the hook.
I am sad I cannot correspond with
Elmer about this election. His insight would be so valuable, not so much for
the race for the Presidency but how the new Congress might look and how the
parties might move from partisan politics and get round to the business of
governing.
I am taking a break until the
third week of October.
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