The first Kennedy-Nixon debate took place not in 1960, but
in April 1947 in McKeesport, Pennsylvania.
The two young, first-term members of the U.S. House of Representatives
were invited by the local congressman to debate each other in his
hometown.
The debate, which focused on the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act, took place before a sparse crowd at the Penn-McKee Hotel and received
little attention. After the event, the
two World War II veterans went out to dinner and then shared a sleeping compartment
on the overnight train back to Washington, D.C.
Although political adversaries, they become friends.
On this day fifteen years later--October 13, 1962--President
Kennedy returned to McKeesport campaigning for Democrats in the mid-term
elections. He started his speech at the
City Hall by saying, “The first time I came to this city was in 1947, when Mr.
Richard Nixon and I engaged in our first debate. He won that one, and we on to other things.” Of course, Kennedy defeated him in 1960 and
Nixon was currently running for governor of California.
The Penn-McKee Hotel is still standing although it is
abandoned and dilapidated, an eyesore in the city of about 19,000 people in
Allegheny County. The city hall is only a few
blocks from where the historic, if little reported, debate took place.
The photograph is of President Kennedy with a group of
people outside the McKeesport City Hall in 1962. Credit: Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and
Museum, Boston; the photo is in the public domain.
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