I loved the show Rawhide when I was a kid and I imagine that there were more than a few ticked CBS viewers on October 7, 1960 when they tuned in to see the Western only to view two politicians debating! Nixon wore television makeup for this second ever Presidential debate, unlike the first one, and most pundits at the time thought he won this second debate. Nixon had spent little time actually practicing law, but he was good at the cut and thrust of verbal warfare, while Kennedy was better at set piece speeches. Unfortunately for Nixon, viewership fell off by about twenty million viewers after the initial debate that he lost. In those long ago days before the internet, if the debate wasn’t watched when first broadcast, it wasn’t going to be seen at all, except in the briefest of snippets on the evening news.
Second Debate
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Nixon had spent little time actually practicing law, but he was good at the cut and thrust of verbal warfare, while Kennedy was better at set piece speeches.
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Don’t think Nixon did any trial work at all. I think in his second pass at law practice, he offered oral arguments in appellate proceedings. IIRC, Nixon was a debate team veteran, like Ted Cruz but on a smaller scale.
From 1937-41 Nixon worked for the law firm of Wingert and Bewley, eventually becoming a partner. He did some trial work, mostly commercial litigation. He avoided divorce cases, as all smart lawyers should! Nixon was proud that among modern presidents he was the only practicing attorney which just shows that people can be proud of the strangest things!
IIRC, the Conrad Black biography says he did a couple of divorce cases, but found them unpalatable because the clients he had tended to discuss aspects of marital intimacy, so he avoided them after that.
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Gerald Ford practiced law for about 7 years, in partnership with Philip Buchan (who, I think, continued to practice in Grand Rapids after Ford left for Washington). I think Roosevelt practiced for a few years ca. 1910, but had some financial sector job during the 1920s.
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Supposedly, Nixon came to despise law practice, and told a friend ca. 1966 that he had to do something else or he’d be intellectually dead in five years and physically dead not long after. It’s a pity. Those 3 or 4 years may have been the most congenial his wife ever had.