When Reagan debated RFK

Paul Kengor has the story of a 1967 debate between Robert F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. They appeared before an international audience to talk about Vietnam. And, from all reports Reagan won the debate hands down.

There was total agreement, including among media sources who revered Bobby Kennedy, from the San Francisco Chronicle to Newsweek, that Reagan overwhelmingly won the debate. "To those unfamiliar with Reagan’s big-league savvy," reported Newsweek, "the ease with which he fielded questions about Vietnam may have come as a revelation." Newsweek judged that "political rookie Reagan - left old campaigner Kennedy blinking when the session ended." Not having a crystal ball into the tragic year ahead for Kennedy, Newsweek pondered whether the debate might be a "dry run" for a future set of "Great Debates" between these two promising presidential aspirants.

The late historian David Halberstam acknowledged that “the general consensus” was that "Reagan - destroyed him." Lou Cannon, in a 1969 book on Reagan and California assemblyman Jesse Unruh, agreed that "Reagan clearly bested Kennedy." Another of Reagan’s first biographers, Joseph Lewis, recorded that the “tanned and relaxed” Reagan “talked easily and precisely without a hint of uncertainty or hostility,” and "deflated" the "anguished" Kennedy, who "gulped in restrained agony" when answering questions. Kennedy, said Lewis, "looked as if he had stumbled into a minefield."

They faced questions from young international students who all seemed to have bought in to the "America is evil" paradigm. In the face of these antagonistic questions, Kennedy seemed nonplussed while Reagan impressed observers with his easy, humorous, yet factual responses to the hostile audience. Reagan was ready to defend America while Kennedy was apparently unprepared.

Reagan and Kennedy ended up debating the group of students, not one another. And it was there that Reagan was so effective, whereas Kennedy was passive, meek, and apologetic. Alarmed viewers looking for a defense of the United States as anything other than history’s greatest purveyor of global misery were frustrated by Kennedy’s lame responses but buoyed by Reagan’s strong retorts.

The fiasco began with a "question" from a female British student, who started: "I believe the war in Vietnam is illegal, immoral, politically unjustifiable, and economically motivated." That opening salvo set the tone. In one particularly repulsive moment, the students mockingly laughed out loud when Reagan said (obviously correctly) that the people of Mao's China had never chosen their government. At that moment, Mao Zedong was smack in the middle of his Cultural Revolution, where he was busy fulfilling his rightful role as the greatest mass murderer in the history of humanity: 60-70 million dead in under two decades. And yet, in an up or down vote, this group of students might well have elected Mao secretary general of the United Nations.

In another exchange still difficult to watch, a contemptuous Brit named Jeff Jordan, whom Kennedy permitted to roll all over him, complained that the Diem regime, with the alleged help of U.S. advisers, had incarcerated six million Vietnamese in "forced prison camps." A smiling Reagan informed Jordan that there was no record whatsoever to confirm the allegation and that there were only 16 million people in all of South Vietnam. These facts did not rattle Jordan; like the others, he was not there to listen. Newsweek was at least impressed by this exchange, noting that Reagan "effortlessly reeled off more facts and quasi-facts about the Vietnam conflict than anyone suspected he ever knew."

Ah, Newsweek, patronizing as always.

Apparently, Kennedy was well aware of how bad his efforts had been.

Reagan performed so well that his presidential boosters sought to use clips from the debate during the 1968 Oregon presidential primary, and requested a copy from CBS. Kennedy, however, reportedly did not want the video to be made available; CBS, naturally, acceded to his request. Kennedy himself conceded defeat to Reagan, telling his aides after the debate to never again put him on the same stage with "that son-of-a-bitch." Kennedy was heard to ask immediately after the debate, "Who the f—- got me into this?" Frank Mankiewitz was that aide, as Kennedy was quick to remind him a few weeks later: "You’re the guy who got me into that Reagan thing."

Kengor calls for the Reagan Library to make the video of this long ago debate public. They could put it out and let it bounce around youtube and various blogs as a model of how to defend America from hostile questioners filled with moral equivalency, a situation that is still all too common today.