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Then Dick declined, I think, any make-up. Jack got some make-up although he really didn't need it. His coloring was such that he was in good shape. And then I heard Bobby say to Jack or to one of his aides, “Never mind what the first question is, you give the answer that you're going to give.” So you knew right away that the pattern for debate was not going to be quite the way it was in the textbook. Now, in the course of the evening, or in the course of the debate, there were answers back and forth. But the first question that Jack Kennedy got from the correspondent -- and I've forgotten who it was, it might have been Doug [Douglass] Cater -- Jack went in to it with the idea of -- Forget what the idea was, he went into it in a way that indicated that he was responding to it, but quickly gave the speech that he wanted to give. And there were several instances of that in the course of the evening.

When the debate was over, I left the control room and went right down on the floor of the studio, to go forward to where the two candidates were seated, to thank them and -- because my neck was way out on this whole thing -- and Jack was just going away from the lectern, but I felt for protocol reasons, I had to thank the Vice President first, and when I went over to his side, he was gone.

Went over to Kennedy's side?

No, I went over to the Nixon side.

He was gone already.

He was already -- had gone. And his briefcase and his papers were on the table. And the Secret Service man said, “If you're looking for the Vice President, he left.”