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Well, I think they were a little nervous about getting that close to all the problems that they'd be into: giving up free time and -- Oh, the majority of them were in favor it but there were some who didn't. I had one affiliate who criticized me for taking the programs off the air at the time of the Kennedy assassination, insisted that we should keep our regular entertainment schedule on. I had wiped the schedule clean within minutes after the assassination because I just thought that there wasn't any way we could go through anything like a normal schedule.

Was CBS the first network to do that?

Yes. And I got the immediate bitterness from NBC about the fact that I said until after the funeral, we would carry no commercials. This just seemed like the wrong thing to do to Bob [Robert] Kittner, who called me and raised hell and said he had no choice but to go with it because I put him in the embarrassing position. But -- I'm rambling all over the lot over here.

To get back to the debate for a moment. Do you think it was the key in swinging the election to Kennedy?

Oh, certainly. Certainly.

Funny, you know, I wanted to have a debate with the Vice Presidents. Seemed to me that there was always a chance that you were just next door to being President, and the public had a right to know something about the quality of the people they were electing. And I believe I was interviewed by a UPI man and I had said -- this is well after the debates -- I