TELEVISION: The Vigil on the Screen

NBC's President Robert E. Kintner called his news staff together on election eve, gave them a rock 'em, roll 'em fight talk. "Men, you may think this election is a contest between Kennedy and Nixon." Coach Kintner thundered, "It's not. It's a race between NBC and CBS."

The networks' approach could not have been more clearly stated. From the conventions to the so-called Great Debates, the 1960 campaign had been televised, teleguided, teleprompted and telethoned as no other had been before; now the networks were out to cover the election with facts, and themselves with glory. CBS, specifically, was straining to regain the prestige it lost when NBC won a clear victory at the July conventions. It made a strong comeback. In fierce all-night competition, both top networks did superbly. ABC, with less manpower, moved along adequately, but could not hope to compete with the other two. To most viewers, however, what mattered in the end was that TV in general covered the election in thoroughgoing detail, swiftly and well.

Excitement & Hot Dogs. At home base, NBC packed typists, news analysts and executives into the arena-sized Studio 8-H in Manhattan's RCA Building. It organized seven political experts into a "Victory Desk" that decided the fate of states and the nation a jump ahead of the electorate. "We didn't want to call it a Concession Desk," said an NBC executive. "You know, like a hot-dog concession. But that's what it is: a hot-dog desk."

High above the chaos sat NBC Stars Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, seemingly lashed to a specially designed table that looked like two large boomerangs joined together. A dumb-waiter lifted hot food and hot poop up to them from below. Said Huntley: "We're on the quarterdeck of the mother ship."

The CBS news staff meanwhile had crammed itself into a smaller hold on 26th Street, where there was hardly enough room for its glamorous Spielmeisters to comb their hair. Office boys bustled about dressed up like nightclub waiters. The rest of NBC's first team—including Regional Reporters Sander Vanocur, Frank Mc-Gee, Merrill Mueller and, especially, John Chancellor was equally strong.