In which year was the first televised presidential debate in the United States?

The first televised debate occurred four years before the famous Kennedy v. Nixon debate of 1960. In 1956 Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson challenged incumbent Republican president Dwight Eisenhower—but those two men did not appear in the debate. Instead, on 4 November 1956, two surrogates debated the issues on network television: for the Democrats, former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt; for the Republicans, the senior senator from Maine, Margaret Chase Smith.

By 1956 Smith was in her second term in the Senate and had known Eleanor Roosevelt for two decades; she had been a frequent visitor to the Roosevelt White House and had appeared on the First Lady’s radio programme. By 1956 both women routinely appeared on lists of America’s most admired women.

The forum for debate was the CBS programme “Face the Nation.” It took place two days before the election, and focused almost entirely on issues of foreign policy. Public reaction was mixed as to who won the debate. But it was clear that Margaret Chase Smith was informed and articulate, and she was savvy about television. Four years later, when she again ran for reelection, Smith faced opponent Lucia Cormier in one of the first televised senatorial debates. By 1960, Margaret Chase Smith—unlike the two presidential candidates of that year—was already a veteran of TV debates.