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Statement by Senator John F. Kennedy on Use of Notes During Debates

October 14, 1960

The Senator, campaigning today in Michigan, issued a statement denying the use of notes. His press representative, Pierre Salinger, said Senator Kennedy had with him in the studio last night a photostat of the Eisenhower letter (regarding U.S. treaty commitments in the Taiwan Strait), a photostat of a page from a book by Matthew B. Ridgway, retired Army Chief of Staff, and a quotation from the late Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.

"If the President is to be quoted in a matter involving our security," Senator Kennedy said in his statement, "he should be quoted accurately."

Moreover, Mr. Salinger said, he knew of no agreement barring the use of notes during the debates.

Note: Issued during the campaign swing through Michigan as reported in The New York Times

John F. Kennedy, Statement by Senator John F. Kennedy on Use of Notes During Debates Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/274669

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