Guest moderator: Bob Hope.
Correspondents: Morgan Beatty, Robert McCormick, Frank Bourgholtzer, Martin Agronsky, Peter Hackes, Elmer Peterson, Ray Scherer, Herb Kaplow, Bob Abernethy, Richard Harkness, Leif Eid, Esther Van Wagoner Tufty, Bryson Rash, Samuel Lubell. Producers: Russell Tornabene and James L. Holton.
Announcer: Howard Riggs.

     HOPE. This is Bob "Crystal Ball" Hope playing Swami tonight for NBC radio, just 24 hours before we elect our next President. My crystal ball's getting a bit smogged up, so while I try to get that cleared up, here's a man to explain about this final edition of "Election Countdown."

     VOICE (simulated intercom with rocket firing in background). * * *  Four, three, two, one.

     RIGGS. NBC News presents the sixth, and final report on the 1960 election campaign. Our host this evening - with or without crystal ball - for a final, all-inclusive roundup of the widespread decisions we will make tomorrow is Bob Hope. Bob.
     HOPE. Can I put one crystal ball on my expense account? As a matter of fact, nobody has a crystal ball that would accurately predict what the American electorate will do - particularly at this last hour. Somebody - Churchill, I think - said Soviet Russia is a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, surrounded by mystery. Well, that's really a pretty good description of the American voter in any election. I feel as tough I'm a pretty good student of our independent national attitude. I've seen American soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen - tens of thousands of Yank servicemen in two recent hot wars - and, in between - in what historians call the cold war. I've been with our GI's on Guadalcanal and Bougainville in the South Pacific, when things were pretty tough down there 18 years ago. And in Iceland, and Germany. And in Korea, when we were actually fighting communism only 9 years ago. I spent lots of time with our servicemen. Well, what I want to say is this. The Nazis of Hitler's Germany, the Fascist troops of Japan's Premier Tojo, the Chinese and North Korean Communist soldiers - none of them ever could quite figure out what these unpredictable Yankees would do. Well, I can't forecast what those same guys - and their wives, and parents, and sisters and brothers - will do tomorrow when they go to the polls. So, I've just sent my beat-up crystal ball out to a hockshop. And, I'm swinging our network across the country now to two fellows who can take a more astute survey of the election situation. My old World War II buddy, Morgan Beatty, and Bob McCormick. Morgan, how you been?
     BEATTY. Been all right, Bob. Thank you very much. That is, I've been all right except for a few things here. I have just canvassed the greatest electronic blanket I've ever seen in all of my life, and I've seen quite a number of them. Going to blanket this country from one end to the other, tomorrow night - even with the projection that we'll - well you'd just as well send your crystal ball to the hockshop. And then, our reporters. I've never seen an assembly of talent like they've got. I just hope that Robert McCormick and I can keep up with the team that's way out in front and will be tomorrow night. Let's make a check on our reporters now. For that poll, Here's Robert McCormick.
     McCORMICK. The information from hundreds of NBC reporters around the country flows into four regional desks here at election central and for a preview of these regional operations, let's start with Frank Bourgholtzer, covering the East.

     BOURGHOLTZER. The States which are covered under the eastern section for purposes of NBC's election coverage are 11. They're the New England States - Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island - and the other States are New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. Of those New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, of course, are very key States in the election from a national standpoint. None of these Eastern States went for the Democratic candidate in 1952 or in 1956, and in none of them have the Democrats, that is, in all of them together, the Democrats, even in 1948, failed to get a majority. In fact, their percentage of the vote ran somewhat behind the percentage of the Republican candidate. Some of these States are more intriguing than others in the results and what the results will mean. New York of course, with 45 electoral votes, is the key State of all key States in the election. Whoever wins New York has a great advantage in the rest of the country. And New York is contested and claimed by both sides as the election comes to the point of truth. Maryland is a heavily Democratic registration State and it's one of the States, like so many in the country, where the big city vote will be the important one for the Democrats. In the case of Maryland, that'll be the Baltimore vote. Connecticut has special ramifications because it's considered by many to be a national indicator. While it's not as large a State as the others, and its electoral vote is not so big, the pattern of voting in Connecticut will be an indicator for how the country might go. The pattern of population in Connecticut is considered to be a precursor of other votes. Rhode Island has some interest because its population is 60 percent Roman Catholic and should give some indication of the Roman Catholic vote. These Eastern States will be the first States to give their returns to us so they'll be the first indicators. One other actor about the East - the weather forecast for the East is clear tomorrow, which is in variance with some other parts of the country, This is Frank Bourgholtzer reporting for the East.

     McCORMICK. And for another part of the country, Martin Agronsky in the Middle West.

     AGRONSKY. The 13 States of the Midwest control 161 electoral votes - Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma. Until Franklin D. Roosevelt, this was the Republican Party's political heartland. The erosion of Midwest Republican tradition that took place in the Roosevelt years, though, has never really been repaired. It's accurate to report that neither party can count on the certain support of most of the Midwest, through overall, the region does lean toward the Republicans. The three biggest and most important Midwest States are: Illinois, with 27 electoral votes; Ohio, with 25; and Michigan, with 20. The consensus of the experts in Illinois is that the presidential contest is a "horse race," that the strength of Illinois' Senator Douglas, running for, his third term and the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Otto Kerner, running against two-time Republican Governor Stratton, helps the Democratic candidate. Illinois, in fact, seems to be one of the few instances where the candidates for State and congressional office give special strength to the presidential aspirant. Kennedy appears, if anything, to be riding the coattails of Senator Douglas and Mr. Kerner, rather than the other way around. In Ohio, what was regarded as a strong Kennedy lead some 3 weeks ago appears to have been whittled down, until that contest is pretty close. Some bad areas of unemployment have reacted generally to Kennedy's advantage in the State. Democratic Governor Di Salle, a Catholic, himself, contends his own election in 1958 demonstrates best that Kennedy won't be harmed by the religious issue in Ohio. Republicans, however, have been encouraged by the size and enthusiasm of crowds that turned out to hear Mr. Nixon and President Eisenhower in the past couple of weeks. Michigan has a strong Democratic labor vote that tends to give the Democrats a large enough vote total in urban areas to overcome a consistent Republican plurality in the rural parts of the State. The Midwestern States that are thought to be strongly for the Republicans are: Kansas, with 8 electoral votes; North and South Dakota, each with 4 electoral votes; Iowa, with 10 electoral votes; and Indiana, with 13. Minnesota, with the 11 electoral votes, is generally regarded as a tight race. Democratic Governor Orville Freeman in Minnesota is running for his fourth consecutive 2-year term and meeting with a lot of time-for-a-change opposition.
     Senator Humphrey's ability to retain his seat for the third consecutive term, though, is pretty widely conceded. But unlike Illinois, where Mr. Kennedy will get great help from his party's senatorial and gubernatorial candidates, neither Freeman nor Humphrey have been able to give Kennedy a major edge in Minnesota. And in Missouri, the remaining Midwestern State, it's regarded again as a fairly close race, with most experts feeling that, if Kennedy can get a large majority in St. Louis, he could win in Missouri. Indications are he might be able to get it in St. Louis. That's about the midwestern picture, Martin Agronsky reporting on the Midwest.

     McCORMICK. And for an area that has only recently become critical, Peter Hackes in the South.

     HACKES. The southern region comprises 13 States with a, total of 146 electoral votes. We have the normally Democratic States of the so-called Solid South - that once were so-called Solid South: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, and three border States: Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Now, the so-called solid business has disappeared since 1944. In 1948 you will recall, four States went for the States Rights Party; in 1952, four went for President Eisenhower; and in 1956 again, seven of the Southern States went for President Eisenhower. So there is a tremendous question mark this year as to whether the South will return to the Democratic fold. Now, complicating the situation, there are a number of States in the South which have unpledged electors. In other words, they have three slates of electors on the ballot in such States as Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia; and the States Rights Party appears in Louisiana Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee. So that a person in those States will have a choice of voting Republican, Democratic, or for unpledged electors, or for States Rights. So it's going to be confused in some areas where you don't know where the unpledged electoral vote will go.
     At this point, it looks - and this is a guess again - as if solidly Democratic States will remain that way. Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia (although it will be very close in Georgia), West Virginia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and North Carolina may go Democratic - at least, that's the way the latest polls tells us - by a narrow margin. However, the Republicans - and this is conceded by many Democratic polls - may take Kentucky, South Carolina, Virginia, and Florida. The most important two States in the South, strictly tossups at this point, are Tennessee and Texas - Texas with the largest electoral vote in the South, 24 votes. And, of course, the religious factor, particularly in Texas, is the most important thing. How much of a factor that will be remains to be seen. The Democrats had thought by putting Lyndon Johnson on the, ticket, they would be more likely to win Texas and the other States in the South; however, the platform is not what the Solid South Democrats have wanted. And this, combined with the anti-Catholic feeling in many areas, is a rather undecided factor. This is Peter Hackes reporting on the South.

     McCORMICK. And finally, Elmer Peterson, with the West.

     PETERSON. The 13 Far West States, with a total of 85 electoral votes, this year will elect 5 Governors, 7 Senators, and 52 Representatives. This section of the Nation also could cast the decisive vote in the presidential choice. The answer depends entirely, of course, on whether a winning trend develops in the rest of the Nation. The Far West this year will include Hawaii and Alaska, where citizens will cast their first votes in a presidential election. In addition, the Far West includes the three Pacific Coast States of Washington, Oregon, and California, the Rocky Mountain States of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, and Nevada. Now, there are no great regional issues as far as the Far West is concerned. The important question is whether the Democrats can continue the. trend they began in 1956.
     In that year, Eisenhower swept the West, but the Democrats made some significant gains in the Senate and House. Now, despite the various issues, not the least the religious issue, the question is whether the Democrats can continue that trend. At the start of the campaign, Vice President Nixon was strongly favored in the Far West. He was favored to win in seven of the Rocky Mountain States. Of late, the tendency has changed rather dramatically. Today, a number of States that were regarded for Nixon now are regarded as tossups or leaning toward Kennedy. California is the big question, of course. There the Democrats have a 3-to-2 advantage in voter registration. And that's the picture in the Far West.

     McCORMICK. And among the correspondents covering the candidates - of course all four of them will be covered by NBC - but among them is our veteran White House correspondent, Ray Scherer with the Kennedy party.

     SCHERER. Everywhere he went today - Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and back to Boston - John F. Kennedy brought out huge and happy crowds - the "jumpers," the "touchers," the "runners" - all the types which have become a legendary part of the Kennedy caravan. In Hartford today, Democratic State Chairman John Bailey looked out over the limitless outdoor crowds just before Kennedy spoke, pronounced it the largest he'd ever seen in Hartford in any campaign. Kennedy's message is the same everywhere: I ask your help tomorrow in a race between the contented and the concerned. He gets his biggest hand when he says that Mr. Nixon may want to tour Eastern Europe if he is elected but, "If I am elected President of the United States, I will go to Washington - that's where the job is." It is hard to avoid the suspicion after following Mr. Kennedy all around New England today, that he will do well in this northeastern part of the United States tomorrow. Much of the enthusiasm, as before, comes from young ladies in the 13 to 17 age bracket. At one point today, when they interrupted a fervent Kennedy with continued cries of "We Want Jack" he quipped: "You'll do very well in 1964 when you're all grown up." Kennedy, on election eve, appears as confident as a man can be. Ray Scherer with the Kennedy caravan in Boston.

     BEATTY. Now to Herb Kaplow with the Nixon party.

     KAPLOW. There is a clearly discernible attitude in the Nixon camp that its victory chances picked up this past week. The candidate, himself, seems to reflect this in appearing today more relaxed and self-assured than previously. But if it is true that his cause has advanced, the question remains, of course: Has it passed that of opponent Kennedy? The more candid of Nixon advisers say frankly they just don't know. Tonight the Republican nominee participates in the traditional election eve broadcast originating in Chicago. This follows a Detroit appearance, in which the Vice President used 4 hours of bought network television time this afternoon to clear the campaign decks to say everything he wanted to say, to use Hollywood stars to draw the votes from the glamour-conscious, to present his wife and two daughters for the family portrait, to reuse an Eisenhower television endorsement to urge again Eisenhower admirers to go along with the Eisenhower choice. These last hours for Richard Nixon have been as intense a windup as is possible. He flew last night 4,250 miles from Anchorage, Alaska, to Madison, Wis., on to Detroit, Chicago, and after the television speech tonight, out again to Ontario, Calif., for a midnight rally. Seventy-one hundred miles, five cities, in 36 hours. Herb Kaplow, NBC News, with the Nixon campaign party in Chicago.

     BEATTY. Now, to Bill Ryan, with the Lodge party.

     RYAN. Within 3 hours, the campaign will be all over for Henry Cabot Lode, the GOP vice presidential candidate. Today he climaxed an intensive 2-month campaign with an early morning trip to Maine. At Lewiston, where he drew an enthusiastic crowd of 3,000 in very chilly New England weather, the vice presidential candidate continued to hammer away at what he terms "Senator Kennedy's mistakes in the field of foreign policy."  Lodge says the candidate can make mistakes, but if Senator Kennedy had made those mistakes as President, the results could have been dangerous.
     There's no sign of panic, no last-minute flurry of activity, no special indication that this is the last day of the campaign as Mr. Lodge came back to Boston to appear with Vice President Nixon on their television telethon, then took off for a speech in Springfield, Mass. At this hour Lodge's plane is on its way back to Boston. He'll make one more television appearance tonight, go home to Beverly, Mass., vote in the morning, then go down to Washington, D.C., to see if the majority of this Nation's voters will cast ballots similar to the one he will cast in the morning for the team of Nixon and Lodge. Bill Ryan, NBC News, with the Lodge party in Springfield, Mass.

     McCORMICK. And Bob Abernethy with Senator Lyndon Johnson's party.

     ABERNETHY. Tonight, Democratic vice presidential candidate Lyndon Johnson is in Austin the capital of Texas, where he'll stay until the returns are in. Johnson will vote tomorrow in Johnson City, near Austin. He'll do some heavy telephoning to Democratic leaders in Texas. Otherwise, he'll just wait, confident of Democratic victory. Johnson got big turnouts yesterday and today in the Rio Grande Valley, Corpus Christi, Houston, and San Antonio. His aides feel that, if the probable Republican majorities in Dallas and Houston can be held to a total of about 70,000, the Democratic ticket will carry Texas and its 24 electoral votes. To help offset charges of Democratic socialism, Johnson has had beside him today, Georgia's conservative senior Senator, Richard Russell. Russell is predicting that the Democrats will get at least 350 electoral votes, and that the only Southern State which will go Republican is South Carolina. Johnson says if it weren't for the religious issue, the Democrats would carry every State in the Union. Bob Abernethy, NBC News, with the Johnson campaign.

     BEATTY. The word "projection" will be often heard tomorrow night and with the figures "501." That you may fully understand the "what" and the "how" and the "why" of 501 projection, we take you now to the man who will keep you ahead of the vote tabulation - to Richard Harkness and the 501 at Wall Street.

     HARKNESS. Tomorrow evening, I will be covering the election from the heart of the Wall Street area of New York City from the Radio Corporation of America computing set. Now, here briefly is what my reports will cover. For a year now, some 200,000 factors of political background of past elections have been fed into an RCA 501 computer. Now, all of this information is stored in the computer's memory, that is, on magnetic tape storage reels. Well, tomorrow evening, as soon as the returns begin coming in, the results will be fed into the computer. The RCA 501, in a flash, will weigh those 200,000 factors against ballots cast tomorrow. And at anytime the computer operator can order a complete report for each of the 50 States - a report which will project the final popular vote in each State. Now, all of this will be done electronically. The effect will be the same - the computer experts tell me - the same as if NBC and RCA had 60,000 clerks with pads and pencils compiling returns. With those State totals, the RCA 501 computer will project national trends. The computer will estimate the total popular vote and make that projection early in the evening. The computer will estimate the final count of electoral votes - in other words, which man will be the next President of the United States. I should point out that this political and electronic science of projecting election returns is tried and tested. For instance, the experts used this same RCA computer. They made a run of actual 1956 election returns. Now, recreating the way the votes flowed in 4 years ago, the computer projected President. Eisenhower's victory. With the returns available at 7 o'clock, eastern standard time, the computer estimated the Eisenhower vote in the electoral college within three electoral votes. And the computer made its projection by sampling a little less than 1 percent of the total votes. This is Richard Harkness with the RCA 501 computer in Wall Street.

     RIGGS. We'll have more of NBC's Election Countdown final report, after a 10-second pause for station identification.

     HOPE. This is Bob Hope again. Morgan Beatty and Bob McCormick have more information about tomorrow's election ready to roll. So let me roll the air waves to the East again - Mo?
     BEATTY. Thank you, Bob. And to the other Bob.
     McCORMICK. I think we should point out here, Morgan, that all of us - all of these people you've heard so far, all of those you will hear in the next few minutes - has spent weeks and weeks of research on this election, in addition to the day-to-day coverage, of course, that we've all given Congress and the traveling we've done with each of the candidates. But we have one little added advantage this year. We have a book that was put together by Miss Josephine Griselli for us analyzing the political conditions in every State of the Union in most of the important congressional districts. It's a book that really puts together in factual form all the things we know. It's not exactly our political "bible." I think it would be more accurate to call it our political "brain." And campaigns are, by tradition, events during which everyone takes himself seriously, as, indeed, perhaps we are now, sometimes too seriously. An exception is one of our wisest foreign and domestic correspondents. Here is Lief Eid.

     EID. For awhile there, it looked as if our candidates were going to do grave dishonor to one of our great American political traditions. Their campaigns were so high level that there was acute danger they would pass out to sea on their respective clouds without ever having become visible to the perplexed electorate below. But, after the first "great debate" broadcast, they descended among us to spread words of wisdom on the great issues of our times. Senator Kennedy offered to take on single-handed both Richard Milhous Nixon and Dwight D. Eisenhower to which the Vice President very properly replied that he could lick the whole Kennedy family. There was the burning question of whether Nixon was more afraid to go to New York without President Eisenhower than Kennedy was with Senator Lyndon Johnson. Question: But what about the farm issue, Leif? Oh, both candidates have made themselves crystal clear on the farm problem. About like this, as somebody said the other day: I favor an ever-normal, ad valorem, reciprocal, sliding soil bank, flexible enough to guarantee the farmer a fixed annual parity, adjusted monthly to the net worth of the gross national product less income. Also, we have the enviable opportunity of comparing the records of the respective parties. Men around the candidates have carefully explained to us that the 5 million persons who turned out to hear Kennedy at Fallen Arch, Mass., were far more significant than the 6 million who heard the Vice President at Broken Elbow, Wis., and vice versa. We've been told which party dumped how much ticker tape into the asphalt Canyon of lower Broadway. Now, all this is American politics at its very great best. And our brave citizenry has responded nobly. Senator Kennedy had a glass of whiskey thrown in his face. Vice President Nixon was the intended recipient of several carefully selected tomatoes and some eggs of uncertain vintage. You might say, with Winston Churchill, that this is our finest hour. And tomorrow, the people, fully informed on the men and the issues, will wade through the mud to the polls to express their sovereign will. And they'll do it, too. If anybody ever finds out how the American people make up their minds, he ought to get a Nobel prize. But as the late Nicholas Murray Butler used to say, "When the American people are faced with a major decision, they've always had an uncanny way of coming up with the right answer." Anyway, tomorrow, one of our candidates will rise like a knight in shining armor, and it won't be Jack or Dick any more, but Mr. President-elect. Question: Who is it doing to be, Leif ? Oh, that's easy. It's a cinch for [sounds of clearing throat]. Does that answer the question?

     McCORMICK. Well, that position, Mr. Eid, is truly fearless journalism in the best American tradition. We appreciate your forthrightness and your own courage. And in this election, as in everything else these days, the women are more active than ever. And for a look at that particular situation, here's the Duchess. Here is Esther Van Wagoner Tufty.

     TUFTY. The U.S. Senate may have two women instead of one. And the House of Representatives may have more Congresswomen when all the votes are counted tomorrow. For the first time in history, two women are running against each other for the Senate. Republican Margaret Chase Smith, the lone woman in the Senate since 1949, is being challenged by Democrat Lucia Cormier, a political pro at the State level. With Maine certain to provide one woman, Oregon may add the name of Maurine Neuberger, the widow of the late Senator Richard Neuberger, who is battling former Republican Gov. Elmo Smith. On the House side, 32 women survived the primaries. The 14 Congresswomen running for reelection seem assured of their seats, with the possible exception of Florence Dwyer, who never has an easy fight in New Jersey. The Republicans don't seriously expect to elect any new women candidates. But the Democrats have hopes of four Julia Hansen, of Washington; Coya Knutson, of Minnesota; Dorothy O'Brien, of Illinois; and Mrs. Rudd Brown, of California., the granddaughter of William Jennings Bryan. And maybe Mary Kennedy, of Massachusetts, should be mentioned. After all, Democrats say, with a name like that, how can she lose in Jack Kennedy's home State. This is Esther Van Wagoner Tufty, NBC News, Washington.

     McCORMICK. The series of great debates on radio and television did much to get the public excited about this campaign. They did not constitute the bulk of the campaign, by any means, but they did seem to help spark it. They certainly did a good bit to delineate the issues, dramatize them, and sharpen them, and this carried over into the backbreaking part of the campaign - the personal appearances in villages, towns, and cities all over the country, the street corner speeches, the more formal talks at huge rallies, in civic auditoriums, and in National Guard armories. And to recall the highlights of the great debates, here is Bryson Rash.

     RASH. Probably never in our political history have the two major candidates for the Presidency talked directly, face-to-face, or by radio and television, with so many of the voters of this land. Perhaps, in the mass of statements on the multitude of issues, the nuance of position held by each candidate has become obscured or half-remembered. To sharpen that picture, here are some excerpts on some of the issues of the campaign taken from the dramatic "great debate" series. First, the issue of the two islands lying close to the mainland, but controlled by the Chinese Nationalists on Formosa. Senator John F. Kennedy said this:

     KENNEDY. I think that we should protect our commitments. I believe strongly we should do so in Berlin. I believe strongly we should do so in Formosa. And I believe we should meet our commitments to every country whose security we've guaranteed. But I do not believe that that line, in case of a war, should be drawn on these islands, but, instead, on the island of Formosa. And, as long as they're not essential to the defense of Formosa, it's been my judgment ever since 1954 at the time of the Eisenhower doctrine for the Far East, that our lines should be drawn in the sea around the island, itself.

    RASH. On this subject, Vice President Richard M. Nixon said this:

     NIXON. Now, I think as far as Quemoy and Matsu are concerned, that the question is not these two little pieces of real estate - they are unimportant. It isn't the few people who live on them - they are not too important. It's the principle involved. These two islands are in the area of freedom. The Nationalists have these two islands. We should not force our Nationalist allies to get off of them and give them to the Communists. If we do that, we start a chain reaction because the Communists are not after Quemoy and Matsu. They're after Formosa.

     RASH. After these initial statements on the great debate each candidate discussed the issue of the Nationalist Chinese islands in great detail. Their differences narrowed when each clarified his position toward the position taken by the Congress and the President some 5 years ago. However, the subject of America's prestige abroad has remained a clear-cut issue between the two candidates. Vice President Nixon in the great debates said this:

     NIXON. First of all, we hear that our prestige is at an alltime low. Senator Kennedy has been hitting that point over and over again. I would just suggest that, after Premier Khrushchev's performance in the United Nations compared with President Eisenhower's eloquent speech, that at the present time Communist prestige in the world is at an alltime low and American prestige is at an alltime high. Now that, of course, is just one factor, but it's a significant one. When we look, for example, at the vote on the Congo, we were on one side; they were on the other side. What happened? There were 70 votes for our position, and none for theirs. Look at the votes in the United Nations over the past 7½ years. That's a test of prestige. Every time the United States has been on one side and they've been on the other side, our position has been sustained.

     RASH. By and large, this is the position of Senator Kennedy:

     KENNEDY. I believe that the polls and other studies and votes in the United Nations and anyone reading the paper and any citizen of the United States must come to the conclusion that the United States no longer carries the same image of a vital society on the move with its brightest days ahead as it carried a decade or two decades ago. Part of that is because we've stood still here at home, because we haven't met our problems in the United States, because we haven't had a moving economy. Part of that, as the Gallup poll shows, is because the Soviet Union made a breakthrough in outer space.

     RASH. Another aspect of foreign affairs which became an issue was Fidel Castro's Cuba, its orientation toward the Communist bloc, and the danger thus posed to the United States and the Western Hemisphere. The candidates expressed divergent views on how this problem should have been handled in the past, and how to cope with it in the future. First, the statement of Vice President Nixon:

     NIXON. I think that Senator Kennedy's policies and recommendations for the handling of the Castro regime are probably the most dangerously, irresponsible recommendations that he's made during the course of this campaign. Now, I don't know what Senator Kennedy suggests when he says that we should help those who oppose the Castro regime, both in Cuba and without. But I do know this. If we were to follow that recommendation, that we would lose all of our friends in Latin America; we would probably be condemned in the United Nations; and we would not accomplish our objectives. I know something else. It would be an open invitation for Mr. Khrushchev to come in, to come into Latin America and to engage us in what would be a civil war and possibly even worse than that. This is the major recommendation that he's made. Now, what can we do? Well, we can do what we did with Guatemala. There was a Communist dictator that we inherited from the previous administration. We quarantined Mr. Arbenz. The result was that the Guatemalan people, themselves, eventually rose up and they threw him out. We are quarantining Mr. Castro today. We are quarantining him diplomatically by bringing back our Ambassador; economically by cutting off trade - and Senator Kennedy's suggestion that the trade that we've cut off is not significant is just 100 percent wrong - we are cutting off the significant items that the Cuban regime needs in order to survive.

     RASH. In the great debate series, Senator Kennedy said this:

     KENNEDY. I believe that if any economic sanctions against Latin America are going to be successful, they have to be multilateral; they have to include the other countries of Latin America. The very minute effect of the action which has been taken on Cuba's economy, I believe Castro can replace those markets very easily through Latin America, through Europe, and through Eastern Europe. If the United States had stronger prestige and influence in Latin America, it could persuade, as Franklin Roosevelt did in 1940, the countries of Latin America to join in an economic quarantine of Castro. That's the only way you can bring real economic pressure on the Castro regime and also the countries of Western Europe, Canada, Japan, and the others. Castro is only the beginning of our difficulty throughout Latin America. The big struggle will be to prevent the influence of Castro spreading to other countries - Mexico, Panama, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia. We're going to have to try to provide closer ties, to associate ourselves with the great desire of these peoples for a better life, if we're going to prevent Castro's influence from spreading throughout all of Latin America. His influence is strong enough today to prevent us from getting the other countries of Latin America to join with us in economic quarantine. His influence is growing, mostly because this administration has ignored Latin America.

     RASH. The whole gamut in the economic field was discussed in the campaign - Federal aid to education, medical care for the aged, unemployment, prosperity, housing, Government spending. The difference in philosophy distilled into this: Senator Kennedy would use the fiscal resources and power of the Federal Government as a stimulator and backstop to the economy. Vice President Nixon would place more reliance on the individual and his local government. There were other issues, or perhaps, points of view - maturity and experience, dealing with the Communists, civil rights, the farm program, but not religion - at least, on the candidates' level. Both Vice President Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy agreed it had no place in the campaign, and they would not use it as an issue. Bryson Rash, NBC News, Washington.

     BEATTY. For some years, we at NBC have admired the work of Samuel Lubell, the election-time forecaster. He does not depend on set questions; he does make repeat visits to recheck his own trail of the voters. He brings a keen mind to his task, and he wears out plenty of shoe leather on the trail of the voters' intentions. Here is Samuel Lubell.

     LUBELL. During the last 9 days, I have been talking to typical voters in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. These interviews indicate that President Eisenhower's campaigning has not brought about a dramatic voters' swing to Richard Nixon. Some shifts are taking place, but they do not seem strong enough to change my judgement that Kennedy will win in an uneven sweep across the country.  It is personality, not issues, that represents the margin of decision in this election.  On the issue side, all my talks with voters indicate that nothing stressed by either candidate has registered with decisive impact.  One main reason why no issue has been able to break has been the so-called religious question.  This has blurred and weakened all other issues. With the TV debates though, a new factor began to show up in the responses of the voters I was interviewing and this was the feeling that Kennedy was the stronger personality. Many former Eisenhower voters have explained their shifts to Kennedy with comments like these: He is surer of himself. Or he was smarter and quicker with his answers. Or he talks like he knows what he wants to do. Often, these same voters would confess they disagreed with some of the views that Kennedy put forth. Still, the total impact of Kennedy's proposals has been to make voters feel he's more aggressive, or he tells you where he stands. Now, Nixon, in contrast, has seemed to people as more cautious and conservative. A Chicago bank clerk summed up how he saw the two men in these words Kennedy plays the part of the bold, idea man, while Nixon has to pull him down to earth by asking how much will it cost. Some voters emphasize, Nixon knows the value of a dollar, having worked hard
all his life. Others say: A man who has fast answers doesn't think. In short, the image of the two candidates that many voters will take with them into the voting booths tomorrow will be of Nixon as a careful, cautious executive, and of Kennedy as a flashier, bolder man who proposes to do things. The election results, of course, will show which of these personality types the American voters prefer. This is Samuel Lubell of NBC News.

     McCORMICK. Our White House correspondent has covered a loser and a winner in the last two previous campaigns. He has some sharp memories of both. Here again is Ray Scherer.

     SCHERER. If reminiscences are permitted on this, the night before, herewith some reminiscences of 1952 and of 1956. I covered one winner and one loser, and I wonder about tomorrow. The evening had started hopefully enough in 1952. The place was Springfield. We had set up cameras and microphones in Stevenson headquarters at the Leland Hotel. Adlai Stevenson was in the Governor's mansion, two blocks away. The first returns were not entirely conclusive. I remember bringing Wilson Wyatt, the Stevenson campaign manager, to the microphone early that night and having him tick off one bright spot after another, until the listener must have been convinced Adlai Stevenson was a sure thing, if not a landslide winner. By 10 p.m., it
began to be evident something was wrong. Mr. Wyatt had lost some of his exuberance. Rumors began to trickle through to headquarters that Candidate Stevenson was about to make an appearance. By midnight, an air of gloom began to settle over the place. The young volunteer ladies who had worked so long and so hard for Adlai had begun to weep, and the weeping, I remember, discomfited my broadcasting. Even Humphrey Bogart, who was there that night, looked red eyed; and his "Baby," Lauren Bacall, another "Adlaite," was openly lacrimose. You remember the ending. Mr. Stevenson came in, made that magnificent little speech about being "too old to cry," and it was all over. In 1956, this reporter was with the President in the Sheraton-Park Hotel in Washington. Victory was in the air from the beginning. It was just a matter of waiting until enough returns were in for the President to appear and to make his speech. The President waited in an upstairs suite with his Cabinet, there was champagne on the table. The returns were so good, the tabulators in charge of the big board in the auditorium stopped chalking them up in the general joy. Mr. Nixon introduced the President when he appeared, and I remember the President saying it was a victory for modern republicanism. Mr. Nixon is reported to feel fatalistic about tomorrow, and we suspect the President shares this fatalism. They have fought the good fight.. They have run on their record. If tomorrow brings victory, that is good. If not, the tide has somehow run out on modern republicanism for the moment, at least. It will be time to rebuild. This is Ray Scherer, NBC White House correspondent.

     McCORMICK. Getting back again to this campaign, the Republicans cannot win control of the Senate. If there's anything about this election that is certain, this is it. On a mathematical basis, it is possible for the Republicans to take the Senate. Thirty-four Senate seats are open. The Republicans have held only 11 of these. The other 23 are held by Democrats. The Republicans would have to win all but 6 of the 23 Democratic seats to get just a one-vote margin in the Senate. They could take these seats away from the Democrats only through a miracle, only if Vice President Nixon should win by a landslide, only if all local issues were resolved in favor of the Republicans. Three southern Democrats have no opposition. Two others have only theoretical opposition - what's known in the trade as token opposition. At least 10 other Democratic seats seem to be in the bag. The Republicans also have a couple of sure things in Nebraska and in New Hampshire. Among the States to keep close track of tomorrow night, so far as the Senate is concerned, are Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Missouri, Montana, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Wyoming, and West Virginia. These 16 races are the ones to watch. As they go, so goes the Senate. But the only real question unanswered is how big a majority the Democrats will have in the Senate, whether the Republicans can cut it down below its present ratio of 66 Democrats against 34 Republicans. The Republicans have a far better chance of getting back control of the House, although, even here, it would be extremely difficult. The present House is composed of 280 Democrats, 151 Republicans; there's 6 vacancies. This means the Republicans must take 65 seats away from the Democrats; the Republicans very wisely have got together with themselves; figured out which 65 races they would concentrate on, and these 65 are scattered through all of the States. We will pay particular attention to them tomorrow night. And Morgan Beatty has known the candidates and he has studied their lives and he has now something to tell us about them, beginning, I believe, if I am correct, with Vice President Nixon; is that correct, Mo ?
     BEATTY. That's right, Bob. By protocol, the Republican candidate. No man has ever carried as many assets and liabilities into a presidential race as has Richard Nixon. His phenomenal good fortune in the political arena started at the same moment in 1946 when he answered a question put to him by a California banker. Herman Perry asked the young lawyer if he was a Republican. He said, he guessed so. He voted for Dewey the last time. There was a newspaper ad running for a Republican candidate for Congress in the 12th California District, but Mr. Perry wanted to be sure, so Richard Nixon flew to his native California, talked things over, decided to run against a popular Democrat, Jerry Voorhis. The Republicans had no hope of victory, but the bold young Nixon did have. He chose the wrong target - or so everybody thought. He ran up and down the district crying against the political action committee of the CIO. Thus he became antilabor in some voters' minds and, yet, to everybody's surprise, maybe his own, he snowed Mr. Voorhis. And he relied heavily on the experience of his college days when he was a champion debater. His appeal was his youth, his clean-cut appearance, his war service spent in the Navy in the Pacific, and his aggressiveness. He spent two terms in Congress, convicted Alger Hiss on the Communist front, took on Helen Gahagan Douglas, the California Democratic woman of the left. Again, Nixon assets, he won with aggressiveness. He compared Mrs. Douglas' record with Communist Marcantonio's in Congress. Then it was that Governor Tom Dewey of New York began to notice young Richard Nixon. And of course, notice his wife, Pat, the former schoolteacher. No man ever had a better family backdrop. Mrs. Nixon has been a major diplomatic as well as wifely asset toward the Vice Presidency. All of these piling good marks from the Republican point of view began to put Richard Nixon on the first team of Republican politics, won him a place on the first Eisenhower ticket in 1952. And then came Nixon liabilities: The Nixon fund - a fund to fight communism. And then his attempt to tame Joe McCarthy, and after reelection in 1956, Dick Nixon's plan to overcome some of his liabilities on the road to the Presidency. Liability No. 1 was inevitable. A plain piece of mathematics: registered Democrats - then and now - outnumber Republicans, 6 to 40. And none of them would ever vote for an old-line Republican. Most would not vote for an antilabor man. Mr. Nixon began to change his aggressive tactics. President Eisenhower chose him for statesmanlike roles, visits to many countries on five continents, the Vice President teamed up to make-with liberal Republicans like Jim Mitchell, Secretary of Labor, a known friend of labor.
     Then Dick Nixon made a fateful decision this summer. He would wipe out his harem-scarem aggressiveness, his past, and display his statesmanship in a presidential campaign. And that he did. Yet, many a Republican pro has criticized him on the grounds that he's not the old fiery anti-Communist Nixon. And Democrats have criticized the new Nixon - the "new" one. And that's the way it has been right down to the wire. And now the Democratic candidate, Kennedy. John Kennedy brings to election eve - yes, even on election day - a sense of personal destiny, that he's a sort of chosen man for a job he's been training for for years. His father, Joe Kennedy, Sr., once asked his boys what he could do to help them in their careers; and they all chose the gift of financial independence because they unanimously wanted to go into politics. It was a serious thing with them, beginning with Joe, Jr., the oldest boy, who lost his life in the war, and running through John and Bob and Ted. So the very wealthy elder Kennedy settled on his boys the money that would set them free to go after what they wanted. And even though they didn't say so in their younger days, it's clear now that one or another of them expected to be President of the United States, Joe, first, then John's term. And they have worked closely together in the political vineyard to that end. But the Joe Kennedy legacy to his sons has not been an unmixed blessing. The father's friendship for the late Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin, the Red-baiter, has raised the suspicions of such liberals as Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Some voters have looked upon the Senator as a rich man's son who doesn't know the financial facts of life. And then, there's the religious issue. The Senator's target - the voter - has been a difficult one. He has taken his aim with a keen hedge against defending any of our large segments of power; but he's also made a strong accent of supports, now here, now there, to fit an image of daring and boldness - prolebber - prolabor, procivil rights, prointernational. His Pulitzer prizewinning book, "Profiles of Courage," was written during his long hospital siege with a back injury, caused both by Harvard football and his wartime brush with death in the Pacific. "Profiles" fits the Kennedy image.
     Likewise, he rejected sound advice to stay out of certain primaries in the nominating campaign, especially Protestant West Virginia. He admitted the odds were against him, but he thought he must accept all challenges, whatever the odds; and he won. He has met the Catholic issue head-on and far more explicitly than did Al Smith in 1928. Governor Smith said only that his church would not interfere with his constitutional duty. Senator Kennedy has said he believes in the separation of church and state. The other day, the Wall Street Journal, no Kennedy paper, mind you, quoted a business executive as saying after reading and watching the Democratic candidate: "When Mr. Kennedy first got the nomination, I thought his election would be a national disaster. I still hope he loses, but I don't now think his election would be such a tragedy." Incidentally, the Kennedy family team has made no secret of its pitch for brother John. The Senator is married to a true debutante, and he has depended seriously on teas that the women of the family have thrown for him among the voters. Now, reversing protocol, and candidates and parties. Among the four men climbing toward the pinnacle of political power in the United States, none knows the true deeper meaning of the word politics as well as Lyndon Johnson of Texas. And that definition is a double one in the professional sense. Politics is the art of the possible. The Democratic vice presidential candidate has never been caught trying for "pie in the sky" when he knows it isn't there. Another definition of politics Lyndon Johnson learned from the late Franklin D. Roosevelt, and liberal Democrats should remember that Lyndon was Mr. Roosevelt's leading edge of power in the House of Representatives years ago. Mr. Roosevelt used to say, and quite publicly, that the trouble with his enemies, the ones who were always losing major contests to him, their trouble was they didn't know how to count votes on their fingers. No man in Senate history as majority leader has ever known how to count better than Lyndon Johnson, and he can do it in his head without taking his hands out of his pockets. Lyndon Johnson is sometimes persuasive, bully ragging, but he leads the Senate. He stands 6 feet 3, weighs 190 pounds, and carries a special cardiograph in his pocket to prove he has repaired himself after one heart attack.
     And thus he goes to the race and the end of the contest. Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., is the most complicated of all the four candidates for high office in tomorrow's election. Perhaps, the complication comes from the deep sensitive nature of the man. He's the son of a poet, whose life was cut short before his genius made its mark on the world. So Grandfather Lodge, the same man who wrestled Woodrow Wilson to the floor of the old League of Nations - against it, he was - that same man schooled the young and fatherless boy, tutored him toward politics, told him a newspaper career was as good as the law. Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., even in those days in the 20's, did the things a Brahmin of Boston was supposed to do. As a matter of duty, Army Reserve, and all that. And, of course, he became a fairly, for a young man, a fairly conservative Republican. But in 1942, a great change came over Mr. Lodge. That's where the complications come in his character. It was Libya, or the battle of El Alamein, Tobruk - all places where a man's life wasn't worth the words on his commission. But he hadn't served for long as a U.S. Senator - he was even then on leave for active duty in the Army in the tank corps - he hadn't served for long before Secretary of War Stimson, called him back to the Senate. In those months, however, Henry Cabot Lodge turned liberal in politics. But he remained to most people, personally, just as aloof as ever. Some said he was arrogant. But as we've said, he'd changed in those months and that's the candidate he's become after his United Nations term for the Republican Party. And that just about winds it up, doesn't it, Bob? Until---
     McCORMICK. I think it does, Morgan. And---
     BEATTY. Until the final countdown?
     McCORMICK. I will see you tomorrow night, probably all night.
     BEATTY. Tomorrow night under that electronic blanket. This is Morgan Beatty and Robert McCormick, NBC news.
     HOPE. Thanks, Bob and Morgan. Well, that's it, folks - our election eve look at the background of the great decision that will be made tomorrow by more than 50 million of us. So, for Bob (no crystal ball - just vote) Hope, good night.

     VOICE. (simulated intercom with rocket firing in background). * * * Four, three, two, one.

     RIGGS. You have been listening to the final report, the sixth in NBC's "Election Countdown" series, "X Minus One." Tomorrow evening, beginning at 7:30 p.m., eastern standard time, NBC will broadcast full and up-to-the-minute coverage of the election returns until the outcome of all the major races is definite. This program has been produced for NBC News by Russell Tornabene and James L. Holton; Howard Riggs, speaking.