270

Interesting story behind this clip: Its 7:20 AM on Wednesday November 9, 1960. Chet and David have been on the air nonstop for over 12 hours and the NBC execs are getting worried about how much longer they can go on. Kennedy is still just one electoral vote shy of victory, and he is leading in three states (Minn., Ill., and Cal.) any one of which will put him over the top. David Brinkley in his autobiography says that someone at NBC gave an order to declare Kennedy the winner in the state where he had the biggest lead thus calling the election for him. At 7:19 AM EST his lead was largest in California, so NBC called the state for him, and declared Kennedy the winner of the election. Huntley and Brinkley turned the proceedings over to Dave Garroway and the Today Show, and left for a well-deserved rest. Only problem was that Kennedy didn't win California. It took several days of counting absentee ballots, but Nixon took the Golden State. If NBC had been willing to wait a few more hours, Minnesota would have delivered victory to JFK. So who gave the order to award California to Kennedy? Brinkley said he never found out. Seems that afterwards no one would admit to being the responsible party.

1960, election, coverage, nbc, chet, huntley, david, brinkley, illinois, kennedy, nixon,