RFK Accepts Keating’s Debate Challenge

Oct. 8, 1964 - Robert F. Kennedy accepted today a challenge by Senator Kenneth Keating for television debates on the campaign issues.

The Democratic candidate for Senator suggested two debates with the Republican incumbent, one on domestic issues and the other on foreign affairs.

In a speech before 2,000 members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Kennedy said of Keating: “He has said he would like to debate me on his record in Congress and on the real issues of the campaign. I accept his invitation.”

Kennedy was given a standing ovation by the union members.

Keating, reached in White Plains, N.Y., where he was campaigning, said: “I’m glad he’s accepted by challenge. I said more than a month ago that I would be glad to discuss the real issues of the campaign with anyone from any state in the union.”

Asked whether he would insist that there be no discussion of Senator Barry Goldwater during the debates, Keating replied: “I wouldn’t rule out the discussion of any issue.” Keating is running for reelection independently of the Republican national ticket.

Kennedy offered to share the cost of the debates, which would be modeled after the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960. Keating, who said he had no objections to the two-debate format suggested by Kennedy, added that the “details will have to be worked out by my managers, most likely by Herbert Brownell.”

Keating was also asked if he thought Kennedy’s offer to debate had anything to do with a poll taken by Samuel Lubell, a political analyst, which was reported in yesterday’s New York World-Telegram. The poll showed Kennedy running well behind Keating.

Keating replied: “I would know what’s going on in his mind.”

In his speech before the unionists at the Manhattan Center, Kennedy criticized Keating’s campaign tactics.

“He as accused me,” Kennedy said, “of such lofty actions as making a deal with Nazis, selling out the Negroes, and being indifferent to the need for immigration reform. I would like him to make, in my presence, the charges he makes so freely against me when we are separated by miles.”

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