Video: '1960 Lyndon Johnson Speech to delegates of Democratic Convention at Biltmore Hotel Los Angeles'

(Tuesday, July 12, 1960, 3:00 p.m. PDT; during the 1960 Democratic National Convention) — U.S. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas made his big pitch for the Democratic presidential nomination today with a stump speech to an audience of Texans — plus his chief rival Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts — at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles.

Video: '1960 John F Kennedy Speech to delegates at Biltmore Hotel before Democratic Convention'

But what had been billed in advance as a great debate on the issues turned out to have more entertainment and good humor than drama.

For Kennedy was having no part of a debate. He turned aside Johnson’s thrusts with humor and appealed for post-convention Democratic unity no matter who wins (delegates would vote JFK as the nominee the following day; JFK would pick LBJ as his running mate on July 14, 1960).