Video: 'IFP:135 F-12-1M Eisenhower on Nixon - JFK Campaign Spot'

(Wednesday, August 24, 1960, 10:30-11:00 a.m. EDT; during the 1960 United States presidential election) — U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had long been ambivalent about Vice President (and now GOP presidential nominee) Richard Nixon, held a televised press conference today in which a reporter, Charles Mohr of Time, mentioned Nixon’s claims that he had been a valuable administration insider and adviser.

Mohr asked Eisenhower if he could give an example of a major idea of Nixon’s that he had heeded. Eisenhower responded with the flip comment, “If you give me a week, I might think of one.”

Although both Eisenhower and Nixon later claimed that he was merely joking with the reporter, the remark hurt Nixon, as it undercut his claims of having greater decision-making experience than Nixon’s Democratic opponent, Senator John F. Kennedy.

The remark proved so damaging to Nixon that the Democrats turned Eisenhower’s statement into a television commercial.