WEBVTT - Project X 0:00:15.396 --> 0:00:21.196 Pushkin. There's a place in our world where the known 0:00:21.356 --> 0:00:25.796 things go, A corridor of the mind, lined with shelves, 0:00:26.196 --> 0:00:33.156 stocked with proof, and cluttered with snacks. Here on top 0:00:33.196 --> 0:00:35.756 of this old television set, a pack of M and m's, 0:00:36.116 --> 0:00:40.556 Oh does the TV still work? I've listened to everybody 0:00:40.996 --> 0:00:44.716 on TV and radio. I've read the papers and magazines. 0:00:45.156 --> 0:00:50.156 I've tried, but I'm still confused. Who's right? What's right? 0:00:50.796 --> 0:00:54.676 What should I believe? What are the facts? How can 0:00:54.716 --> 0:00:59.276 I tell? Yish sounds like something I would say. That's 0:00:59.276 --> 0:01:03.556 why I come here to this place, this cabinet of curiosities, 0:01:04.036 --> 0:01:07.036 a place that stores the facts that matter and matters 0:01:07.036 --> 0:01:10.676 a fact, it's all that stays between a reasonable doubt 0:01:11.076 --> 0:01:14.996 and the chaos of uncertainty. It lies in a time 0:01:15.076 --> 0:01:18.996 between now and then. The sign on the door reads 0:01:19.036 --> 0:01:24.796 the last Archive. Step through that door to a studio 0:01:25.076 --> 0:01:31.836 at the Columbia Broadcasting System on Election Night nineteen fifty two, 0:01:32.756 --> 0:01:35.476 Good eighth and everyone. This was Walter grind Guide speaking 0:01:35.476 --> 0:01:39.036 to you from CBS Television. Election headquarters are in New 0:01:39.116 --> 0:01:42.316 York City. The vague Election Night nineteen fifty two, the 0:01:42.396 --> 0:01:46.796 year when the United States fixed its thirty President, Welcome 0:01:46.836 --> 0:01:51.596 to election Night. But Election Night nineteen fifty two wasn't 0:01:51.636 --> 0:01:55.436 just any night, because everything you know about how campaigns 0:01:55.436 --> 0:02:00.516 are run and how results are announced, polls, targeted advertising, 0:02:00.996 --> 0:02:05.756 breathless television coverage, edge of your seat, computer projections, it 0:02:05.916 --> 0:02:09.716 all started right here in nineteen fifty two, with Walter 0:02:09.796 --> 0:02:13.156 Cronkite just settling in for the long night ahead and 0:02:13.316 --> 0:02:17.636 CBS Studio forty one on the third floor of Grand 0:02:17.676 --> 0:02:24.516 Central Station, New York. As CBS's coverage begins, the camera 0:02:24.596 --> 0:02:29.756 pans across a crowded, frantic newsroom, teletype machines, adding machines, 0:02:30.116 --> 0:02:34.796 paper spread everywhere, dozens of telephones, some guys smoking at 0:02:34.796 --> 0:02:37.156 the back of the room near a giant wall map 0:02:37.316 --> 0:02:40.316 of the United States, a map that CBS will fill 0:02:40.356 --> 0:02:43.476 out as the returns come in. They couldn't color the 0:02:43.516 --> 0:02:47.276 states red and blue, because in nineteen fifty two hardly 0:02:47.316 --> 0:02:51.716 anyone had a color TV. Instead, states that went Democrat 0:02:51.796 --> 0:02:55.996 would be covered with black. Republicans got stripes. Not so 0:02:56.116 --> 0:03:01.036 much elephants as zebras bomby weather over most of the 0:03:01.156 --> 0:03:05.556 United States today, and a record turnout apparently throughout the 0:03:05.716 --> 0:03:09.316 United States, a record turnout so many votes to out. 0:03:10.116 --> 0:03:12.996 This election would change how Americans predicted the outcome of 0:03:12.996 --> 0:03:16.676 the election. It would change all sorts of things about elections. 0:03:17.276 --> 0:03:20.276 But let me first remind you who was running. The 0:03:20.356 --> 0:03:25.676 Republicans put forward as their candidate General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ike, 0:03:26.236 --> 0:03:31.636 the general behind D Day, military man, grandfather, straight shooter. 0:03:32.476 --> 0:03:37.036 Republicans came up with the slogan, I like Ike, I President, 0:03:37.076 --> 0:03:43.276 I President, I President President, and everybody really did like Ike. 0:03:43.916 --> 0:03:47.396 This is the election where a likability became a thing 0:03:48.476 --> 0:03:51.916 for the Democrats. The incumbent, Harry S. Truman was out. 0:03:52.436 --> 0:03:55.636 The Democrat who wanted to be in was Illinois Governor 0:03:55.676 --> 0:04:00.996 Adlai E. Stevenson. Stevenson wasn't affable or folksy like Eisenhower. 0:04:01.396 --> 0:04:07.036 He was learned and experienced, dignified, he might even say aristocratic. 0:04:08.356 --> 0:04:11.516 Stevenson had and born to a political family. His grandfather 0:04:11.556 --> 0:04:16.116 had been Grover Cleveland's vice president. Stevenson held himself above 0:04:16.236 --> 0:04:20.316 the messiness, the tackiness of campaigns. Trustworthy. He was supposed 0:04:20.356 --> 0:04:30.756 to be trustworthy. Both Stevenson a man you can believe 0:04:31.036 --> 0:04:37.356 in the general versus the governor likable Ike versus the 0:04:37.596 --> 0:04:42.396 man you can believe in sin anyway. Like Walter Cronkite said, 0:04:42.876 --> 0:04:45.356 voting in the nineteen fifty two race looked to be 0:04:45.396 --> 0:04:48.756 a record turnout, a turnout so big that the wire 0:04:48.796 --> 0:04:50.756 Service thought it might take until the next day to 0:04:50.796 --> 0:04:52.996 count the votes. We're going to be giving you all 0:04:53.036 --> 0:04:55.596 of the figures just as quickly as we can, but 0:04:55.676 --> 0:04:58.716 we'll no other results sometime the night, early in the morning, 0:04:59.556 --> 0:05:02.996 results that very night that would be fast, so fast. 0:05:03.636 --> 0:05:06.636 Historians sometimes call this era after the Second World War 0:05:06.996 --> 0:05:10.916 the Great Acceleration. There were races, the arms race, the 0:05:10.956 --> 0:05:14.556 space race, even NASCAR racing started then, but in a 0:05:14.596 --> 0:05:20.996 bigger way. Everything got sped up, transportation, communication, production, consumption, everything. 0:05:22.036 --> 0:05:24.316 Knowledge is to take the form of mysteries, things only 0:05:24.356 --> 0:05:27.596 God could know. Then came facts, then numbers, and then 0:05:27.716 --> 0:05:31.756 during the Great Acceleration, numbers began to yield to data, 0:05:31.956 --> 0:05:35.476 including the votes counted on election night. CBS wanted to 0:05:35.476 --> 0:05:42.036 count them faster than anyone else. Welcome to the Last Archive, 0:05:42.236 --> 0:05:44.836 the show about how we know what we know, how 0:05:44.876 --> 0:05:47.756 we used to know things, and why it seems sometimes 0:05:47.796 --> 0:05:50.876 lately as if we don't know anything at all. I'm 0:05:50.956 --> 0:05:53.596 Jill Lapoor on the edge of my seat, waiting for 0:05:53.636 --> 0:05:57.956 the returns to come in. Aside from all those television cameras, 0:05:57.996 --> 0:06:00.596 there was another machine in the CBS studio on election 0:06:00.716 --> 0:06:04.516 Night nineteen fifty two, a machine most Americans had never 0:06:04.556 --> 0:06:13.876 seen before, a console blinking. The development of modern electronic 0:06:13.996 --> 0:06:19.956 digital computers began with early man, who used his digits 0:06:20.076 --> 0:06:23.796 or fingers to keep track of the things around him 0:06:23.996 --> 0:06:31.076 one weapon, two animals, and three wins. A few thousand 0:06:31.196 --> 0:06:34.876 years after that Caveman, the first general purpose digital computers 0:06:34.916 --> 0:06:37.556 were built by the Allies in the Second World War. 0:06:38.116 --> 0:06:41.756 They were used to calculate missile trajectories and to break codes. 0:06:42.756 --> 0:06:46.516 After the war, the first commercial digital computer was built 0:06:46.556 --> 0:06:50.716 by an office equipment company called Remington Rand. I guess 0:06:50.756 --> 0:06:52.956 because there were more things to count than one weapon, 0:06:53.236 --> 0:06:57.396 two animals, and three wives. Even through the use of 0:06:57.436 --> 0:07:01.516 present day office equipment, it becomes increasingly difficult to process 0:07:01.516 --> 0:07:05.516 this accumulation to obtain the information we need. So many facts, 0:07:05.916 --> 0:07:10.036 so many numbers, so much data. Human Khan needed a 0:07:10.196 --> 0:07:13.116 new kind of machine to meet this need for high 0:07:13.116 --> 0:07:16.996 speed data processing. The scientists and technicians of the Eckert 0:07:16.996 --> 0:07:20.596 Mauchley division of Remington Rand have created a miracle of 0:07:20.636 --> 0:07:29.316 electronic development, UNIVAC, a complete electronic system for sorting, classifying, computing, 0:07:29.476 --> 0:07:35.476 and decision making. The UNIVAC the Universal Automatic Computer. Remington 0:07:35.596 --> 0:07:38.996 Rand had sold one to the US Census Bureau to 0:07:39.116 --> 0:07:43.876 count the nineteen fifty census. Right now, UNIVAK is handling 0:07:43.916 --> 0:07:48.956 automatically and economically unbelievable volumes of statistical work for the 0:07:49.036 --> 0:07:52.836 United States Bureau of the Census. Work that formerly took 0:07:52.876 --> 0:07:56.036 weeks and months to do is now being done in 0:07:56.076 --> 0:08:00.436 a matter of hours by UNIVAK. Okay, so the Census 0:08:00.476 --> 0:08:03.276 Bureau needed the machine to count the census. But who 0:08:03.276 --> 0:08:06.556 else could possibly need a crazy, expensive UNIVAC, a machine 0:08:06.596 --> 0:08:09.916 the size of a small truck. Hardly anyone, it seemed. 0:08:10.636 --> 0:08:12.996 But Remington Rand wanted to sell them, so they had 0:08:12.996 --> 0:08:15.916 to keep pitching them and pitching them and pitching them. 0:08:16.156 --> 0:08:20.556 UNIVAK is rapidly turning out answers, answers which have profound 0:08:20.596 --> 0:08:26.596 significance in the lives of all of us. Maybe UNIVAC 0:08:26.676 --> 0:08:30.396 could count votes. Maybe on election night, UNIVAC could even 0:08:30.396 --> 0:08:34.076 know the winner before any human could. Maybe the UNIVAC 0:08:34.196 --> 0:08:37.356 might actually get it right, because in the last election, 0:08:37.876 --> 0:08:41.876 everyone had gotten it wrong. Thomas Dewey and his family 0:08:41.956 --> 0:08:45.916 waited expectantly for a concession. In nineteen forty eight, Truman 0:08:45.996 --> 0:08:49.356 had run against the Republican governor of New York, Thomas Dewey. 0:08:50.116 --> 0:08:53.836 All the big posters were sure Dewey would win. Reporters 0:08:53.836 --> 0:08:57.236 were just as sure. The Chicago Tribune went to press early, 0:08:57.716 --> 0:09:01.316 too early, with one hundred and fifty thousand papers bearing 0:09:01.356 --> 0:09:06.676 the headline Dewey defeats Truman. Dear listener, he did not 0:09:08.116 --> 0:09:11.076 a man of the people had accomplished a political miracle. 0:09:11.676 --> 0:09:14.956 At his home in Independence, Missouri. President Tillman accepted the 0:09:14.996 --> 0:09:19.676 congratulations of the nation. TV got it wrong, too, But 0:09:19.796 --> 0:09:23.036 TV didn't matter in nineteen forty eight, first because hardly 0:09:23.036 --> 0:09:26.236 anyone owned a television set then, and second, the TV 0:09:26.316 --> 0:09:30.116 coverage in nineteen forty eight was basically just live film 0:09:30.156 --> 0:09:33.996 of radio guys snoozing and waiting for the returns. But 0:09:34.116 --> 0:09:37.436 in nineteen fifty two everything was supposed to be different. 0:09:37.756 --> 0:09:41.196 People finally had television sets. Watching would be fun, the 0:09:41.196 --> 0:09:44.996 announcers would call it right. So back to election night 0:09:45.076 --> 0:09:48.636 in nineteen fifty two. It seems to me that television 0:09:48.716 --> 0:09:52.196 has certainly come into its own this year. This time, 0:09:52.276 --> 0:09:56.436 everything seems to be specially designed for television. CBS had 0:09:56.436 --> 0:09:58.436 put a lot of effort and money into its coverage, 0:09:58.476 --> 0:10:01.396 every last bell and whistle. They'd also made it into 0:10:01.436 --> 0:10:05.196 a race. They really wanted to call the election early. Ideally, 0:10:05.276 --> 0:10:09.116 they wanted to call the election first, except they didn't 0:10:09.116 --> 0:10:11.116 want to call it so early that they'd get it wrong. 0:10:11.996 --> 0:10:15.476 But in case that happened, they needed a scapegoat. Enter 0:10:16.076 --> 0:10:20.996 the computer. Millions of Americans had televisions, but how many 0:10:21.076 --> 0:10:24.956 had computers. None. At the time, there were, by my count, 0:10:25.236 --> 0:10:29.116 six computers in the whole country. It's possible I have 0:10:29.196 --> 0:10:33.316 my numbers wrong. Remember I am only human. But here's 0:10:33.356 --> 0:10:36.716 where what CBS wanted and what Remington Rand wanted lined 0:10:36.796 --> 0:10:39.996 up perfectly. Remington Ran needed a chance to show how 0:10:40.116 --> 0:10:44.876 useful computers are, a showcase. CBS needed a stunt and 0:10:44.996 --> 0:10:47.996 also a scapegoat. It was a match made in heaven. 0:10:48.756 --> 0:10:51.716 These things tend to seem inevitable after the fact, but 0:10:51.796 --> 0:10:55.036 of course history doesn't work that way. Most things happened 0:10:55.036 --> 0:10:58.316 by accident. A few months before election day, a guy 0:10:58.356 --> 0:11:00.276 from CBS went out to lunch with a guy from 0:11:00.316 --> 0:11:03.716 Remington Rand. CBS wanted to put in a big order 0:11:03.716 --> 0:11:07.196 for you know, typewriters and calculators, the sorts of machines 0:11:07.196 --> 0:11:09.996 that figured it needed to stock up on for election night. 0:11:10.516 --> 0:11:14.916 But the Remington Ran guy said, have you considered a UNIVAC. 0:11:16.236 --> 0:11:19.556 CBS's director of News and Public affairs guy called Sig 0:11:19.636 --> 0:11:22.636 Mickelson heard about the lunch. He decided to go to 0:11:22.676 --> 0:11:25.396 the Remington Ran factory in Philadelphia to take a look. 0:11:26.236 --> 0:11:29.636 He hopped on the train and went to meet the UNIVAC. 0:11:32.476 --> 0:11:36.556 The machine was a monster, a massive electronic vacuum tubes 0:11:36.676 --> 0:11:40.556 interconnected by miles of copper wire and cooled by noisy fans. 0:11:41.636 --> 0:11:43.796 Michelson was supposed to meet a colleague of his there 0:11:43.956 --> 0:11:50.556 in Philadelphia, the dashing CBS correspondent Charles Collingwood. As legend 0:11:50.596 --> 0:11:54.076 has it, Collingwood was running lee when he arrived. The 0:11:54.156 --> 0:11:59.156 printer hooked up to the UNIVAC spat out a short message, Collingwood, 0:11:59.396 --> 0:12:03.636 you are a lap Where have you been? This is 0:12:03.636 --> 0:12:06.436 what's known among historians is a fact too good to 0:12:06.516 --> 0:12:09.716 check in this sense that this never happened. But I'm 0:12:09.716 --> 0:12:12.676 telling you about it because Michelson said it happened, and 0:12:12.756 --> 0:12:16.476 I love it. Back to things that did happen. CBS 0:12:16.516 --> 0:12:19.156 decided to proceed with what it called I'm not making 0:12:19.156 --> 0:12:26.156 this up project. Here's the deal they worked out. CBS 0:12:26.196 --> 0:12:28.796 would get the services of Univac for Election night, but 0:12:28.836 --> 0:12:31.836 the machine would stay in Philadelphia. It was just too 0:12:31.836 --> 0:12:34.436 big to bring to New York. It weighed sixteen thousand 0:12:34.476 --> 0:12:37.756 pounds and had five thousand vacuum tubes. But the CBS 0:12:37.756 --> 0:12:39.716 studio in New York needed to look like it had 0:12:39.756 --> 0:12:42.676 a computer on set, so Charles Collingwood would sit at 0:12:42.676 --> 0:12:45.916 the UNIVAC looking thing of magic a console. There's actually 0:12:45.956 --> 0:12:49.596 just a dummy, a fake. The giant computer prop at 0:12:49.636 --> 0:12:53.356 CBS did, however, light up. It blinked for the benefit 0:12:53.396 --> 0:12:55.516 of viewers at home, as if it were the real 0:12:55.676 --> 0:13:01.396 electronic brain thinking. It's like a Christmas tree light timer basically, 0:13:01.636 --> 0:13:03.636 and if you watch it long enough you see the 0:13:03.676 --> 0:13:08.756 pattern of the lights. Just appened. I first learned about 0:13:08.756 --> 0:13:13.076 the story in a dissertation, an amazing dissertation called Battle 0:13:13.116 --> 0:13:16.716 of the Brains by Ira Chenoi, and I don't say 0:13:16.756 --> 0:13:20.116 dissertations are amazing all that often. Chenoi is a professor 0:13:20.116 --> 0:13:22.676 at the University of Maryland. But before he got his PhD, 0:13:22.756 --> 0:13:25.396 he was the director of Computer assisted Reporting at the 0:13:25.436 --> 0:13:29.756 Washington Post. Before that, he'd been an investigative reporter. I 0:13:29.796 --> 0:13:32.556 wanted to visit him in his office in Maryland so 0:13:32.596 --> 0:13:35.836 that we could watch this footage together, footage that he'd 0:13:35.836 --> 0:13:39.916 discovered in the archives. It looks great. It does look 0:13:39.956 --> 0:13:41.716 really good. And actually, I don't know if you can 0:13:41.716 --> 0:13:44.196 see it here, but I actually saw one of these 0:13:45.236 --> 0:13:46.996 when I went out to the Computer Instry Museum, and 0:13:47.036 --> 0:13:49.876 I think it has an ashtray in it. Actually, Chenoy 0:13:49.956 --> 0:13:53.076 and I watched the footage where Walter Cronkite and Charles 0:13:53.116 --> 0:13:56.756 Collingwood on election night wait for the first prediction from 0:13:56.756 --> 0:14:00.476 the machine, and now perhaps a prediction on how this 0:14:00.716 --> 0:14:03.676 voting is going. What's the vote that has been so 0:14:03.836 --> 0:14:07.276 far means, let's turn to that miracle of the modern age, 0:14:07.356 --> 0:14:11.636 the electronic brain universe and the Charles Collingwood. Collingwood's on 0:14:11.676 --> 0:14:15.676 live television looking at a display offscreen, waiting for a 0:14:15.756 --> 0:14:18.516 prediction that he's supposed to read out loud. UNIVAC is 0:14:18.556 --> 0:14:20.556 going to try to predict the winner for us, just 0:14:20.756 --> 0:14:23.836 as early as we can possibly get the returns. Then 0:14:24.476 --> 0:14:27.676 this is not a joke or a trick. It's an experiment. 0:14:27.916 --> 0:14:29.916 We think it's going to work, we don't know. We 0:14:29.956 --> 0:14:34.516 hope it'll work, but there's nothing coming in. It's incredibly 0:14:34.516 --> 0:14:38.156 awkward to watch. They didn't call this stuff cringe TV then, 0:14:38.756 --> 0:14:42.436 but this is cringe TV. Can you say something? UNIVAC, 0:14:43.796 --> 0:14:46.156 have you got anything to say to the television audience? 0:14:46.556 --> 0:14:50.196 Apparently the UNIVAC in Philadelphia had made a prediction. It 0:14:50.356 --> 0:14:54.196 predicted that Eisenhower would win in a landslide, but given 0:14:54.196 --> 0:14:56.796 that exit polls had the race neck and neck, that 0:14:56.916 --> 0:15:02.276 prediction seemed bananas. So, supposedly, not wanting to screw up Remington, 0:15:02.356 --> 0:15:04.836 Rand decided not to send that prediction on to CBS 0:15:04.956 --> 0:15:09.476 in New York. Remington's second guest its own machine, which 0:15:09.556 --> 0:15:13.756 left Collingwood hanging and CBS without a prediction to announce. 0:15:14.036 --> 0:15:18.676 You're a very impolite in Shane, I must say, it 0:15:18.836 --> 0:15:21.676 was as if the whole election had suddenly gone off script, 0:15:22.356 --> 0:15:24.716 when in fact, so much of the campaign had been 0:15:24.756 --> 0:15:29.796 so entirely scripted. There's more to this story. There are documents, 0:15:30.036 --> 0:15:33.956 There is evidence. My producer Ben has filed a copy 0:15:33.996 --> 0:15:37.796 of that campaign script in his desk here in the 0:15:37.916 --> 0:15:47.236 last archive. So the supercomputer UNIVAC failed its first public 0:15:47.276 --> 0:15:50.676 audition as the predictor of voter behavior, at least though 0:15:50.716 --> 0:15:53.836 it was something obvious, a giant machine with these blinking 0:15:53.916 --> 0:15:58.076 lights right there on television. A lot more subtle stuff 0:15:58.156 --> 0:16:02.236 changed during that election, too, stuff that's been forgotten because 0:16:02.276 --> 0:16:09.756 now it's everywhere President I President. Television advert that was 0:16:09.796 --> 0:16:13.036 new two not jingles. There'd been campaign song since forever. 0:16:13.596 --> 0:16:15.996 But nineteen fifty two saw the introduction of a particular 0:16:16.076 --> 0:16:20.796 kind of television advertising, the targeted political ad. Lately, all 0:16:20.836 --> 0:16:24.396 political ads are targeted. They're targeted by computers as unairing 0:16:24.436 --> 0:16:28.116 his missiles. But in nineteen fifty two, targeting was done 0:16:28.116 --> 0:16:32.516 by hand, and political television advertising was invented by a 0:16:32.556 --> 0:16:38.956 man named Rosser Reeves. Think Don Draper and Madmen, but 0:16:39.076 --> 0:16:43.796 even slicker the very best Madison Avenue could offer. Rosser 0:16:43.876 --> 0:16:46.476 Reeves he was the man. He owned one of the 0:16:46.476 --> 0:16:49.476 world's biggest rubies. He led the US Jess team on 0:16:49.516 --> 0:16:53.276 a trip to the Soviet Union. He invested in island 0:16:53.356 --> 0:16:57.636 real estate. He captained yachts. He flew planes mainly, though 0:16:57.956 --> 0:17:02.556 he created modern television advertising. Reeves decided that there were 0:17:02.596 --> 0:17:05.356 many advantages to be gained by adopting a new form 0:17:05.436 --> 0:17:10.596 of political advertising, the short spot commercial. Nicholson, that executive 0:17:10.636 --> 0:17:13.796 from CBS who brought in the UNIVAC, he knew all 0:17:13.836 --> 0:17:17.316 about Reeves he later wrote about it. He had a 0:17:17.396 --> 0:17:20.516 hunch that the sixty second advertising spot could be used 0:17:20.516 --> 0:17:23.516 in the way the soap, food and cigarette companies were 0:17:23.596 --> 0:17:27.956 using them with spectacular success. In nineteen fifty two, Reeves 0:17:27.996 --> 0:17:31.916 took his talents to politics. He went to the Republican Convention. 0:17:32.156 --> 0:17:37.276 The first convention broadcasts start to finish on television. Reeves 0:17:37.356 --> 0:17:40.156 was there, but instead of watching from the convention hall, 0:17:40.436 --> 0:17:43.356 he watched the keynote speech on TV from a hotel room. 0:17:43.916 --> 0:17:47.756 The crowds inside the stadium were enthusiastic, but watching the 0:17:47.756 --> 0:17:51.756 convention on TV, Reeves thought the speeches were dreadful, too 0:17:51.956 --> 0:17:56.036 many ideas, too many words. So he devised a test 0:17:56.276 --> 0:18:00.396 to see which people remembered better a televised speech or 0:18:00.436 --> 0:18:04.956 a televised commercial. Less than ten percent of people remembered 0:18:04.956 --> 0:18:09.956 the speech remembered the commercial. Ree thought that was because 0:18:09.996 --> 0:18:13.956 speeches usually have a lot of ideas, too many for television. 0:18:14.596 --> 0:18:18.316 He believed in something he called the unique selling proposition, 0:18:19.396 --> 0:18:26.836 the USP. What is a USP. It's a theory of 0:18:26.876 --> 0:18:31.916 the ideal selling concept. It is a condensation, a verbal shorthand, 0:18:31.916 --> 0:18:35.716 if you will, of what makes a campaign work. It 0:18:35.836 --> 0:18:39.836 is the hidden secret of literally thousands of the most 0:18:39.876 --> 0:18:45.636 successful advertising campaigns ever written. Reeves often made pitches over 0:18:45.716 --> 0:18:48.996 meetings at Manhattan Swinky twenty one club, where everyone was 0:18:49.036 --> 0:18:53.076 always several martinis deep. He told them that his unique 0:18:53.076 --> 0:18:58.756 selling proposition had three rules. Number one, each advertisement must 0:18:58.796 --> 0:19:01.836 make a proposition to the consumer, not just words, not 0:19:01.956 --> 0:19:06.756 just product puffery. Each advertisement must say to each reader, 0:19:07.196 --> 0:19:12.356 buy this product and you'll get this specific benefit. Number two, 0:19:12.556 --> 0:19:15.236 the proposition must be the one that the competition either 0:19:15.276 --> 0:19:19.076 cannot or does not offer. Number Three, the proposition must 0:19:19.076 --> 0:19:21.716 be so strong that it can move the mass millions. 0:19:22.476 --> 0:19:26.756 That's from reeves book Reality and Advertising. My producer Ben 0:19:26.796 --> 0:19:28.436 and I decided to go get a copy of it. 0:19:29.196 --> 0:19:31.276 So we went to the basement of Widener Library at 0:19:31.276 --> 0:19:34.756 Harvard together. And when I say basement, I mean that 0:19:34.836 --> 0:19:37.356 in the deepest sense. To get to Reeves, you take 0:19:37.396 --> 0:19:40.316 the elevator four stories down and then you walk through 0:19:40.316 --> 0:19:43.876 a tunnel. So the Fuci tunnel, it's so much better 0:19:43.916 --> 0:19:45.476 that it used to be here, used to be these 0:19:45.916 --> 0:19:49.036 big plastic buckets down here because they're just all these 0:19:49.556 --> 0:19:52.916 seal these pipes. They would just but you know what, 0:19:53.036 --> 0:19:54.836 like what does it still have that humidity? You know 0:19:54.916 --> 0:19:59.436 it's a humidity treatment smell. I think it would humiliate 0:19:59.476 --> 0:20:01.436 Reeves to know this. But after you go through that 0:20:01.476 --> 0:20:04.676 sweaty tunnel, you have to go down another level, down 0:20:04.716 --> 0:20:08.636 another elevator to finally get to the stacks and the 0:20:08.716 --> 0:20:13.596 shelf where his book is housed. His best advertisements all 0:20:13.676 --> 0:20:18.236 follow those three rules of the USP. So wonder Bread 0:20:18.436 --> 0:20:22.396 helps build strong bodies in twelve ways, Anderson gives you fast, fast, 0:20:22.476 --> 0:20:26.596 fast relief. But my personal favorite was the campaign he 0:20:26.636 --> 0:20:31.116 wrote for Eminem's Which man has the Eminem and chocolate 0:20:31.236 --> 0:20:36.956 cann that's ordinary chocolate can it's melting, But this one 0:20:37.196 --> 0:20:42.116 there's no chocolate mint because built chocolate melts in your mouth, 0:20:43.316 --> 0:20:46.236 not in your hand. Reeves said Republicans should run ad 0:20:46.236 --> 0:20:51.516 spots and sell Eisenhower like Eminem's. EIKE's campaign signed him 0:20:51.596 --> 0:20:54.916 right up, even though Eisenhower himself had yet to be convinced. 0:20:56.356 --> 0:20:58.956 Reeves took six weeks off and hold himself up in 0:20:58.956 --> 0:21:01.676 a hotel to write ad copy. He had all of 0:21:01.716 --> 0:21:04.636 Eisenhower's speech is sent over, but he didn't read them. 0:21:04.956 --> 0:21:07.396 I was too busy with the political maelstrom to sit 0:21:07.436 --> 0:21:09.876 down personally and read all of and how was rather 0:21:10.036 --> 0:21:13.356 dreary speeches. So we had other people do that. They 0:21:13.436 --> 0:21:15.756 drew up a list of topics that the general favored. 0:21:16.276 --> 0:21:19.396 Reeves showed that list to George Gallop, the polster who 0:21:19.476 --> 0:21:23.076 ransom numbers, and told Reeves which three topics pulled best 0:21:23.116 --> 0:21:29.356 with voters. One corruption in government, two high prices and 0:21:29.436 --> 0:21:35.836 high taxes. Three war. Those three topics still pull well. 0:21:36.076 --> 0:21:41.236 They're evergreens today though computer driven targeted advertising, polling, and 0:21:41.316 --> 0:21:44.356 election predictions are all tangled up on your iPhone as 0:21:44.356 --> 0:21:47.876 if they're one thing. But they first got tangled up 0:21:48.156 --> 0:21:50.996 in nineteen fifty two when the polsters and the admin. 0:21:51.556 --> 0:21:53.916 We're actually doing much the same thing as the UNIVAC 0:21:54.076 --> 0:21:56.796 was trying to do, running the numbers, coming up with 0:21:56.836 --> 0:22:00.396 a prediction. Are we okay with that? I mean we are, 0:22:00.476 --> 0:22:02.996 because this is our world. But still if we here 0:22:02.996 --> 0:22:06.276 in the last archive are wondering who killed truth? I'm 0:22:06.276 --> 0:22:10.276 looking at you, Rosser Reeves. Reeves had hired a friend 0:22:10.276 --> 0:22:12.036 of his to run the numbers for him, a guy 0:22:12.076 --> 0:22:14.916 named Michael Levin. Ben brought copies of what he found 0:22:14.916 --> 0:22:17.316 in the archives when we went looking for Reeves's book 0:22:17.556 --> 0:22:22.156 fifty thousand Leagues beneath the library. This one is Michael 0:22:22.236 --> 0:22:24.796 Levin's plan. It's called how to ensure an Eisenhower victory 0:22:24.796 --> 0:22:28.156 in November, And this is what Reeves commissioned his numbers 0:22:28.196 --> 0:22:30.556 guy Levin, who worked at a different firm, Yeah, to 0:22:30.596 --> 0:22:33.236 write up about basically how to target the ads, where 0:22:33.236 --> 0:22:37.236 to run them, what counties, how often. This is a 0:22:37.276 --> 0:22:40.676 smoking gun of micro targeted advertising right here. We haven't 0:22:40.756 --> 0:22:45.236 ranked here. Levin carved the country into voting blocks, the 0:22:45.316 --> 0:22:48.356 southern vote, the black vote, the farm vote, the middle class. 0:22:48.996 --> 0:22:52.076 He thought this way since Roosevelt most of the country 0:22:52.116 --> 0:22:55.356 had voted Democratic, but that could change now that the 0:22:55.396 --> 0:22:58.756 economy was good. People weren't so keen on paying taxes anymore. 0:22:59.116 --> 0:23:01.236 They'd rather keep their money and spend it on some 0:23:01.276 --> 0:23:03.436 of the things they saw, and all those television ads 0:23:03.796 --> 0:23:07.596 dishwashers and dog food. To make the electoral math work 0:23:07.636 --> 0:23:10.316 in Republicans favor. Levin said they needed to flip the 0:23:10.396 --> 0:23:13.396 vote in forty nine counties in twelve states where they 0:23:13.516 --> 0:23:16.716 narrowly lost the last election. Levin called this block of 0:23:16.756 --> 0:23:20.356 states the Great Lakes Girdle. This was at a time when, 0:23:20.596 --> 0:23:23.396 by the way, people call parts of the country girdles, 0:23:23.636 --> 0:23:27.436 and now we call them belts, which is sad to me. Anyway. 0:23:27.596 --> 0:23:31.676 Forget kissing babies, shaking hands, and meeting voters, cultivating civic 0:23:31.716 --> 0:23:36.436 life and political debate. Instead, Levin said, divide the electorate 0:23:36.436 --> 0:23:39.436 into market segments and then blitz those key counties with 0:23:39.556 --> 0:23:46.036 the custom made TV ads. Is there a new way 0:23:46.036 --> 0:23:49.596 of campaigning that can guarantee victory for Eisenhower in November? 0:23:50.196 --> 0:23:54.116 The answer is yes. Most people don't know the power 0:23:54.116 --> 0:23:57.476 of spot. However, here are the cold facts. The humble 0:23:57.556 --> 0:24:00.956 radio or TV spot can deliver more listeners for less 0:24:00.996 --> 0:24:06.516 money than any other form advertising. This pitch, you may 0:24:06.516 --> 0:24:09.836 have noticed, sounds a little bit different from the Loven plan, 0:24:10.356 --> 0:24:13.436 but they were filed together in Roster's papers and the archives. 0:24:13.436 --> 0:24:15.276 This is kind of like lipstick on a pig, though 0:24:15.316 --> 0:24:19.036 like at least reefses, justlipstick, no pig. Here's the turn 0:24:19.716 --> 0:24:26.236 where commercial television advertising becomes political television advertising just lipstick, 0:24:26.876 --> 0:24:32.076 no pig Let us repeat that the humble radio or 0:24:32.156 --> 0:24:36.276 TV spot can deliver more listeners for less money than 0:24:36.396 --> 0:24:39.156 any other form of advertising. It is a way of 0:24:39.236 --> 0:24:43.636 having a big town meeting but letting sixty million people 0:24:43.716 --> 0:24:47.196 hear all the questions of answers. This technique is ideally 0:24:47.236 --> 0:24:51.276 suited to Eisenhower's warm personality as opposed to the cold 0:24:51.316 --> 0:24:55.796 intellectual approach of ADLEI. Stevenson. And because they are simple, 0:24:55.836 --> 0:24:59.076 because they are quick, because they are short and uncomplicated, 0:24:59.276 --> 0:25:03.196 the public will remember them like candy but heat, dirty hands, 0:25:03.476 --> 0:25:09.196 problem solved, vote Eisenhower. In other words, they will penetrate. Yes, 0:25:09.396 --> 0:25:14.076 they will penetrate the brains of sixty million critical voters, 0:25:14.236 --> 0:25:18.076 where the more complicated and more elaborate political speeches won't 0:25:18.076 --> 0:25:21.636 be remembered. And it's what the critical voters have in 0:25:21.676 --> 0:25:24.556 their brains when they go into the Poland booths to counts. 0:25:26.796 --> 0:25:29.676 But before he could get to voters brains, the eminem 0:25:29.676 --> 0:25:34.276 men first had to get General Eisenhower on board. Eisenhower 0:25:34.396 --> 0:25:37.756 was worried that these spots would be undignified. After all, 0:25:37.796 --> 0:25:41.876 at the time, Eisenhower was president of Columbia University. He 0:25:41.956 --> 0:25:44.516 wasn't as appalled as at least Stevenson would have been, 0:25:45.396 --> 0:25:48.876 but he was still worried. So Reeves met the General 0:25:48.876 --> 0:25:53.756 for lunch, probably over scotch, and wore him down. Well, General, 0:25:53.916 --> 0:25:56.716 do you think it's all right for candidate to make 0:25:56.716 --> 0:26:01.676 a thirty minute speech on television or radio? Yes? Or 0:26:01.716 --> 0:26:05.956 would it be dignified to make a fifteen minute speech? Yes? 0:26:06.396 --> 0:26:09.036 Would it be in order, perhaps to make a five 0:26:09.156 --> 0:26:13.476 five minutes speech? Yes, I am sure a five minutes 0:26:13.476 --> 0:26:15.756 speech would be an order if we could cut that 0:26:16.276 --> 0:26:21.476 speech to one minute? Is there anything wrong with that? Okay, 0:26:21.676 --> 0:26:27.316 let's go ahead, Or that's Reeves's account anyway. They filmed 0:26:27.356 --> 0:26:31.036 the campaign spots all in one day in Manhattan. The 0:26:31.076 --> 0:26:34.196 original idea was to run the spots in those targeted 0:26:34.236 --> 0:26:39.836 markets we now call them swing precincts. Eisenhower answers America 0:26:40.036 --> 0:26:43.316 in each spot, and everyday person asks the General a question. 0:26:43.836 --> 0:26:47.396 Reeves had Eisenhower's answers written on huge posters so Eisenhower 0:26:47.396 --> 0:26:49.836 wouldn't have to wear his glasses to read them. The 0:26:49.876 --> 0:26:53.356