Exceptionally scarce internal CBS News political-reference and broadcast-preparation manual, compiled by Ed Edwin and produced for correspondents, writers, editors, producers, and executives covering the 1956 Democratic National Convention. 4to, original wire spiral binding, printed stiff-paper wrappers, colored sectional dividers, 342 numbered pages plus blank pages for notes, printed from typewritten copy. Published in 1956 by CBS News. Organized for use under live-broadcast pressure, the guide employs keyword indexes, underlined topic sentences, one-page “capsule recaps” with estimated reading times, selected quotations, source notes, delegate tables, primary returns, and rapid-reference summaries—effectively a CBS newsroom “war book” for a genuinely contested convention.
The bulk of the volume comprises substantial dossiers on the principal nomination contenders: approximately sixty-two pages on Adlai Stevenson, fifty-three on W. Averell Harriman, fifty-four on Estes Kefauver, and twenty-three on Stuart Symington. A section titled “Other Extraordinary Politicos” includes Sam Rayburn, Harry S. Truman, and a particularly important twenty-four-page treatment of Lyndon B. Johnson, then the formidable Senate majority leader, examined as legislative tactician, Southern power broker, and national aspirant.
The wonderfully candid “Dark and Stalking Horses / Favorite Sons / Potential Vice Presidential Nominees” section includes Albert Gore, Sr., Hubert Humphrey, Edmund Muskie, and John F. Kennedy. Kennedy’s short but remarkably prescient dossier was prepared when he was a thirty-nine-year-old first-term senator, immediately before Stevenson’s unprecedented decision to leave the vice-presidential nomination to an open convention vote. It considers Kennedy’s Catholicism, civil rights and integration, McCarthyism, agricultural and foreign policy, wartime injuries, Profiles in Courage, electoral appeal, and his publicly disclaimed interest in the vice presidency. Within days he would come dramatically close to defeating Kefauver, transforming himself from a promising young senator into a nationally recognized presidential possibility. The guide thus records CBS evaluating Kennedy at the threshold of his emergence onto the national stage.
Further sections examine Southern unity and a possible Dixiecrat revolt, civil-rights platform disputes, party organization, convention history, and the 1956 primaries. Compiled by CBS political researcher Ed Edwin, later an oral historian at Columbia, the guide reveals not merely what the network knew, but how it organized political knowledge for transmission to a national television audience.
Moderate foxing and rubbing to wrappers. Mild damp staining to rear wrapper (not affecting interior), with minor closed tear to bottom edge. Slight bend down the center of textblock, with light foxing to edges. Apparently complete and internally well preserved overall. The companion CBS guide to the 1956 Republican Convention is institutionally recorded, but examples of either volume appear rarely in commerce. A remarkable survival from the formative years of televised presidential politics, with substantial contemporary material on Stevenson, Kefauver, Harriman, Johnson, and Kennedy.
Exceptionally scarce internal CBS News political-reference and broadcast-preparation manual, compiled by Ed Edwin and produced for correspondents, writers, editors, producers, and executives covering the 1956 Democratic National Convention. 4to, original wire spiral binding, printed stiff-paper wrappers, colored sectional dividers, 342 numbered pages plus blank pages for notes, printed from typewritten copy. Published in 1956 by CBS News. Organized for use under live-broadcast pressure, the guide employs keyword indexes, underlined topic sentences, one-page “capsule recaps” with estimated reading times, selected quotations, source notes, delegate tables, primary returns, and rapid-reference summaries—effectively a CBS newsroom “war book” for a genuinely contested convention.
The bulk of the volume comprises substantial dossiers on the principal nomination contenders: approximately sixty-two pages on Adlai Stevenson, fifty-three on W. Averell Harriman, fifty-four on Estes Kefauver, and twenty-three on Stuart Symington. A section titled “Other Extraordinary Politicos” includes Sam Rayburn, Harry S. Truman, and a particularly important twenty-four-page treatment of Lyndon B. Johnson, then the formidable Senate majority leader, examined as legislative tactician, Southern power broker, and national aspirant.
The wonderfully candid “Dark and Stalking Horses / Favorite Sons / Potential Vice Presidential Nominees” section includes Albert Gore, Sr., Hubert Humphrey, Edmund Muskie, and John F. Kennedy. Kennedy’s short but remarkably prescient dossier was prepared when he was a thirty-nine-year-old first-term senator, immediately before Stevenson’s unprecedented decision to leave the vice-presidential nomination to an open convention vote. It considers Kennedy’s Catholicism, civil rights and integration, McCarthyism, agricultural and foreign policy, wartime injuries, Profiles in Courage, electoral appeal, and his publicly disclaimed interest in the vice presidency. Within days he would come dramatically close to defeating Kefauver, transforming himself from a promising young senator into a nationally recognized presidential possibility. The guide thus records CBS evaluating Kennedy at the threshold of his emergence onto the national stage.
Further sections examine Southern unity and a possible Dixiecrat revolt, civil-rights platform disputes, party organization, convention history, and the 1956 primaries. Compiled by CBS political researcher Ed Edwin, later an oral historian at Columbia, the guide reveals not merely what the network knew, but how it organized political knowledge for transmission to a national television audience.
Moderate foxing and rubbing to wrappers. Mild damp staining to rear wrapper (not affecting interior), with minor closed tear to bottom edge. Slight bend down the center of textblock, with light foxing to edges. Apparently complete and internally well preserved overall. The companion CBS guide to the 1956 Republican Convention is institutionally recorded, but examples of either volume appear rarely in commerce. A remarkable survival from the formative years of televised presidential politics, with substantial contemporary material on Stevenson, Kefauver, Harriman, Johnson, and Kennedy.
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