When, just before midnight on September 25, Nixon arrived in Chicago for the first nationally televised debate, he was exhausted and still sick. He had lost ten pounds, and his shirt hung limply around his neck. He wore himself out some more by giving a speech to a hostile labor audience in the morning and then spent five hours trying to cram facts into his head. On the way to the studio, he once again cracked his knee on the car door. His face turned ashen as he pretended to ignore the pain.15
