Continuing our year end countdowns, today it's 1960. Once again it features a panel of CBS News correspondents moderated by Edward R. Murrow. The big topic was, aside from The Cold War and the youngest President ever elected, Africa and the emerging independence movement sweeping that continent. The old Colonial powers were falling by the wayside and the big fear was how many of these newly declared nations would land in the sphere of the Soviet Union. It's interesting that so much attention was paid to Africa as the result of the Cold War, and how very little attention is paid now, except where situations like Ivory Coast are concerned which, if you spent more than five minutes looking outside of U.S. mainstream media, would know this has been brewing for a couple of years. But this is 2010, and in 1960 it was the marathon race for converts.
The Cold War did permeate the discussion, with Southeast Asia again as a point of concern, along with Berlin and France's ongoing crisis in Algeria.
So here is the broadcast from December 28, 1960 with optimism and pessimism running a tie race.