SIR - In all the coverage of the American presidential election, only passing references have been made to what happened in 1960.
Then, John F Kennedy cheated Richard Nixon of victory through money and the manipulation of votes in Chicago. As Kennedy's father notoriously said to him: "I can buy you a victory, but I can't buy you a landslide."
Thus, the United States acquired a glitzy, womanising, incompetent president at the expense of a man who was later to show himself, despite serious personal failings, to be a great president. Nixon was a lawyer of consummate ability. He could, readily and properly, have contested the Chicago results. Instead he chose, in the national interest, to make a gracious speech of concession.
It should not escape notice that Al Gore's campaign manager, William Daley, is the son of Richard, who rigged Chicago for Kennedy in 1960.