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It's 8.30 p.m. on November 4th, 1952

Election night in America

Dwight Eisenhower the revered hero of World War II is the Republican candidate for

President his Democratic opponent is Illinois governor Adelaide Stevenson

Everyone thinks Eisenhower will win, but that it'll be a closer

The war has only been over for seven years during the war the US military invested heavily in new technologies like radar jet engines and computers

Now those technologies are finding their way into business in everyday life

Television was around before the war but only explodes onto the market in the post-war years

About one third of American households have one

It is a new and fabulous wonder and the very idea of TV coverage of an election is being tested in front of everyone's eyes

The camera centers on Cronkite. He sits at a long wooden desk

The newsroom is buzzing packed with men and suits and women and dresses

Why not after Cronkite welcomes the audience to election night coverage?

He introduces another one of the wars technological wonders one that most of his viewers have never seen

For perhaps a prediction on how this voting is going what the vote that is in so far means

Let's turn to that miracle of the modern age the electronic brain univac and Charles Colligwood

The camera pans over to reporter Charles Collingwood square jawed and slightly bald and he's sitting in front of a large panel

It's lights blinking furiously on top of the panel is a sign that says Remington Rand to his right is a tall machine

The size of a refrigerator spinning a spool of tape next to that is a typewriter wired to the whole contraption

The audience doesn't know it but everything about this scene is fake the lights behind the face of this machine or Christmas tree lights set to blink randomly

Yes, the most trusted man in America is pulling one over on the American public the real computer called univac

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