Event That Left Cronkite Almost Speechless

Lunar Astronaut 'Buzz' Aldrin and Fellow Space Pioneer John Glenn Remember Legendary Newsman

(CBS)  Forty years ago this weekend, CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite was live on the air for 18-straight hours, keeping everyone on the edge of their seats watching something literally out of this world, as man landed on the moon for the first time.

Astronaut Neil Armstrong was the one who uttered the famous words, "The Eagle has landed," telling the world a manned spacecraft was on the lunar surface.

At that point, Cronkite said simply, "Whew, boy." He often spoke about being speechless at that moment.

Cronkite, the legendary CBS News anchor, died Friday at 92 after a long illness.

And on "The Early Show Saturday Edition" Aldrin and fellow space pioneer John Glenn, who's also a former senator from Ohio, remembered the man who well-known as a huge believer in and fan of the United States space program.

Special Section: Walter Cronkite: 1916-2009

Aldrin said he'd just been at the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio when he heard that Cronkite had passed away. "All of us of course were very saddened for such a trusted voice to have passed on."

Aldrin recalled that, after returning to Earth, "We were on the aircraft carrier in quarantine when they showed us some film of the reactions back on here when we landed on the moon. And the people cheering and, of course, interspersed with that was the broadcast with Walter. ... That was a very (good scene) with Walter and his glasses on his forehead, mopping his brow, and I think that's one of the first times he was really speechless.

"As we saw this, it was just a (bit) striking -- I tapped Neil (Armstrong) on the shoulder and said, 'Look at all that cheering. We missed the whole thing ... as the rest of the world got to see the transmissions and the interpretations for those 18 hours."

Glenn pointed out that Cronkite covered the space program from its infancy, including his flight, the first manned mission to orbit Earth. "Then," Glenn said, "(Cronkite) came back all those years later and, at the end of 1998, covered when I went back up in space again. Walter sort of came out of retirement on that one, I think, because of his interest in the whole program. He was fascinated by the space program. (He) thought it was one of the big things that this country had ever done.

Glenn noted it isn't often mentioned that Cronkite was on the board of "Give Kids the World," which "takes terminally ill children and lets them go to Disney World as one of their last wishes. And (Cronkite) was on the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation board, too. We shared those places."

[mjb784533]

It is unfortunate that in their tributes to Cronkite, CBS does not have the confidence to replay their coverage of Apollo 11 just as it really was, instead of resorting to modified images which replaces everything but the anchor desk shots with film footage that was not seen until weeks after the event. As is seen on the actual original broadcast--including clips of it being show on other news outlets--CBS had a model of the lunar lander which had been lowered thru animation with the white lettering "CBS NEWS SIMULATION". In a tribute to the broadcast and the broadcaster why should CBS falsify what they had actually broadcast? They are mistakenly and lazily using footage from a retrospective program about the EVENT, when for this purpose they should go to the original broadcast to demonstrate what they had actually BROADCAST. It is an important distinction. When you honor Cronkite, you show the actual broadcast images. When you honor the event, you show images of the event even if you have to resort to showing images that you never broadcast -- which is what we mistakenly were shown on CBS Sunday Morning and Face the Nation. Unfortunately I think the kids at CBS no longer know that they are showing something that CBS had not actually broadcast. Nobody has shown them the original broadcast, and they don't know it.

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This piece has two or three errors.

The second paragraph above reads, ?Astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin was the one who uttered the famous words, ?The Eagle has landed.?? In fact, Aldrin said ?Contact light.? Some moments later Armstrong said ?Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.?

A caption in the photo essay above reads, ?Buzz Aldrin, a retired NASA astronaut and the second of 28 astronauts to walk on the moon.? In fact, Aldrin was the second of *twelve* astronauts to walk on the moon.
Another caption later in the essay reads, ?Although he was the second man to walk on the moon, Aldrin was the first to speak from the lunar surface, sending the message "The Eagle has landed" to Mission Control.? Armstrong, not Aldrin, spoke those words. The question of who was first to speak from the lunar surface is (for those who care) a matter of some dispute.