Remembering Walter Cronkite

That's the Way it Was: The World of Politics, News and Entertainment Remember a Broadcasting Legend and American Icon

(CBS)  "The Beatles were on American television for the first time not as history seems to have it recorded on 'The Ed Sullivan Show,' but on the "CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite." "If there's some credit in history for that, I want it," Walter Cronkite said in a interview.

The Beatles' First Time On American TV

"On Nov. 22, 1963, the "CBS Morning News" aired a piece about the Beatles," Katie Couric explained. "Because President Kennedy died, it never made air that night. Later in December, Walter decided to run the piece because he thought this was the time when Americans needed to be uplifted."

"And my gosh, we weren't off the air one minute that I had a phone call from Ed Sullivan, who I knew quite well," said Cronkite. "And Ed said, 'Walter, Walter, tell me about those kids. Tell me about those kids!' What kids, Ed? 'Those kids you just had on the air. The - the what do you call 'em, the Bugs, the Beatles or something?'"

Cronkite said he was invited backstage for that first appearance, and he was able to take along his two teenage daughters.

"The Beatles were everything," said daughter Kathy Cronkite. "They were everything for girls my age at that time and to be able to even just see them perform, much less meet them, was outrageous."

"I don't think up to that time they really cared very much what their father did, but I suddenly was a hero in their eyes," Cronkite said.

Perspective On Cronkite

And then, as Don Hewitt explained, there was Frank Sinatra.

"I went into Sinatra's office and he said, 'What do you want?' I said 'I wanna do a documentary on you. I'm gonna ask you to sit in a seat opposite Walter Cronkite. That's the same seat Lyndon Johnson, Dwight Eisenhower and Jack Kennedy sat in. If you don't think you're big enough to sit in that seat, I wouldn't do it if I were you," Hewitt explained. "And he looked at me and he said, 'I'm recording tomorrow night at United. You wanna start then?'"

Cronkite said Sinatra became quite a close friend, despite an interview that he granted to the newsman.

"In the middle of the interview, I said, 'Tell me Frank, what about these allegations of mafia connections.' Wham. He got up out of the seat, he stormed out and said, 'Hewitt, come with me.'"

Said Hewitt, "He said, 'You know, I ought to kill you.' And I said, 'You know, with anyone else that's a figure of speech. With you… you probably mean it.' And he said, 'I mean it.' And I said, 'Well, if I had a choice, I'd rather you didn't.' And I left and Cronkite stayed and finished the interview."

"What's the reaction of a mother of a highly popular entertainer when she reads these stories about your mobster associations, that sort of stuff in the papers?" Cronkite asked Sinatra.

"Well, there's no degree of truth to begin with. And we just can't continue to try to fight something that has no basis. Because it… you just tire after a while," the singer replied.

"And we got by with it that way to my satisfaction and apparently to his. Although he wasn't happy about it," Cronkite recalled.

Of Cronkite's coverage of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, director Spike Lee said, "Walter was one of the few people in power positions that got behind that and pushed the story. In Birmingham, Ala., 1963, 16th Street Baptist Church was blown up by Klan members. Four little girls are murdered. The fact that it was four little girls, the fact that it took place in a church on a Sunday. That really shook people up."

"At that moment that that bomb went off, America understood the real nature of the hate that was preventing integration, particularly in the South, but also throughout America. This was the awakening," Cronkite said in Lee's 1997 documentary, "4 Little Girls."

Then there was the Vietnam War.

"In the early stages of our involvement in Vietnam, basically, I felt that our course was right," said Cronkite in a interview. "My concern grew with the concern of the American people. And the American people were confused; they were confounded by what was going on, even as I was. So I thought why not go out there and do a first-person story on what I found out. What I felt about that war."

"Walter was a product, very much, of World War II and that war - the last good war, as they called it," said Morley Safer. "And for Walter to come 'round to a view that America was fighting a wrong war took a bit of real strong stuff."

Cronkite explained, "We flew out of Hue in a helicopter loaded with body bags and dead Marines. And as I got back and heard the leadership say, 'Now we've got the Vietcong on the run - 150,000, 200,000 more men and we're really gonna finish them off.' I couldn’t help but think - tell that to the Marines. Tell it to those guys in that chopper."

Cronkite on Vietnam

"At the conclusion of the CBS documentary, 'Report from Vietnam,' simply told people what I thought about the state of the war in Vietnam, and it was that we better get out of it," Cronkite said.

"We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then would be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could. This is Walter Cronkite. Good night."

Said President Bill Clinton, "And I think it pained him to have to say what he thought about Vietnam, but he also understood how isolating the White House can be and how people can get to the point where they don't hear discordant voices. And he thought he knew what the truth was. And he thought he had an obligation to tell it."

"He changed the history of the war overnight," George Clooney said, "because it was for that time period, in general, a young person's protest. And it became everyone else's wrong war at that point."

Clooney Reflects on Cronkite and Vietnam

"Lyndon Johnson was sitting at a television set that night and said, 'If I've lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost the American people," said Don Hewitt.

"It is...remarkable that one anchorman, one reporter, one journalist ... could really affect the political fate of the country," said "60 Minutes" Correspondent Morley Safer. "But they didn't call Walter 'The most trusted man in America' for nothing."

[libroberts]

Is there a DVD available of this show? (That's the Way it Was: Remembering Walter Cronkite). I watched the show, and absolutely loved it, but my Dad wasn't able to watch it, and I'd love to give him a copy, as he used to watch Walter Cronkite religiously when we were growing up.

Please let me know how I can get a copy!

Thanks very much!

Elizabeth

[wersalj]

My heart ached when I heard my favorite Uncle Walter had passing away. I began to have flashes of memories from when I was little to grown man about how be was part of my life and how he affected me when some horrible things have happened. I still do not know how he did it but he always made me feel good about the world and my life in it. I still remember many times through out my life when he broke the news to me, such as assignation of president kenedy,race riots after Doctor Martin being killed and the Apollo astronauts being killed on the launch pad where just a few. He was always there and he always new just what to say to make me fell everything would be alright. He was the man that I look to for the right answers all though out my life.

In recent years I often wondered where my Uncle Walter went and I missed him being there for the answers I so desperately needed. I have grown away from the TV news for the truth and looked at our modern news reporting more as a soap opera dramatizing events to gain ratings instead of reporting the news as it really was. Uncle Walter I will miss your voice of wisdom and most of all the security that your life brought to my life. I miss you, I love you but I know that God has called you to heaven to help him make sense out of this chaotic.

In loving memory your nephew Joseph

[amkucner]

Dearest Andy,

I am almost 50 and have grown up with You, Walter and 60 Minutes.
Tonight was the first time I have ever known You to be at lose for words.
Thank you my friend, no words can articulate such a loss.
Volumes can be said by silence.
Respectfully
Annemarie M Kucner

[aka_KJB]

All of my earliest memories of the news are of Walter Cronkite. I remember sitting with my family, eating dinner with the portable TV in the kitchen playing the CBS Evening News & Cronkite giving the current death toll in Vietnam. As a kid I was a huge fan of the space program like most kids who were old enough to be aware of it in the late 60's. It was "Uncle Walter" who had the voice that opened the galaxy for me and millions of other kids across the country. It was that same Uncle who broke the news to us that our President was, indeed, a crook and guided us through the ugly & messy aftermath of those events.

I was born almost exactly a month after the assassination of President Kennedy and still wasn't quite old enough to understand what was going on when he reported the murders of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Those reports were required viewing later in life, however, part of the official record of the those events.

I made a decision at an early age to become a writer & journalist and Walter Cronkite has always been the standard by which all other work in this field has been and will be judged.

And that's the way it was....

fade to black.....

[HGOODGUY]

IF WALTER CRONKITE'S MENTORS EDWARD R MURROW-CHET HUNTLY--DAVID BRINKLY ETC COULD SEE THE WAY THE NEWS IS HANDLED TODAY, THEY WOULD TURN OVER IN THEIR GRAVES!!

WHAT A JOKE!!!

FIRST THE NEWS IS REPORTED--THEN A PANEL DECIDES WHETHER THEY LIKE IT--AND THEN THEY TAKE A POLL!!!

I REMEMBER WHEN THE NEWS WAS JUST "THE NEWS"!!!

DOES ANYONE REALIZE THAT OUR INFORMATION IS BEING DRIVEN BY TWITTER--BUZZ--FACEBOOK ETC???

NO WONDER PEOPLE CAN'T THINK STRAIGHT!!!

[PlanoRandy]

And That?s the Way He Was

We call them national treasures, those handful of Americans we have in mind when we say they don?t make ?em like that anymore. Walter Cronkite was one of those people.

If Alexander Graham Bell was there to witness two cans getting strung together, Walter was no less pioneer-in-chief when the first television camera began broadcasting its blurry black and white image into our homes.

He was the voice from Middle America, the man who, although every region wanted to claim him, had an almost undetectable accent and whose political views were equally as undetectable.

Growing up in a North Louisiana in the early 60?s, our antenna could only get three TV channels so we had to choose each evening between Cronkite and Huntley-Brinkley. We chose Walter.

When the world seemed on the brink of something historic, our family especially turned to Walter. He had a calming effect.

Like the meteorologist you prefer to watch when the weather is beginning to turn bad, getting the news from Walter Cronkite was like getting the skinny from a kindly old grandfather who could pat you on the knee and say, ?Due to a malfunction, the astronauts are trapped in their space capsule and are in danger of not being able to make it home again. But don?t worry. I?ll be here to keep you informed if there?s any new news to report.?

We studied Walter?s face and knew he would do just what he said. You don?t get to be known as ?the most trusted man in America ? for nothing. We trusted him because he never gave us a reason not to.

If you are old enough to remember when Walter removed his glasses long enough to compose himself during his reporting of John F. Kennedy?s death or as he rubbed his sweaty palms together upon hearing the eagle had landed, you too got a peek inside of who the man was, just enough of glimpse to know that Walter was one of us.

As an experienced World War II United Press war correspondent, Walter had seen war up close. He covered battles in North Africa and Europe including the famous Battle of the Bulge. He had seen first hand what little glory there is for those who fight our wars.

In Viet Nam during the 1968 Tet Offensive, Walter donned a helmet and flak jacket to cover what was to be one of his toughest assignments.

After years of reporting to us that we were winning that war, he returned home to tell us the hard truth:

?To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion?But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.?

After hearing the broadcast, it was later reported that President Lyndon Johnson said, ?If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America.?

Now not just Middle America, but all of America, has lost Cronkite.

Since he retired, we?ve had a sampling of those who have followed in his footsteps and, with the possible exception of Tom Brokaw and his work with the Greatest Generation, it seems few have the potential of filling his journalistic shoes, few of his successors have the potential to become a national treasure.

So that?s the way it is, Uncle Walter. We?ll just have to live with the fact that they just don?t make ?em like you anymore.

May you rest in peace.

[scottscooter]

Hello Katie couric,I just wanted to say when i was born in 1961.Mr.cronkite Always made me so calm and comfortable.When I was about 3 years old my first and only presidet was shot down and murdered!!MR cronkite Sadly told us all the truth!!!Jfk was dead!!Wow my father had been in ww2 just to stop things such as this????Some how Mr cronkite explained It would be okay!!Some years went on and the apollo missions did go to the moon!!!Again Mr. cronkite Explained and told us the play by play. I was about 9 or so..I was playing with my german neighbor friends..My father said that we are going to walk on the moon!!!ALL the children from the hood watched with AHHH!!Mr Cronkite thank you....I watched you until you retired..And thats the way it is!!!I salute you Mr.cronkite..And to have such a remarkable person such as Katie couric to carry on...I have to rush home every night to get the truth from katie couric!!!!luv yu walter ..luv you Katie..Scott

[marcleap]

To: CBS management and especially to the Producers of 60 Minutes ?That?s The Way It Was, Remembering Walter Cronkite?

Along with millions of other viewers, your program treated us to delightful glimpses of Walter Cronkite?s life and a wonderful chronology of world events over much of the last half of the 20th Century. But for me it was more than a review of his many contributions to reporting the news.

In this 60 Minutes we saw a perspective of the very American experience of world events through the eyes and voice of a non partisan reporter. The program portrayed a range of the human experiences we felt as the events of those past days unfolded - the deeds and emotions, mankind?s good and evil mixed with the joy and grief the news produced. Walter showed us the emotions he felt, not telling us how we should feel. He understood his role to provide us with the highest quality information on what he felt to be the most important events of the day, letting a better informed public make their own decisions about how to deal with it.

I believe we saw the powerful value of a free press, news presented in a very personal way, setting a very high bar for television journalism. Walter Cronkite understood the value of trust, both in his personal and professional life, earned over a lifetime with the potential of being lost in an instant. While his audience benefited from and was comforted by his reporting style, let us hope the ?Fourth Estate? reflects and uses his body of work as their standard.

My congratulations to CBS for supporting Walter Cronkite?s approach to reporting the ?way it was? and for commemorating him with this extraordinary piece.

Your Regular Viewer,

John M. Leap

[maxcarroll]

One News broadcast in the late 1980s closed with 'Uncle Walter' reading a letter from a little boy, who said he had to go to bed every night when Mr. Cronkite said, "Good night", and would Uncle Walter please, just once, NOT say, 'Good night"? So, after reading the letter on-the-air, Cronkite said, " And that's the way... This is Walter Cronkite, CBS News.". He left the "Good night" out of his sign off that one time for the boys sake.

[maxcarroll]

May I correct myself? I should have written "... the 1970s" instead of "1980s. He retired in the early 1980s. Sorry for the mistake. maxcarroll

[bhockey47]

I wanted to separate this comment from my previous. While I've been a big fan of Michael Jackson, as a nation we offered a giant of a man, an honorable man, Walter Cronkite a fraction of air as compared to Jackson. Cronkite deserved better, and in the end I truly feel that CBS was flawed in their coverage no differently then when then ran Mr. Cronkite out of town because of his age. On that day, on that day when Cronkite closed his last newscast, it was on that day that CBS not only lost a brilliant star, but lost it's presence in quality evening news. Since then, the ratings speak for themselves.

[bhockey47]

Mr. Cronkite, there has been no other like you. None, absolutely none. A true American hero, from war to the networks you lured us in with your honest approach, insightful brilliance, and welcoming smile. I am truly grateful that I lived the years, the Cronkite years, but quite sad it ended so many years back. Paley was a wrong, the 65 y/o thing was wrong, and so have been those who through today sit at the desk that you made famous. Thank you Mr. Cronkite, thank you.

[ejA2]

Katie was so right-on with her opening remarks. Back in the 60's and early 70's we did not call it "the news." We had to go watch Walter.

[LeighAnnShriver]

Outstanding piece. Well done. Thank you for elegantly and respectfully capturing Walter Cronkite's life and the impact he had on so many of our lives.
Echoing the above comment, where may I purchase a DVD copy?

[glennvillega]

CBS, can we purchase a DVD copy of the Remembering Walter tribute?

[allennw96]

Thank you CBS for this wonderful tribute to a wonderful, truly honest and sincere man. I am 67 years old and remember sharing many evenings watching "Uncle Walter" bringing us the news "as it was" no frills, just good honest and through reporting wheather it was good or bad. I also remember his many special reports, interviews and documentaries.

Not many people know he was an Amateur Radio Operator (HAM) like myself, and I believe he had his transmitter on his boat. The final shots of the tribute showed him sailing, one of his loves besides his wife and family.

Again thank you for this well done piece of work and Im sure he would have been pleased with your work as well.

Sail on Walter, we will miss yoU!

[seafang]

Well it is fitting that we are celebrating the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's moon landing, at the very time that the most trusted man in America passed on from this planet.
I mean no ill will or disrespect for the long time news anchor; but I have only a single memory of his "news" broadcasts.

At the very second that Armstrong was giving his famous "one small step for man" speech on the moon, there was the most trusted man in America on CBS news flapping off at the mouth about some totally inconsequential tripe that nobody had any interest in hearing at that time.

They even caught that in the Movie "Apollo 13" since they showed that very same news clip in the movie.

Nothing has changed; news people still think the news is all about them.

[Nannews1]

I feel sorry for you that you have only one memory of Walter Cronkite and the news reporting that he did for 19-years.

I can only hope that no one, when you pass on will judge you on only one day of your life and not the sum total of your life or lifes work.

[barbaram99]

I did watch it on TV. I had to. I 'member watching Walter on the news as he was the one that told it like it was. His voice was one of a kind. I loved the space flights and Walter educated us as we watched. i listen for the who,what,when,where,why and how when reading the opening a story that has to do with the news then the details follow. I don't care for the sanitising of the news as it is lost when done. Life is not always pretty. Good and bad happen. Walter will be missed. News should be told the way it is. He came into our homes years ago. A gentleman. No I never met him. His voice was one we each could trust to tell it as it is. That seems to be missing today.

[CelticMom]

I was born in the last part of 1966. I was too young to know about the Vietnam war, the civil right problems or the Watergate breakins. Yet as I grew up, I became to know that every night my Dad would always turn on the CBS channel and watch Walter Cronkite. He became known as "Uncle Walter", not that he was a relative or anything, we did not know him at all, it was just that my whole family felt like we did and we knew that we could trust him. I remember his last broadcast on March 6th, 1981. I had it set to memory not to forget to watch it, and though I missed 10 seconds, it was some thing special. I was crying by the end. My parents began to watch the news on PBS as they did not trust anyone after that. Watching that wonderful special last night, well it was brilliant. Whoever was responcible for producing that, getting all of those interviews, really knew "Uncle Walter" and his mark of excellence. Even though "Uncle Walter" was a newsperson, would give us the news both good & bad it is not how I will remember him. I will remember him being a sailor and being at peace as he would glide through the ocean on his boat. He might have been the best reporter, the best person in news and most trusted, however sometimes those people when given a chance, they are also best out on nature, enjoying what they have and being at peace. So thank you again for that great special last night, it was absolutely brilliant. .....and may God Bless Walter Cronkite.

[cattlekate1]

Nice Post. Thank you.