[Infowarrior] - Walter Cronkite Dies At 92

[Richard Forno]

July 17, 2009

Walter Cronkite Dies At 92
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/17/eveningnews/main5170556.shtml?tag=breakingnews

Legendary news anchor Walter Cronkite has passed away in New York at  
the age of 92. His journalistic career covered such historic events as  
the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, the assassination of JFK and the  
first man on the moon.

Walter Cronkite, who personified television journalism for more than a  
generation as anchor and managing editor of the "CBS Evening News,"  
has died. CBS vice president Linda Mason says Cronkite died at 7:42  
p.m. Friday with his family by his side at his home in New York after  
a long illness. He was 92.

Known for his steady and straightforward delivery, his trim moustache,  
and his iconic sign-off line -"That’s the way it is" - Cronkite  
dominated the television news industry during one of the most volatile  
periods of American history. He broke the news of the Kennedy  
assassination, reported extensively on Vietnam and Civil Rights and  
Watergate, and seemed to be the very embodiment of TV journalism.

Special Section: Walter Cronkite: 1916-2009

"Cronkite came to be the sort of personification of his era," veteran  
PBS Correspondent Robert McNeil once said. "He became kind of the  
media figure of his time. Very few people in history, except maybe  
political and military leaders, are the embodiment of their time, and  
Cronkite seemed to be."

At one time, his audience was so large, and his image so credible,  
that a 1972 poll determined he was "the most trusted man in America" -  
surpassing even the president, vice president, members of Congress and  
all other journalists. In a time of turmoil and mistrust, after  
Vietnam and Watergate, the title was a rare feat - and the label stuck.

"For decades, Walter Cronkite was the most trusted voice in America,"  
said President Barack Obama in a statement. "His rich baritone reached  
millions of living rooms every night, and in an industry of icons,  
Walter set the standard by which all others have been judged."

Mr. Obama said that Cronkite calmly shared the world's news while  
never losing his integrity.

"But Walter was always more than just an anchor," Mr. Obama said. "He  
was someone we could trust to guide us through the most important  
issues of the day; a voice of certainty in an uncertain world. He was  
family. He invited us to believe in him, and he never let us down.  
This country has lost an icon and a dear friend, and he will be truly  
missed."

Cronkite's achievements were remarkable for a man whose beginnings  
were anything but remarkable.

Walter Leland Cronkite was born in St. Joseph, Missouri on November 4,  
1916, the only child of a dentist father and homemaker mother. When he  
was still young, his family moved to Texas. One day, he read an  
article in "Boys Life" magazine about the adventures of reporters  
working around the world - and young Cronkite was hooked. He began  
working on his high school newspaper and yearbook and, in 1933, he  
entered the University of Texas at Austin to study political science,  
economic and journalism. He never graduated. He took a part time job  
at the Houston Post, left college to do what he loved: report.

After working as a general assignment reporter for the Post and a  
sportscaster in Oklahoma City, Cronkite got a job in 1939 working for  
United Press. He went to Europe to cover World War II as part of the  
"Writing 69th," a group of reporters who found themselves covering  
some of the most important developments in the war, including the D- 
Day invasion, bombing missions over Germany, and later, the Nuremburg  
war trials. In 1940, he married Mary Elizabeth Maxwell - known as  
"Betsy" - and for the next six decades she was the dutiful reporter’s  
wife, enduring sometimes long separations while he covered the world,  
and raising three children. Cronkite once wrote about her: ''I  
attribute the longevity of our marriage to Betsy's extraordinary keen  
sense of humor, which saw us over many bumps (mostly of my making),  
and her tolerance, even support, for the uncertain schedule and  
wanderings of a newsman."

While working for the UP, Cronkite was offered a job at CBS by Edward  
R. Murrow - and he turned it down. He finally accepted a second offer  
in 1950, and stepped into the new medium of television. In the early  
'50s, it was a medium many of the "serious" journalists at CBS and  
elsewhere viewed with skepticism, if not disdain. Radio and print,  
they contended, were for real reporters; television was for actors or  
comedians.

At first, it seemed an unlikely fit. Walter Cronkite, with his serious  
demeanor and unpretentious style - honed by his years of unvarnished  
reporting at UP - was named host of "You Are There" in which key  
moments of history were recreated by actors. Cronkite was depicted on  
camera interviewing "Joan of Arc" or "Sigmund Freud." But somehow, he  
managed to make it believable.

The young director of the series, Sidney Lumet said he picked Cronkite  
for the job because "the premise of the series was so silly, so  
outrageous, that we needed somebody with the most American, homespun,  
warm ease about him."

During his early years at CBS, Cronkite was also named host of "The  
Morning Show" on CBS, where he was paired with a partner: a puppet  
named Charlemagne. But he distinguished himself with his coverage of  
the 1952 and 1956 political conventions and as narrator of the  
documentary series "Twentieth Century." In 1961, CBS named him the  
anchor of the "CBS Evening News" - a 15 minute news summary anchored  
for several years by Douglas Edwards.

At the time, the broadcast lived in the long shadow cast by NBC’s  
Huntley-Brinkley Report, the most popular television newscast in the  
country. Expectations for the Cronkite newscast were not high. But in  
1963, the broadcast was expanded to 30 minutes - and Cronkite won a  
title for which he had long campaigned, Managing Editor. The added  
time gave the broadcast more depth and variety, and the title gave  
Cronkite more influence over the content and coverage.

And it came at a significant time. In September of that year, Cronkite  
launched the expanded program with an extended interview with  
President John F. Kennedy. Two months later, it was Cronkite who broke  
into the soap opera "As The World Turns" to announce that the  
president had been shot - and later to declare that he had been killed.

It was a defining moment for Cronkite, and for the country. His  
presence - in shirtsleeves, slowly removing his glasses to check the  
time and blink back tears - captured both the sense of shock, and the  
struggle for composure, that would consume America and the world over  
the next four days.

Cronkite’s audience began to grow - but not quickly enough for network  
executives who, in 1964, decided to try an anchor team at the  
conventions - Robert Trout and Roger Mudd - to rival Chet Huntley and  
David Brinkley at NBC. Cronkite was not happy about the change, and  
viewer reaction was swift. Over 11,000 letters poured in protesting  
the switch. Network executives never tried that again. In 1966, The  
CBS Evening News began to overtake the Huntley-Brinkley report in the  
ratings, and in 1967 it took the lead. It remained there until  
Cronkite’s retirement in 1981.

They were years filled with astonishing change - and indelible  
history. In 1968, Cronkite returned from visiting Vietnam and declared  
on television:"It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody  
experience of Vietnam is a stalemate." President Lyndon Johnson, on  
hearing that, reportedly said, "If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost  
America." Not long after, Johnson declared his intention not to run  
for re-election. That same year saw the assassinations of Martin  
Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy - two more shocking moments  
that bound the country together through the medium of television. Once  
again, as he had five years earlier, Cronkite was the steadying force  
during a time of national sorrow.

"It's a kind of chemistry," former Johnson aide and CBS News  
commentator Bill Moyers once said. "The camera either sees you as part  
of the environment or it rejects you as an alien body, and Walter had  
'it,' whatever 'it' was."

One of Cronkite’s enthusiasms was the space race. And in 1969, when  
America sent a man to the moon, he couldn’t contain himself. "Go baby,  
go!," he said, as Apollo XI took off. He ended up performing what  
critics described as"Walter to Walter" coverage of the mission -  
staying on the air for 27 of the 30 hours that Apollo XI took to  
complete its mission.

Cronkite even managed to have a surprising influence on world affairs.  
In 1977, he interviewed Egyptian President Anwar El-Sadat, who told  
Cronkite that, if invited, he’d go to Jerusalem to meet with Prime  
Minister Menachem Begin. The move was unprecedented. The next day,  
Begin invited Sadat to Jerusalem for talks that eventually led to the  
Camp David accords and the Israeli-Egyptian treaty.

In 1981, Cronkite announced he would retire at the age of 65, to make  
way for a new anchor in the chair, Dan Rather. A commentator in the  
New Republic said it was like "George Washington leaving the dollar  
bill." There were so many requests for interviews, eventually all of  
them were turned down.

In retirement, Cronkite kept busy with other projects - a short-lived  
magazine program on CBS called "Walter Cronkite's Universe," a few  
documentaries, plus a seat on the CBS board of directors. He spent a  
considerable amount of time at his summer home in Martha’s Vineyard,  
sailing the boat he named for his wife, "The Betsy." And he wrote his  
autobiography, "A Reporter’s Life," published in 1996.

In 2005, Cronkite’s wife Betsy died after a battle with cancer. His  
two daughters and son survive him.

While Cronkite kept a lower profile in his later years, he did make a  
significant contribution to the "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric":  
it is his voice that has been used during the opening of the broadcast  
since its debut in 2006, bridging generations and signifying the  
newscast’s strong link to its storied past.

As Cronkite said on March 6, 1981, concluding his final broadcast as  
anchorman: "Old anchormen, you see, don't fade away, they just keep  
coming back for more. And that's the way it is."