Walter Cronkite: When He Wasn't 'The Most Trusted Man in America'

News of Walter Cronkite's death did not come as a surprise. For more than a month, his close friends and family made it clear the former CBS News anchorman was gravely ill and would not recover. That his passing coincided with the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing is less a surprise than a cosmic alignment. In the days ahead, we will celebrate the men who first walked on the moon and the anchor who took us there with them. As we mourn "the most trusted man in America" we also mourn the kind of television news that no longer exists.

Listening to tribute after tribute by journalists who remember Mr. Cronkite, every reminiscence appears to share the same sentiment: "Walter Cronkite was why I wanted to work in broadcasting." Even as a boy of seven, I recognized that he had that effect on me. It seemed miraculous for a Brooklyn kid that our babysitter's mom worked for Mr. Cronkite at CBS News. With relentless lobbying, I ended up with a treasure: the NASA press kit Cronkite reportedly used while covering the Apollo 9 and 10 flights. Just days ago, I paged through this relic: amazed at the audacity of the race to the moon and the memory of Cronkite's undisguised glee as Neil Armstrong touched the surface of a new world.

Everyone who watched Walter Cronkite somehow felt a personal connection to the newsman: whether they shared his coverage of the moon landing... or his agony announcing the assassination of President Kennedy... or endured with him the daily torment of an endless war in Vietnam or the despicable hostage-taking of diplomats in Iran. He was an outstanding journalist, to be sure. But we connected with him because of his obvious compassion, modesty, and joyous enthusiasm.

Thirteen years after my first attempt to work at CBS, I finally landed a job at the news network I was certain I'd work for. By then, Mr. Cronkite had retired. I feared I would never meet the man who inspired so many of us. I'm glad I was soon proved wrong. Let me share a brief encounter with the newsman everyone knew:

Did I say "everyone?" Well, almost everyone. Covering yet another war, this time Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Mr. Cronkite kindly agreed to help our coverage with an interview. I ran down to the lobby of the CBS News Broadcast Center to escort Mr. Cronkite to a studio. Well, in he came to the same building he hosted his broadcast for 19 years. As I prepared to whisk him off, a security guard at the front desk stopped him. "You need to show me some ID.," the fellow demanded. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Cronkite, " I said as I turned to the clueless guard. With quiet clarity and some ferocity, I let the security guard know the man before him was the Walter Cronkite, and we would not be showing him any identification and we would, right now, be on our way. The CBS News security man began to protest but saw a murderous look in my eye and wisely let us pass.

Ever genial and humble, Walter Cronkite laughed. I apologized again as we walked through the hallways and studio he knew so well. "That wasn't why I was laughing, young man," Walter said to me. "I was remembering another time. It was the same place ... and a similar thing happened. " Walter smiled modestly. "You see, this is when I was anchoring the broadcast. A few minutes before air, I really needed a cigarette. So I stepped outside for a few moments for a smoke. Heading back, I'm stopped by another security guard... a fellow I never saw before. I left my jacket and wallet in the studio... and we're going to be on the air in a few minutes. And this security guard just will not let me back into the building."

Cronkite is laughing now: "So, I tried to explain but the guard wouldn't budge. The broadcast was just moments away. Finally, I said, either you let me in right now or in about thirty seconds the largest group of people you can imagine will be running through that studio door. And they'll be looking for me." The security guard didn't fully believe him, but finally let Walter Cronkite in. "Indeed, a bunch of people were running around but I got to the chair in time for the broadcast."

Walter Cronkite defined the role of a television news anchor. Today, the job he perfected has largely lost its relevance. News no longer waits for a single trusted voice... and "the way it is" depends on who you choose to believe. Some claim to be "fair and balanced" and are clearly neither. Cronkite genuinely believed journalists could and must be "objective." It took a man of great character and outstanding humility to so sublimate his personal views and inherent bias to achieve that rather impossible standard.

At the CBS News Broadcast Center, and throughout the news business, Walter Cronkite largely defined the ethical and journalistic standards that engendered the trust of a nation. Yet the "most trusted man in America" seemed rather pleased he wasn't recognized at his own front door. It was as if he enjoyed being reminded to remain humble, especially after all of the success and adulation he earned throughout his remarkable career.

Forty years ago, a man walked on the Moon. Words fail to describe the magnificence of this accomplishment. Yet, much as I wished it might one day be my foot that stepped out beyond this Earth, being an astronaut didn't seem as much fun as doing what Walter Cronkite was doing. A rocket, more than 350-feet tall, lifted the astronauts into space. But it was Walter Cronkite and the team of journalists he inspired that brought the rest of us to the Moon. "Whew, boy..., " he said, as Armstrong descended the ladder. As the world saw a boot finally touch lunar dust, words briefly failed Walter Cronkite. Then he exclaimed, "Armstrong is on the moon -- Neil Armstrong, 38-year-old American, standing on the surface of the moon." Yet, in the silence, with a huge grin... his hand taking the horn-rimmed glasses off of eyes nearly filled with tears... Walter Cronkite told us all we needed to know.

Thank you, sir.

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Comments

[AirForceBlue]

"The Vietnam war is Lost."

That's the Walter Cronkite I remember, saying untrue words about a war that was actually won at the end of Tet - 1968. A lot of us Vetnam vets have a much harsher take on the man.

[Untitled]

Really? You give your dislike to Walter Cronkite, a reporter who assessed the situation on the ground as he saw it, rather than to LBJ and Nixon, where such anger should be directed?

[kwaut lizard]

That does seem rather misdirected.
Won at the end of Tet, not sure which war you are talking about here?!

[jimthefireman]

AirForceBlue it may well be true that Tet was a military victory for the US forces, but it really was one battle in a war, and an undeclared war at that! I believe Cronkite's comment was what he genuinely believed, and that belief came from the realisation that if the Tet offensive could have been mounted at all then the US government had either been deliberately lying to the public, or was completly unable to gather reliable intelligence on the enemy or their capability. Future events proved him right and it would have taken much more than Cronkite reserving his comments for the US to prevail in that environment.
Bitterness about untrue statements might more deservedly be levelled at those in government who so brutally abandoned those like yourself who served their country when it no longer served their political or financial ends. The shameful story of the USS Liberty is a case in point!

[wonkguy]

Um, even Robert McNamarra, the guy who designed the war has admitted what the Pentagon Papers confirmed, there was no plan to win a victory in Vietnam because noone thought it was possible for the United States to win a non-conventional guerrilla conflict in souteast asia. Winning a war involves more than winning battles. Walter Cronkites comment was a statement of fact.

[ibsteve2u]

Revisionism.

The Viet Cong were crushed; the North Vietnamese and their primary arms suppliers, clearly not.

The fact of the matter is that years of corruption - much like we see in our banks and on Wall Street today - had pretty much convinced "the common man" in Vietnam that they had nothing to gain by dying to protect a "Vietnam Dream" that did not exist.

That resulted in a military - with some distinguished exceptions - that did not have the will to fight.

Greed kills brain cells; it killed South Vietnam.

[SaulBloodworth]

The occupation never wins. In the end, the people always kick the military occupiers out. Consider yourself lucky it did not happen later.

[AirForceBlue]

Some outstanding comments along this thread about my contribution, but for the record. Cronkite made his pronouncement from a NY studio, subsequently his words were believed to be the point where the American public's attitude towards the war changed negatively. Realistically, he spoke without background.

[bigdawg1980]

Bill Moyers is the current Walter...However, my family was a "Huntley/Brinkley family...Good night, Chet...Good night David!" We lived in Reston, Va., at the time, and there was a commercial on NBC about Reston being a "planned community." It was the best place I ever lived and I'm sorry we had to move - with my dad's job - to Atlanta. I was 12 in Reston when I, along with most of the free world, watched fellow Ohio native, Neal Armstrong, walk on the moon. My grandmother worked for Neal's dad for the state of Ohio, and I have a picture of Neal and Buzz in my grandmother's living room...honest!

[Project4NuBostonTeaParty]

Bill Moyers' Journal is the most important news show on TV. I wish my local PBS station would quit jockeying it around. Sometimes it gets pre-empted by the oh-so-important financial/­love/self-­help guru show.

[littlemike]

I think the closest we come to Uncle Walter today is the News Hour on PBS.

[stdomsgirl]

The 'gits' at Faux news - would not - could not ever 'get' - the sterling integrity of Walter Cronkite. I cried at our loss last Friday evening. I suspect I will cry again this Thursday when his service will be reported. He was America's 'uncle' the MOST TRUSTED newsman who ever gave us the news. When Walter reported the news - there always was a 'ring of truth' and 'that's the way it is' and was. I didn't realize how important he was in my life and memories. God rest his sweet honest soul.

[ChristianWright]

When Anna Nicole Smith died, it led the network news that evening. I just can't imagine Walter Cronkite even reporting something like that, much less leading the news with it.

[jmpurser]

I disagree on one point. "The Job" never lost it's relevance or it's critical nature in our Democratic Republic.

We just stopped staffing it. From the 4th Estate of America to Brittany Spears' personal diarist. A long way for a profession to fall in one generation.

[JimR]

Agree. I can't imagine Walter Cronkite ever agreeing to participate in today's pseudo-celebrity worship.

[Mike Barden]

here's my thing: that we were mired in Vietnam is not objective, but an opinion.

it seems objective because we knew there was plenty of thought behind it.

[mattwg440]

mired in vietnam is all to much a fact, unless you wanna debate the semantics of "mired"

[LDS50]

It was his opinion - a very educated one. He rarely gave his opinion, so when he did, it was listened to all the more. That is why he was trusted - he didn't have an "agenda".

[mattwg440]

mired in vietnam=fact periodtheend

[KarenDuncan]

The passing of Walter Cronkite is mourned by so many not only for the loss we feel as a nation, but also because of the loss we have experienced since he left the television airwaves. Not one person on television today has his credibility. As I watched reports by those who are in the news today I was struck by how these people have no idea how little credibility they have with the American people who like myself view television anchors as the least qualified to provide news coverage. Walter Cronkite, and Huntley and Brinkley, were the last of their kind and I see no one within television today, including the cable channels, who even comes close to having the kind of credibility these individuals had. I would have liked to have heard Walter Cronkite's opinion of the people who today sit at the desks of what we now refer too as the "media" rather than television news.

[coco51]

For years now I've been mourning the demise of journalism but always felt that somewhere there was a man OR woman who would appear on the air (cable, radio or TV) to provide the news with confidence, command of the facts and unbiased partisan spin. On Friday, that desire died.

Mr. Cronkite you have been missed by me at 50 year-old for many, many years now. I cherish the days of yore when a person of intellect, dignity and class reported the news.

Thank you for teaching me so much about the world, politics and man's courage, AND THAT'S THE WAY IT (was)....

[Bodryn]

I remember before he was a CBS anchorman, he hosted something called "You Are There". This was a cleverly done dramatization of historical events in which various people were interviewed in a manner much like current news would have been done if TV had been in existence at the time. I was too young to fully appreciate this at the time but did watch a few of these. I remember also a younger Walter being strapped into a centrifuge to experience what astronauts experienced in their training. Hands on experience is a pretty good teacher - and so was Walter.

[AllenShadow]

Cronkite brought the Apollo 11 moon landing down to earth for us, literally.

I have an interesting outtake from those Cronkite chronicles.

I was in a second-rate hotel in Eureka, California the day the Apollo 11 crew landed. I was with my own merry band of pranksters on a cross country trip in my 1948 Cadillac hearse. As we descended into the hotel lobby, Cronkite’s voice crackled from a TV, saying something like, “What a great county…I just don’t understand these hippies…” The TV was a table model that sat on a broken Sylvania console. Behind these proceedings, a broken American Indian lumbered in the hot California sun. What an ironic scene. Could have been out of an Antonioni film.

[AllenShadow]

"A cosmic alignment," indeed.

And how wonderfully strange it is that the venerable Walter Cronkite, who defined the Apollo 11 moon landing, should pass right now. It’s as if he and Neil Armstrong will somehow launch into eternity together, in a fitting orbit.

[rpmcestmoi]

Liked him He had weight, part of which was that voice and that friendly "good uncle" brow. There were good people in the business which has not become strident and partisan and just plain stupid in some instances. The people running the business are as bad as any businessman cynically playing the public at the end of the electronic line.
Even Brinkley, who was not a particularly nice man, had a solid professionalism about him. You had to take him seriously. Rather as a younger man was solid, a real reporter. He stayed to long at the game and wanted to please his masters; that was when he got that "pleaser" look about his eyes, when it was clear he was looking for corporate approval.
Journalists are best when they are outsiders working inside, preferring not to please their too damn rich bosses, having a notion that getting a piece of what is true beats getting invited to dinner.
As Saul Alinsky once said to me, he only went to the establishment parties to piss in the punch bowl.

[Ladybug1]

One gets the sense that Mr. Cronkite didn't have a mean bone in his body. For some reason he made me want to go sailing.

[prunebush]

Haven't read all the comments, so somebody may have already pointed this out:

Cronkite did not die on the 40th anniversary of the moon landing as reported here, but on the anniversary of the LAUNCH of Apollo 11.

The landing was on July 20th.

Accuracy matters, people!

[prunebush]

My apologies for jumping the gun on this one. After a reread, I suppose that "his passing coincided with the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing" could reasonably mean the general timeframe of the event and not the exact day. It doesn't say that he died "on" the anniversary.

Must have had an OCD moment earlier.

A thousand pardons.

[Ladybug1]

That is so cool.