324 “Good evening,” Cronkite said: Anchorman movie from Brian Williams’s office, NBC Archives, New York.
324 Along with Cronkite and Hewitt, the other essential facilitator: Philip J. Hilts, “CBS: The Fiefdom and the Power in Washington,” Washington Post, April 21, 1974.
325 “We tried beaming propaganda into North Korea”: Author interview with Sandy Socolow, June 5, 2011.
325 “Walter Cronkite wants to say hello”: Jay Fredericks, “CBS Strokes Victory with Walter,” November 11, 1964.
326 “LBJ’s phone chat with CBS star newsman Walter Cronkite”: Walter Winchell, “Broadway and Elsewhere,” November 17, 1964.
326 “CBS by a Landslide: Network’s Coverage of the Election”: Jack Gould, “CBS by a Landslide,” New York Times, November 4, 1964.
326 Robert Pierpoint remained suspicious: Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century (Boston: Little, Brown, 1980), p. 548.
326 If CBS News thought they needed a knockout smear artist to anchor: Cronkite and Carleton, Conversations with Cronkite, p. 216.
326 “We used to call Walter ‘Mr. Softball’ ”: Author interview with Robert Pierpoint, March 19, 2011.
326 Cronkite wasn’t the problem with the CBS Evening News: Bob Foster, “TV Screening,” syndicated column, November 18, 1964.
326 “developing and innovating a new kind of news broadcast—the ‘live documentary’ ”: Henry O. Wefing, Cuetime 6, no. 5 (October–December 1964).
327 “I never pretended that we could do anything more”: Walter Cronkite, oral history interview with Don Carleton, p. 492, WCP-UTA.
327 “Having survived the 1964 convention brush-up”: Author interview with Dan Rather, November 10, 2011.
328 Throughout the segregated South, CBS in particular was denounced: David Halberstam, The Children (New York: Ballantine, 1998), p. 486.
328 “I couldn’t do feeds from Dallas”: Author interview with Dan Rather, November 19, 2011.
328 “If anyone got manipulated by King”: Donovan and Scherer, Unsilent Revolution, p. 19.
329 “Cronkite was the voice of God”: Author interview with Julian Bond, May 14, 2011.
329 “We felt totally out of sync with the racism”: Author interview with John Hendricks, November 12, 2011.
329 “I tuned it in and, sure enough, Cronkite had given up a huge chunk of his time”: Donovan and Scherer, Unsilent Revolution, p. 21.
330 “Back then you were really on your own”: Al Reinert, “The Secret World of Walter Cronkite,” Texas Monthly (January 1977). See also Hughes Rudd, My Escape from the CIA and Other Improbable Adventures (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1966); and Sally Quinn, We’re Going to Make You a Star (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970).
330 Cronkite’s CBS Evening News stage manager was: FN: “James (Jimmy) Wall, Captain Kangaroo’s ‘Mr. Baxter’ and Longtime Stage Manager for CBS News, Dies at 92,” October 28, 2010, Memo to CBS Employees from Sean McManus, CBS News Archives, New York.
331 some liberals were irritated by the way the word negro was used: Cathy [no last name] to Walter Cronkite, August 1965, WCP-UTA.
331 “The report by Steve Rowan from Andrews AFB”: Mrs. Allie F. B. Stanford to Walter Cronkite, August 30, 1966, WCP-UTA.
332 “Black people can detect prejudice in a person”: Author interview with Ed Bradley, December 21, 2004.
332 “The content of the calls, invariably, was ‘nigger’ ”: Author interview with Ron Bonn, June 7, 2011.
333 Gemini had four primary and newsworthy goals: John Noble Wilford, We Reach the Moon (New York: Bantam Books, 1969), pp. 84–85.
333 “Jules Bergman of ABC and Walter Cronkite of CBS were the iron men”: Jack Gould, “Radio-TV: Gemini Flight’s Drama Brought Home,” New York Times, June 4, 1965.
334 “I learn by doing; I don’t learn by reading”: Terry Turner, “TV Channels: CBS to Use ‘Helicopter Eye’ in Gemini Shot,” Chicago Daily News Service, March 25, 1965.
335 In reality, he had more power than Murrow: Joshua Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 133.
335 the heavyweight title of “Dean of Space”: “The Interpreters and ‘The Golden Throats,’ ” Newsweek, October 8, 1962.
335 “first golden age of broadcast journalism”: Frank Stanton to CBS News, April 27, CBS News Archives, New York.
335 calling him “incandescent”: CBS Evening News broadcast, April 29, 1965.
335 “He just didn’t say a word about the death”: Author interview with Sandy Socolow, June 5, 2011.
335 But Cronkite himself choked up: Cynthia Lowry, “CBS Recalls Edward R. Murrow,” Associated Press, April 29, 1965.
335 “We all knew Walter owned Gemini”: Author interview with Roger Mudd, November 14, 2011.
336 All three astronauts were asphyxiated: Wilford, We Reach the Moon, p. xviii.
336 “It was a great shock to Cronkite”: Author interview with Robert Pierpoint, March 19, 2011.
336 Cronkite made his way to the West Fifty-seventh Street broadcast center: Hogan, “Televising the Space Age.”
337 “at a time when we seemed to be coming apart”: Polly Paddock, “Cronkite Reassures as Always,” Charlotte (NC) Observer, October 22, 1999.
337 Wernher von Braun, who became a pliant collaborator: Bob Ward, Dr. Space: The Life of Wernher von Braun (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2005), p. 87.
337 Journeys were made to Langley Field, Virginia, to experience firsthand: Author interview with Sandy Socolow, April 27, 2011.
337 “From the Moon we will truly step out into space”: Hogan, “Televising the Space Age.”
338 “much more of a cheerleader than a reporter”: Degroot, Dark Side of the Moon, p. 171.
338 “We proved we could do it”: Walter Cronkite interview with Richard Snow, “He Was There.”
339 “My God, our building’s shaking here”: CBS News Special Reports, Apollo 4, November 9, 1967 (transcript), CBS News Reference Library, New York.
Twenty-One: What to Do About Vietnam?
340 “Boy, did I get it from Dad”: Author interview with Nancy Cronkite, April 4, 2011.
341 “Our foreign policy, simply stated”: Remarks by Walter Cronkite, CBS News Correspondent, to the Associated Press Managing Editors Convention (transcript), Buffalo, New York, September 29, 1965, WCP-UTA.
341 “We are trying to prevent a Third World War”: President Truman’s Address About Policy in the Far East (American Experience transcript), April 11, 1951, Public Broadcating Service, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarthur/filmmore/reference/primary/official docs03.html.
341 “master politician”: Remarks by Walter Cronkite, WCP-UTA.
341 “We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away”: Marvin E. Gettleman, ed., Vietnam and America, 2d rev. ed. (New York: Grove Press, 1995), p. 241.
342 “Cronkite gave great coverage and support to us”: Author interview with Joseph Califano, April 4, 2011.
342 For Cronkite, it meant catching up with NBC News: William Small, To Kill a Messenger, p. 109.
343 Having just finished narrating “Abortion and the Law”: Jack Gould, “TV: Documentary Views Abortion,” New York Times, April 6, 1965.
343 Cronkite, at Bud Benjamin’s suggestion, decided to film a report: “20th Century to Focus Next Series on the News,” New York Times, May 17, 1965.
343 “It was a bitch in the field”: Ron Bonn to Douglas Brinkley, January 11, 2012.
344 “One could not depend on things”: Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life, pp. 250–51.
344 “ ‘How can we lose’ ”: Ron Bonn to Douglas Brinkley, January 7, 2012.
344 “balls of steel”: Author interview with Ron Bonn, January 12, 2012.
344 “Then I kind of lost the thread”: Cronkite and Carleton, Conversations with Cronkite, p. 207.
345 “long, long, way yet to go—three, four years”: “Ky Outlines a Timetable for Defea
ting Vietcong,” New York Times, July 19, 1965.
345 “They’re cowards!”: Author interview with Ron Bonn, January 9, 2012.
346 “But the dumbest general really shook him”: Ron Bonn to Douglas Brinkley, January 7, 2012.
346 “Walter was too skeptical, too savvy”: Morley Safer, Flashbacks: On Returning to Vietnam (New York: Random House, 1990), p. 109.
346 gave him a “grunt’s-eye view of the world”: Author interview with Morley Safer, September 4, 2011.
347 to counter all the “lies and bogus optimism”: Safer, Flashbacks, p. 109.
347 “the five o’clock follies”: Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life, p. 252.
347 “The truths I told him didn’t come as a complete shock”: Author interview with Morley Safer, September 9, 2011.
348 “Some of the reporting I did pained Walter”: Ibid.
348 “Frank, this is your president, and yesterday your boys shat on the American flag”: Halberstam, The Powers That Be, p. 490.
348 “Well, I knew he wasn’t an American”: Pacifica Radio–UC Berkeley Social Activism Sound Recording Project: Anti-Vietnam War Protests in the San Francisco Bay Area and Beyond, University of California, Berkeley, 2005.
348 Safer was a Canadian Communist: Morley Safer to Douglas Brinkley, February 12, 2012. Also Ted Koop to Fred Friendly, October 20, 1965, CBS Memorandum, October 20, 1965, CBS News Archive, New York.
349 “It was after that broadcast that Friendly asked me to take a break from Vietnam”: Morley Safer to Douglas Brinkley, January 15, 2012.
349 “Cronkite was out to get me”: Chester Pach, “The Way It Wasn’t: Cronkite and Vietnam, History News Network (blog affiliated with George Mason University), July 21, 2009.
349 “We knew in 1966 and 1967 that the only group who knew Vietnam was a lost cause”: Author interview with Morley Safer, September 4, 2011.
350 “redouble our effort to find the means of victory”: Remarks by Walter Cronkite, WCP-UTA.
350 “You’re interested in the drama of the news”: “Newsmen Accuse Administration of Attempt to Impose Secrecy,” New York Times, November 1, 1965.
350 CBS News was now treating Asia: Author interview with Lew Wood, January 9, 2012.
350 “I returned from that first trip to Vietnam”: Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life, p. 252.
350 “courageous decision”: Don Oberdorfer, Tet! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), p. 248.
351 “American imperialism is the aggressor”: “He Lists His Terms for Peace on U.S. TV,” New York Times, December 7, 1965.
351 “This is the meaning of our commitment in Southeast Asia”: Walter Cronkite, “Introduction,” Vietnam Perspective (New York: Pocket Books, 1965).
351 objectivity: “If the World Goes to Hell”: Author interview with Lew Wood, January 9, 2012.
352 His great achievement was getting President Johnson to read: “President Talks Twice for C.B.S.,” New York Times, February 1, 1966.
352 “As field correspondents”: Author interview with Bill Plante, November 7, 2011.
352 “CBS thought better of sending Cronkite”: Morley Safer to Douglas Brinkley, January 15, 2012.
353 “Moyers had a very nasty streak”: Author interview with Morley Safer, September 4, 2011.
353 “No. Johnson was riding high, wide, and handsome”: Cronkite and Carleton, Conversations with Cronkite, p. 210.
354 “every American ought to suffer”: Ibid.
354 A livid Friendly deemed the Schneider move a “blackout”: Richard K. Doan, “Friendly: The Academic Life,” New York Herald Tribune, April 6, 1966.
354 Schneider, who became an opportune symbol of corporate greed: Engelman, Friendlyvision, p. 224.
354 Dick Salant, former president of CBS News from February 1961 to March 1964: Jack Gould, “Friendly’s Farewell,” New York Times, February 17, 1966.
355 Friendly’s “brilliant, imaginative, and hard-hitting guidance”: Rick Du Brow, “Television in Review,” UPI, February 16, 1966.
355 “money changers in the temple”: Engelman, Friendlyvision, p. 225.
355 New York Times even ran Friendly’s resignation letter: “Text of Friendly’s Letter of Resignation,” New York Times, February 16, 1966.
355 He wasn’t sycophantic, but he valued the reasoned analysis of Stanton: Engelman, Friendlyvision, p. 225.
355 “I have been partial to CBS because of my friendship”: Dwight D. Eisenhower to Fred Friendly, February 15, 1966, Fred Friendly Papers, Rare Book Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Also see Engelman, Friendlyvision, p. 228.
356 “ranked with God and Country in their scheme of things”: Leonard, In the Storm of the Eye, pp. 139–40.
356 “Salant,” Midgley recalled, “always preached”: Midgley, How Many Words Do You Want? pp. 236–37.
356 His replacement was the soft-spoken Leslie Midgley: Midgley, How Many Words Do You Want? p. 236.
356 “If he saw some story on NBC”: Midgley, How Many Words Do You Want? p. 241.
357 By 1964, Clark’s pronounced antiwar views had led him to quit: Eric Page, “Blair Clark, 82, CBS Executive Who Led McCarthy’s ’68 Race,” New York Times, June 8, 2000.
357 “Walter thought that Clark was too antiwar”: Author interview with Andy Rooney, March 15, 2011.
358 “I still have no idea why they selected me”: Bob Greene, “Goodbye and Good Luck,” New York Times, September 4, 2006.
358 “I was shocked when Salant told me”: Author interview with Arnold Zenker, June 27, 2011.
358 “I did not go to work. And CBS pulled in this guy”: Cronkite and Carleton, Conversations with Cronkite, p. 281.
358 David Brinkley, for his part, was philosophically opposed: Brian Lamb interview with David Brinkley, Book Notes, December 10, 1995 (transcript).
358 nothing but “18,000 singers, dancers and jugglers”: Robert E. Dallos, “Huntley and Brinkley United—Briefly,” New York Times, April 4, 1967.
358 Cronkite told reporters he remembered how hard it was: Michael J. Socolow, “Anchors Away,” Journalism History 29, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 50–58.
359 Cronkite stayed out despite the CBS Evening News losing ground: Jack Gould, “TV: Strike and Ratings,” New York Times, April 1, 1967.
359 “Chet Huntley Slaps at TV Strike” ran the banner: “Chet Huntley Slaps at TV Strike,” El Paso Herald-Post, March 31, 1967.
359 “Good evening, this is Walter Cronkite, filling in”: Robert E. Dallos, “ ‘Tonight’ Goes on Without Carson,” New York Times, April 12, 1967.
360 Cronkite received louder, longer applause than Ed Sullivan: Richard K. Shull, “TV’s Celebrities Can Come from Any of Many Corners as Fans Mix Up the Media,” Arizona Republic, June 25, 1967
360 “It’s not as though Walter were a movie star”: Betsy Cronkite as told to Lyn Tornabee, “My Husband: The Newscaster.”
360 “It is also irrelevant and inappropriate”: “Ax TV News Star System—Brinkley,” Press and Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, NY), February 16, 1966.
360 “was a little like Lyndon Johnson attacking Texas”: Reston, “New York: Say It Isn’t So, Fred.”
361 “It was about beating our rivals”: Author interview with Ed Fouhy, November 8, 2011.
361 “This practice changed in 1967”: Jack Laurence to Douglas Brinkley [nd].
361 Salant wrote a highly confidential memo: Michael J. Arlen, Living Room War (New York: Penguin, 1982).
362 “His expression was one of worry”: Jack Laurence to Douglas Brinkley [nd].
362 “Spend,” Salant snapped, “whatever it takes”: Author interview with Ed Fouhy, November 7, 2011.
362 “Salant and Cronkite, by 1967, didn’t think the war was going to end”: Author interview with Bill Plante, November 7, 2011.
363 Kuralt’s “On the Road” feature would run on a trial basis: Charles Kuralt, On the Road with Charles Kuralt (New York: Fawcett, 1995). See also Charles Kuralt’s America (
New York: Anchor, 1996) and Charles Kuralt’s American Moments (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999).
363 “two-minute cease-fires” from the tumultuous era: “Travels with Charley,” Time, January 19, 1968.
364 As Midgley noted, Kuralt liked to talk to “oldsters”: Midgley, How Many Words Do You Want? p. 243.
364 Together they toyed with the idea of buying a string of radio stations: Author interview with Don Shelby, November 19, 2011.
364 “controlled by the Vietcong”: Chester Pach, “The Way It Wasn’t: Cronkite and Vietnam,” History News Network (blog affiliated with George Mason University), July 21, 2009.
365 “No one had a clear idea”: Morley Safer to Douglas Brinkley, January 13, 2012.
365 “bird and Bobby watching”: Author interview with Andy Rooney, March 15, 2011.
365 “where the end begins to come into view”: Larry Berman, Lyndon Johnson’s War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), p. 116.
365 “LBJ, just bypassing Stanton, would telephone Cronkite directly”: Cronkite and Carleton, Conversations with Cronkite, p. 215.
Twenty-Two: The Tet Offensive
367 “I thought we were winning the war!”: Oberdorfer, Tet! p. 158.
367 Johnson’s “light at the end of the tunnel” drivel: Powers, “Walter Cronkite: A Candid Conversation.”
367 “He now knew they were spot-on”: Author interview with Andy Rooney, March 15, 2011.
367 “Vietnam was America’s first television war”: Oberdorfer, Tet! p. 158.
367 “mind wide open”: Walter Cronkite to Robert Manning, October 7, 1987.
368 “I wanted to be there for the clash”: Mark Kurlansky, 1968: The Year That Rocked the World (New York: Random House, 2005), p. 58.
368 “try and present an assessment of the situation”: Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life, p. 256.
368 The time had come to weigh in: Matusow, The Evening Stars, p. 128.
368 “Walter said he couldn’t possibly do an editorial”: Phil Scheffer to Jack Laurence, August 15, 2009.
369 “You’re getting pretty heavy”: Kurlansky, 1968: The Year That Rocked the World, p. 59.
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