369 Salant and Cronkite settled on doing a prime-time CBS News Special Report: Author interview with Sandy Socolow, September 17, 2010.
369 “It was an Orwellian trip”: Halberstam, The Powers That Be, p. 512.
370 “Sphinx to pundit”: Kurlansky, 1968: The Year That Rocked the World, p. 59.
370 “see for himself what’s happened in South Vietnam”: “Cronkite to Present Views on Vietnam,” Lexington Daily News, February 23, 1968.
371 Cronkite and his team now headed to Hué: Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life, p. 256.
372 “The battle was still on in Hué”: Cronkite and Carleton, Conversations with Cronkite, p. 211.
372 the “real” meaning of Tet was coming into focus: James S. Robbins, This Time We Win (New York: Encounter Books, 2010), p. 252.
373 “It was quiet”: Miller and Schechner, “Walter Cronkite, Broadcasting Lengend, Dies at 92.”
373 Cronkite’s best source in Vietnam was Abrams: Halberstam, The Powers That Be, p. 513.
373 “It was sickening to me”: Oberdorfer, Tet! pp. 249–50.
373 “My decision was not difficult to reach”: Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life, p. 257.
374 “Walter said he wanted to know what was really going on”: Todd Gitlin, “And That’s the Way It Was,” The New Republic, July 17, 2009.
374 “its soldiers were killing more of the enemy”: John Laurence, The Cat from Hué (New York: PublicAffairs, 2002), p. 291.
374 However, Laurence argued, the North Vietnamese weren’t going to give up: Jack Laurence to Douglas Brinkley [nd]. See also Halberstam, The Powers That Be, p. 513.
375 “I watched the helicopter gunships circling the city”: Cronkite to Manning, September 3, 1987.
375 “He held his cards close”: Jeff Gralnick to John Laurence, February 17, 2010.
376 “You know, Walter was Mr. Unflappable”: Author interview with Robert Vitarelli, March 8, 2011.
376 “His calmness was eerie”: Author interview with Robert Vitarelli, March 10, 2011.
376 “It was Walter’s writing”: Author interview with Jeff Gralnick, June 11, 2010.
376 “every word”: Murray Fromson, e-mail to Sandy Socolow, February 17, 2010.
377 In the course of the prime-time show Cronkite made a powerful case: Daniel Hallin, “Vietnam on Television,” Museum of Broadcast Communications, Chicago.
377 Cronkite faced a personal crossroads in Vietnam: Diane Sawyer, “A Challenge for Tomorrow,” in Louis B. DeFleur, Murrow Heritage: Challenge for the Future (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1986), p. 106.
377 “we’d like to sum up our findings in Vietnam”: “Final Words: Cronkite’s Vietnam Commentary,” NPR, July 18, 2009, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106775685.
379 Apple had written a long article: R. W. Apple, “The Making of a Stalemate,” New York Times, Summer 1967.
379 the public would turn against Johnson’s war: Michael J. Arlen, “The Air (On Television): Television’s War,” The New Yorker, May 27, 1967.
379 “That short editorial helped”: Walter Cronkite, “Changing Attitudes Toward War in Vietnam,” NPR, August 7, 2002.
379 His opinion was quoted in the press, and it opened the door: Jack Gould, “U.S. Is Losing War in Vietnam, N.B.C. Declares,” New York Times, March 11, 1968.
379 “The whole Vietnam effort may be doomed”: Kurlansky, 1968: The Year That Rocked the World, p. 61.
379 “When Walter said the Vietnam War was over”: Frank Rich, “The Weight of an Anchor,” New York Times Magazine, May 19, 2002.
379 “I was very disgusted with the media, particularly CBS”: William Westmoreland oral history interview, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.
379 As the CBS special aired that February 27, President Johnson was traveling: Joseph Campbell, Getting It Wrong: Ten of the Greatest Misreported Stories in American Journalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), p. 89.
379 “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost the country”: Douglas Martin, “Walter Cronkite, 92, Dies; Trusted Voice of TV News,” New York Times, July 17, 2009.
380 There are a few alternative versions of what LBJ supposedly said: Kurlansky, 1968: The Year That Rocked the World, pp. 61–62.
380 “Believe me, the shock waves rolled through government”: Small, To Kill a Messenger, p. 123.
380 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which he now feared was “null and void”: Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam (New York: Ballantine Books, 1984), p. 352.
381 “Cronkite’s step out of character”: Gitlin, “And That’s the Way It Was.”
381 “Walter Cronkite sounds like a Pentagon spokesman”: Brian Lamb, Booknotes: America’s Finest Authors on Reading, Writing, and the Power of Ideas (New York: Times Books, 1997), p. 194.
381 Bensley was wounded: “CBS Man Wounded Twice,” New York Times, March 5, 1968.
381 Since Cronkite’s visit, fourteen U.S. correspondents and cameramen had been wounded: “Newscasting: The Men Without Helmets,” Time, March 15, 1968.
381 “Nowhere in Vietnam was safe”: Author interview with Russ Bensley, January 17, 2012.
382 “It is only a matter of time before Chet Huntley and David Brinkley”: Jack Gould, “Should Huntley and Brinkley Don Leotards?” New York Times, February 11, 1968.
382 Cronkite’s analysis of Tet was premature: Robbins, This Time We Win, p. 253.
383 As Diane Sawyer noted, not since Murrow lifted Senator Joe McCarthy: James Walcott, “Round Up the Cattle!” Vanity Fair, June 2003, p. 86.
383 “Johnson did talk about Cronkite going to Vietnam”: George Christian, telephone interview with David Culbert, September 17, 1979, transcript, LBJ Presidential Library and Museum, Austin, TX.
384 “We were held to such a rigid set of values”: Author interview with Ed Fouhy, November 7, 2011.
384 “It was an egotistical thing for us to do”: Kurlansky, 1968: The Year That Rocked the World, p. 63.
384 “The doctrine required broadcast station licensees”: Jack Shafer, “Why I Didn’t Trust Walter Cronkite,” Slate, July 21, 2009; http//www.slate.com/ articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2009/07/why_i_didnt_trust_walter_cronkite.single.html (accessed December 6, 2011).
385 “He asked me whether I had felt betrayed by him”: Author interview with Tim O’Brien, August 15, 2011.
385 Newsweek, echoing O’Brien, noted that it was as if Lincoln himself: Harry F. Waters, “A Man Who Cares,” Newsweek, March 9, 1981, p. 58.
386 “that a war had been declared over by a commentator”: David Halberstam, The Powers That Be, p. 716.
Twenty-Three: Calm and Chaos of 1968
389 “You must announce your intention to run”: Frank Mankiewicz, “Vice President Walter Cronkite,” Washington Post, July 25, 2009.
390 “ ‘Walter, I’ll run for president if’ ”: Ibid.
391 Instead of declaring it on the CBS Evening News, he did so: “Scene Is the Same, But 8 Years Later,” New York Times, March 17, 1968.
392 “I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination”: “Lyndon B. Johnson,” The American Experience: The Presidents, Public Broadcasting Service, http//www.pbs.org/ wgbh/amex/presidents/ 36_l_johnson/ printable.html (accessed December 11, 2011).
392 “that the president himself would react like he did”: Walter Cronkite to Bob Manning. Manning had been editor of The Atlantic Monthly from 1966 to 1980. Cronkite wrote Manning this important reflection on a “Report from Vietnam” while Manning was working at the Boston Publishing Company.
393 “left me shocked, disbelieving and babbling”: Mudd, The Place to Be, p. 231.
393 “I think that Johnson felt like most of the American people said”: Cronkite and Carleton, Conversations with Cronkite, p. 213.
393 “Daddy and Walter stayed close”: Author interview with Lynda Johnson Robb, November 16, 2011.
394 TV didn’t just report events; it also helped shape:
Kurlansky, 1968: The Year That Rocked the World, p. 102.
394 He feared that the “middle-of-the-road folks”: Donovan and Scherer, Unsilent Revolution, p. 102.
394 he’d socialize with Lady Bird: Author interview with Kathy Cronkite, March 22, 2011.
394 “You have been a great force for good”: Lady Bird Johnson to Walter Cronkite, October 30, 2001, WCP-UTA.
395 “A lot of people were trying to connect Walter’s Tet offensive report”: Author interview with Sandy Socolow, February 18, 2011.
395 “It didn’t quite happen that way”: George Christian Oral History, Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, TX.
395 “What Walter was saying about Vietnam wasn’t all that dramatic”: Author interview with Marvin Kalb, November 11, 2011.
395 “I don’t feel that a journalist’s influence is so great”: Richard Snow, “He Was There” (interview with Walter Cronkite) (New York: American Heritage, December 1994).
396 Dan Rather broke the news of Dr. King’s death: Jack Gould, “TV: Networks React Quickly to the King Murder,” New York Times, April 5, 1968.
396 “the apostle of the civil rights movement”: “Walter Cronkite breaks news of Dr. Martin Luther King’s death,” Los Angeles Times video archive.
396 “I’d hate to be up on U Street tonight”: Cronkite and Carleton, Conversations with Cronkite, p. 281.
396 Cronkite wanted to attend King’s funeral services: Alfred Robert Hogan interview with Joan F. Richman, October 22, 2003 (transcript), Hogan Archive, Washington, DC.
397 “I’d left our New York newsroom right after reporting that primary”: Walter Cronkite, Cronkite Remembers, documentary.
397 “Robert Kennedy was shot at 12:15 am”: “From the Vault: ‘Robert F. Kennedy: 1925–1968,’ ” CBS News, video, June 22, 2007.
398 politicians of all stripes considered him the fairest: “Congress Backing of Agnew Is Found,” New York Times, December 19, 1969.
398 “the master of subtle variations in intonation of speech”: Jack Gould, “TV: ABC Still Seeking a Distinctive News Image,” New York Times, June 17, 1968.
399 “We got married in October ’68”: Author interview with Morley Safer, January 16, 2012.
399 “the best coverage is not necessarily the one with the best pictures”: Frank Stanton, CBS Memorandum to CBS Officers or Groups, Divisions.
399 Covering the entire 1968 election cost: Russo, “CBS and the American Political Experience,” p. 467.
399 “Avoid using lights when shooting pictures”: “Notes on meeting held on August 20, 1968,” Re: CBS News Coverage of Civil Disorder, Box: 43700, CBS Records.
399 “great, brawling sweatshops of American political history”: Walter Cronkite, “Recalling the Mayhem of ’68 Convention,” All Things Considered, NPR, July 23, 2004.
400 “We anticipated trouble”: Cronkite and Carleton, Conversations with Cronkite, p. 214.
400 the blunt headline: “Boring Convention Ignored by Viewers,” Washington Post, August 9, 1968.
400 Ultimately, American viewers preferred real drama: Cynthia Lowry, “Networks Conceded Very Early,” AP, August 8, 1968.
400 “tanks in which to travel from A to B”: Frank Kusch, Battleground Chicago: The Police and the 1968 Democratic National Convention (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), p. 60.
400 “All the executive producers were busy at the convention hall”: Author interview with Jack Laurence, January 16, 2012.
401 “I was awful when I was growing up”: Kathy Cronkite, On the Edge of the Spotlight: Celebrities’ Children Speak Out About Their Lives (New York: William Morrow, 1981), p. 60.
401 many families were divided: Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life, p. 194.
402 “I didn’t like their attitude”: Walter Cronkite oral history interview, p. 551, WCP-UTA.
402 Buckley “admired Cronkite’s mind”: Garry Wills, Outside Looking In: Adventures of an Observer (New York: Viking, 2010), p. 157.
402 “The anti-war demonstrators,” Cronkite reported: Walter Cronkite, “Recalling the Mayhem of ’68 Convention.”
402 Cronkite, as usual, refused to wear an IFB: Russo, “CBS and the American Political Experience,” p. 405.
403 “I think we’ve got a bunch of thugs here”: Dan Rather, The Camera Never Blinks Twice, p. 309.
403 “only time in his long career that Cronkite displayed”: Gary Paul Gates, Air Time: The Inside Story of CBS News (New York: Berkley Publishing, 1979), p. 210.
403 “Network media personnel such as Cronkite”: Small, To Kill a Messenger, p. 208.
404 “We put it on the air”: Cronkite, “Recalling the Mayhem of ’68 Convention.”
404 “The intellectuals of America,” he declared: R. W. Apple, “Daley Defends His Policies,” New York Times, August 30, 1968.
404 “I can tell you this, Mr. Daley”: CBS News Special Report, August 29, 1968.
405 “It wasn’t in him to climb all over Daley”: Author interview with Brit Hume, August 24, 2011.
405 “Daley took Cronkite like Grant took Richmond”: Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor, American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation (New York: Warner Books, 2000), p. 6.
405 “He just didn’t know how to interview Daley”: Author interview with Stanhope Gould, November 9, 2011.
406 “The pictures and sound of the Chicago police department in action”: Apple, “Daley Defends His Policies.”
406 “My interview technique is not to have blood spurt”: Gates, Air Time, p. 211. See also Cronkite and Carleton, Conversations with Cronkite, p. 216.
406 The Justice Department would soon go after the “Chicago Eight”: Michael R. Belknap, American Political Trials (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994), p. 240.
407 “I took your advice, you know”: Dana Cook, “Walter Cronkite, 1916–2009,” Salon, July 18, 2009.
407 “the terrible sixties”: Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life, p. 192.
407 “This is something we’ve been aiming at”: Fred Ferretti, “Cronkite on Endurance: ‘You Don’t Think of That,’ ” New York Times, July 24, 1969.
Twenty-Four: Mr. Moon Shot
408 Cronkite kept one intense eye fixed on the Apollo 7 flight: “CTN Special Programs” logbooks at the CBS News Reference Library, CBS Space Log 1957–1960, CBS News Archive, New York.
408 “Walter had grown very sick of the 1968 election”: Author interview with Jeff Gralnick, June 11, 2010.
409 It was hard not to feel the healing and unifying effects: David Woods and Frank O’Brien, “Day 1: The Green Team and Separation, TIMETAG 003:42:55,” Apollo 8 Flight Journal, NASA Historical Center, Houston, TX.
409 “We are the lucky generation”: Walter Cronkite, “Foreword” to William E. Burrows, The Infinite Journey: Eyewitness Accounts of NASA and the Age of Space (New York: Discovery Books, 2000).
409 CBS News was now devoting more and more resources: “CTN Special Programs” logbooks at the CBS News Reference Library, CBS Space Log 1957–1960, CBS News Archive, New York.
410 “Never before had I seen Dad with such thick binders”: Author interview with Chip Cronkite, March 11, 2011.
410 “Walter would have on a Hawaiian shirt”: Author interview with Norman Mailer, August 17, 2006.
410 “We were given absolute freedom to report the story”: Walter Cronkite, “We Are the Children of the Space Age,” TV Guide, July 9, 1969, p. 12.
411 “Nobody ever said it because nobody had to say it”: Hewitt, Tell Me a Story, pp. 72–74.
411 put a man on the Moon “before the decade is out”: Lawrence Laurent, “Space Show Gives TV Its Finest Hours,” Washington Post, July 22, 1969.
411 “We do not have an official or unofficial ‘honorary astronaut’ title”: Julian Scheer to Thelma Jones, March 18, 1969, NASA Archives, Clear Lake City, TX.
412 moon exploration lifted the national spirit: Leon Wagener, One Giant: Neil Armstrong’s Stellar American Journey (New York: Tom Doherty A
ssociates, 2004), p. 15.
412 Reader’s Digest had distributed an astonishing 68 million: Ibid., p. 16.
413 “Now the moon has yielded”: Neil McAleer, Arthur C. Clarke: The Authorized Biography (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1993), p. 230.
413 Apollo 11 presented some of the most “formidable challenges”: Robert Wussler and Richard Salant, Foreword, 10:56:20 PM 7/20/69: The Historic Conquest of the Moon as Reported to the American People by CBS News over the CBS Television Network (Darby, PA: Diane Publishing, 1970).
413 “we’ve been this nervous since back in the early days”: Wagener, One Giant Leap, p. 536.
414 as “Walter to Walter” coverage: Display Ad for Apollo 12, Toledo Blade, November 13, 1969.
414 “There she goes! It’s beautiful”: Wussler and Salant, 10:56:20 PM 7/20/69, pp. 9–10.
414 “Oh boy, oh boy, it looks good, Wally”: Walter Cronkite, “Apollo 11 Liftoff,” July 16, 1969 (tape), CBS News Archive, New York.
414 “The principal let me go into his office to watch Dad”: Author interview with Kathy Cronkite, May 17, 2011.
414 “I had deep reservations”: Author interview with Nancy Cronkite, May 16, 2011.
414 “My previous Apollo experience”: Author interview with Chip Cronkite, May 16, 2011.
415 “I wanted to be able to say”: Wussler and Salant, 10:56:20 PM 7/20/69, p. 16.
415 “not a big Lyndon Johnson fan”: Alfred Robert Hogan interview with Joan F. Richman, October 22, 2003 (transcript), Hogan Archive, Washington, DC.
415 LBJ might replace Schirra as Cronkite’s new astrobuddy: Wussler and Salant, 10:56:20 PM 7/20/69, pp. 18–19.
415 LBJ on the Great Society: James Hansen, First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), pp. 5–6.
415 “Our family never held a grudge against Walter”: Author interview with Lynda Johnson Robb, November 16, 2011.
416 whereby “anyone on earth could locate himself by means of a couple of dials”: Arthur C. Clarke to Andrew G. Haley, August, 1956, Clarke Archive.
416 “Walter had so bought into Space”: Author interview with Bill Plante, December 2, 2010.
416 What differentiated Cronkite from Armstrong was the effusiveness: Hansen, First Man, p. 585.
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