Cronkite

by Douglas Brinkley

  550 “What an asshole thing to do”: Author interview with Sandy Socolow, July 18, 2011.

  550 “I still can see Dan Rather perched on that typewriter table”: Polster, “The Empty Throne.”

  550 “Dan looked like he was going to the crapper”: Author interview with Bob Schieffer, August 31, 2011.

  550 “By the first commercial break he knew better and sat down”: Author interview with Sandy Socolow, July 8, 2011.

  550 Chung nicknamed him the “Stealth Bomber”: Author interview with Connie Chung, July 28, 2011.

  551 “Rather was determined to wipe out every vestige of Cronkite”: Author interview with Morley Safer, September 17, 2011.

  551 “He told me he wasn’t happy I got the job”: Author interview with Jeff Fager, January 9, 2011.

  551 Ratings dipped by 9 percent at CBS Evening News: Peter J. Boyer, “Rather’s Ratings Slip in First Week,” AP, March 19, 1981.

  551 “Walter wasn’t big on diplomacy”: Author interview with Gordon F. Joseloff, June 19, 2011.

  552 “I’ll never forget Walter’s reaction as he heard those words”: Gordon F. Joseloff, “A Westporter Remembers His Friend, Walter Cronkite,” Westport Now, July 18, 2009.

  552 “America once again had Walter”: Ibid.

  552 The Reagan assassination attempt put him in a deep funk: “Cronkite Talks of Regrets and Doing the Job,” Lancaster (PA) New Era, April 12, 2000.

  553 “It was a damn good interview; I’m very proud of it”: Cronkite and Carleton, Conversations with Cronkite, p. 342.

  554 his boneheaded decision to join the Pan Am Board: Bob Langford, “Cronkite’s Uneasy Retirement: Why Isn’t There a Place for Uncle Walter?” News & Observer, April 13, 1992.

  554 Cronkite quit Pan Am to save his reputation: Walter Cronkite to Pan Am Board, October 8, 1981, CBS News Research Archives, New York.

  554 “the Yankees when they had Murderers’ Row”: Desmond Smith, “Is This the Future of TV News?” New York, February 22, 1982.

  554 Arledge was “like a boxer who smells the kill”: “TV After Cronkite,” Newsweek, March 9, 1981.

  554 he visited the far reaches: Arthur Unger, “Walter Cronkite in Retirement: A Tradition Winds Down,” Christian Science Monitor, March 6, 1981.

  554 “crash courses at This-Is-the-World night school”: Author interview with Ed Bradley, December 21, 2004.

  554 Universe was conceived as a half-hour newsmagazine: Richard F. Shepard, “TV Weekend: ‘Cronkite’s Universe,’ ” New York Times, June 19, 1981.

  555 “The basic idea was to take subjects that could have a strong impact”: Author interview with Charles Osgood, April 17, 2011.

  555 Universe was akin to PBS’s NOVA before its time: CBS News Reference Library files; also, Daniel Einstein, Special Edition: A Guide to Network Television Documentary Series and Special News Reports,1980–1989 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1997).

  555 he later flew over the Arctic Circle to see the aurora borealis: “Cronkite’s Show Takes Him Places He’s Not Even Known,” AP, June 10, 1982; Fred Rothenberg, “Cronkite Fesses Up,” AP, June 7, 1982.

  556 “Walter essentially ran the camera on the Alvin himself”: Author interview with Isadore “Izzy” Bleckman, February 23, 2011.

  556 “I asked the owner about the fish”: Ibid.

  556 “Let’s go drink at the Ritz Bar”: Author inteview with Charles Osgood, April 17, 2011.

  557 “is not a genius at anything except being straight, honest and normal”: Andy Rooney, “Good Ol’ Walter,” syndicated column, February 21, 1981.

  557 “One would think that the grandeur of the universe needs no assistance”: Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death (New York: Penguin Books, 1995), p. 123.

  557 “It was our way of telling Walter thank you”: Author interview with Dale Minor, August 16, 2011.

  557 one of the producers wore a Failure Analysis ball cap: Ibid.

  558 “Socolow and Cronkite were just banging the tom-toms against me”: Author interview with Dan Rather, December 30, 2011.

  559 a CBS News documentary: John Corry, “TV: A Cronkite Report, Children of Apartheid,” New York Times, December 5, 1987.

  559 It aired on December 5, 1987, and won both an Emmy: “Walter Cronkite . . . CBS News Special Correspondent,” industry biography.

  559 “You don’t have to be the most trusted man in America”: Author interview with Isadore “Izzy” Bleckman, February 23, 2011.

  559 “caterpillar in a jar”: Kathy Cronkite, On the Edge of the Spotlight, pp. 17–18.

  560 “There were moments when reading this book”: Walter Cronkite, Foreword, in ibid., p. 9.

  561 “But someone might recognize me”: Alan Weisman, Diary notes, September 1981. The retelling of Cronkite’s trip to Egypt comes directly from this diary.

  562 “Look at this. Nothing”: Ibid.

  563 “Put that down”: Author interview with Alan Weisman, January 22, 2012.

  563 “Deal”: Author interview with Sandy Socolow, June 2, 2011.

  564 “You did it again!”: Weisman, Diary notes.

  564 “It was a killer look”: Author interview with Alan Weisman, January 22, 2012.

  564 the Carters held a grudge against him: Ibid.

  564 “Wasn’t that a time”: Weisman, Diary notes.

  564 “strive valiantly”: Donald J. Davidson, ed., The Wisdom of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Kensington, 2003), p. 48.

  565 “He blamed CBS dissing him”: Author interview with Connie Chung, July 27, 2011.

  566 “I very much regretted it because it didn’t work out”: Walter Cronkite oral history interview, pp. 681–82, WCP-UTA.

  566 “It was somewhere between awkward and a strain”: Author interview with Dan Rather, December 30, 2011.

  567 Socolow learned that the desk had been pulped: Author interview with Sandy Socolow, June 2, 2011.

  567 “has been putting dirt on me for years”: Author interview with Dan Rather, December 30, 2011.

  567 So Brinkley quit: Brinkley, A Memoir, p. 234.

  567 “I thought, well, the hell with them, if they want to pay me”: Walter Cronkite oral history interview, p. 683, WCP-UTA.

  568 “Walter was bound to fail”: Author interview with Bud Lamoreaux, February 28, 2011.

  568 “the Cronkite age is behind us”: Smith, “Is This the Future of TV News?” New York, February 22, 1982.

  568 He was convinced that turning away from that kind of passion for news: Peter Kerr, “Cronkite Now Critical of CBS News,” New York Times, December 7, 1983.

  568 “Cronkite was always one step short of disillusionment”: Author interview with Peter Kaplan, August 7, 2011.

  Thirty-Two: Struggling Elder Statesman

  570 “I screened the broadcast”: Bill Leonard, In the Storm of the Eye, p. 223.

  570 “blame on my back”: Lewis Sorley, Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), p. 129.

  570 the “definitive centrist American” and “everybody’s uncle”: Al Reinert, “The Secret World of Walter Cronkite,” Texas Monthly, January 1976.

  571 “The total absence of privacy”: Walter Cronkite, “Orwell’s 1984—Nearing?” New York Times, June 5, 1983.

  571 “Walter blew his stack”: Author interview with Dale Minor, August 16, 2011.

  571 had put Cronkite on its blacklist for being “too liberal”: “USIA Blacklisted 84 from Speaking Program,” Los Angeles Times, February 10, 1984.

  572 Reagan, who respected Cronkite, was embarrassed: Ibid.

  572 “The White House does not condone any blacklist”: Howard Kurtz, “Democrats Blast USIA Blacklist,” Washington Post, February 11, 1984.

  572 “Everybody wanted to keep shaking Walter’s hand”: Author interview with Missie Rennie, February 22, 2011.

  572 World War II veterans started asking Cronkite to blurb: Walter Cronkite to Susan Wiant, March 13, 1989.

  573 “We all know, the shortest way home is
through Tokyo”: “Interview with Walter Cronkite of CBS News in Normandy, France, June 6, 1984,” The Public Papers of President Ronald W. Reagan, Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library, Simi Valley, CA.

  573 “Just tell them what we’ve done”: Ibid.

  573 “The convention pairing that garnered”: Maureen Dowd, “Reporter’s Notebook; With Rather and Cronkite, That’s the Way It Is,” New York Times, July 18, 1988; author interview with Sandy Socolow, July 16, 2011.

  574 “Four years is too long”: “Cronkite’s Corner,” New York Daily News, July 12, 1984.

  574 CBS aired “The Legacy of Harry S. Truman” in prime time: Gordon Walek, “Lots of Attention Given to Truman,” Chicago Herald, July 18, 1984.

  574 “Walter was an excellent interviewer”: Author interview with Barbara Walters, August 24, 2011.

  575 “The main thing was that this hall listened”: Tom Starner, “Some Stars Were Brighter,” Syracuse Herald-Journal, July 7, 1984.

  575 Cronkite was barely given a cameo on CBS: “First Convention Since 1952 Without Cronkite,” New York Daily News, July 16, 1984.

  575 “It was quite sad how CBS under Rather treated him”: Author interview with Bob Schieffer, August 31, 2011.

  575 “that all I’ll have is a room with a monitor”: Peter W. Kaplan, “A Sequestered Cronkite Is on Call at Convention,” New York Times, July 18, 1984.

  576 wondered why CBS had been cruel to his old rival and friend: Author interview with Roger Mudd, May 25, 2011.

  576 “Being on the air five times a week from 1962 to 1982 created egocentrism”: Author interview with Dan Rather, May 29, 2011.

  576 “I would often come up with a cold”: Peter W. Kaplan, “The Longest Night for Television,” New York Times, November 7, 1984.

  577 “Robert Redford. Maybe Walter Cronkite”: Bernard Weinraub, “Mondale, Assessing Defeat, Says He’ll Leave Politics,” New York Times, November 8, 1984.

  577 The first special was “Honor, Duty, and a War Called Vietnam”: Margaret Scherf, “Ex POW, Now Congressman to Visit Own Monument,” AP, January 12, 1985.

  577 “Not all of us can emulate John Wayne”: Michael E. Hill, “Walter Cronkite,” Washington Post, April 21, 1985.

  278 But to Cronkite, CBS News president treated him: For the conflict with CBS, see Box: 2M632, Folders: BBC–PBS Space Shuttle Program (11/84–85/86) and Truman Library (4/86), WCP-UTA.

  578 “he had an appetite for both history and political bullshit”: Author interview with Ben Barnes, April 7, 2011.

  579 Cronkite was once challenged to a name-dropping contest: Amory, “What Walter Cronkite Misses Most.”

  579 “For Walter and me it’s like the Dr. Seuss story”: Author interview with Brian Williams, September 2, 2011.

  579 “A big part of his lovability”: Author interview with Deborah Rush, February 21, 2012.

  579 Cronkite was a fan of painter Thomas Hart Benton’s: Author interview with Porter Bibb, January 30, 2011.

  579 A publisher had accepted my paintings: Author interview with Ray Ellis, December 15, 2011.

  580 “He has the rapscallion look of a Welsh pirate”: Ibid.

  580 “Boating in the Pacific Northwest, in season”: Ray Ellis and Walter Cronkite, Westwind (Birmingham: Oxmoor House, 1990), p. 12.

  580 to give “the folks who live there hope to stave off”: Walter Cronkite to Robin Ann Chlupach, October 1, 1998, Box: 2M613, WPC-UTA.

  580 “I’ve been broadcasting for years”: Author interview with Ray Ellis, December 15, 2011.

  580 In the mid-1970s she married Gifford Whitney in New York: “Nancy Cronkite Is Married to Gifford Whitney,” New York Times, October 3, 1975.

  581 “Now we can just send the boat”: Morten Lund, “Look Who’s Back at the Helm,” USA Today, July 25, 1986.

  581 “Mom loved Dad so much”: Author interview with Kathy Cronkite, March 22, 2011.

  581 “I know a woman perfect for you”: Author interview with Mike Ashford, June 3, 2011.

  582 “I’d get up to Martha’s Vineyard to sail and check up on Walter’s view”: Author interview with Jimmy Buffett, September 18, 2011.

  582 “The greatest Old Master in the art of living”: Andy Rooney, “It Takes Effort to Savor Life,” syndicated, Tribune Media Services, January 28, 1986.

  582 “With a population of only 220 million to choose from”: Buchwald, “Anchor’s Away.”

  582 Cronkite raised over $300,000 for the Walter Cronkite Regents Chair: Guy D. Garcia, “People: May 19, 1986,” Time, May 19, 1986.

  583 “I’m going to use all the jokes I used”: “Roast for Good-Guy Cronkite Turns to Toast,” AP, May 8, 1986.

  583 The Cronkite family started visiting Arizona: Author interview with Kathy Cronkite, March 22, 2011.

  583 “We started answering the telephone the next day”: Christopher Callahan, “Remembering Walter and His School,” The Cronkite Journal (2010–2011), Arizona State University, p. 2.

  584 “Walter came to visit the construction site”: Author interview with Stephen Erlich, April 4, 2011.

  585 “I tried to buy all of the networks”: Author interview with Ted Turner, April 20, 2011.

  585 “Ted, how about letting me steer”: Jim Flannery, “Cronkite: A Sailor, in a News Anchor’s Chair,” Sounding, August 31, 2009.

  585 “moral fitness”: Ken Auletta, Media Man: Ted Turner’s Improbable Empire (New York: Norton, 2004), p. 47.

  585 After a short time, in 1986, Larry Tisch was named chairman: Ibid.

  585 Tisch went further, however: Edward Rapetti, “A Look at TV News with Walter Cronkite,” Editor & Publisher, October 14, 1967, p. 72.

  586 “There was talk”: Author interview with Bob Schieffer, August 31, 2011.

  586 “There was a feeling that Walter was a man without a counter”: Author interview with Andy Rooney, March 15, 2011.

  587 “I remember us going to dinner with Walter and Betsy”: Author interview with Ruth Friendly, November 8, 2011.

  587 Old Guy Network: Roger Mudd to Douglas Brinkley, March 3, 2012.

  588 “When he saved himself, there was a thrill”: Sally Bedell Smith, In All His Glory: The Life and Times of William S. Paley (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), pp. 602–3.

  Thirty-Three: Defiant Liberal

  590 there was “reasonably no age limit for the flight”: People, January 13, 1986.

  590 “the last lingering suspicion”: “Applications Are Flooding Space Journalist Program,” AP, January 16, 1986.

  590 “I sure want that first guy to be checked out by the FBI”: David Friend notes.

  590 Cronkite’s campaign to become a NASA citizen astronaut intensified: Author interview with David Friend, February 6, 2011.

  591 “So I got the space suit and flew up”: Author interview with David Friend, December 7, 2010.

  591 proud to be a NASA astronaut for an afternoon: Author interview with David Friend, May 11, 2011.

  591 “We have come a long way in Space”: “Don’t Forget Our Successes: Cronkite,” AP, January 29, 1986.

  591 “People are always calling up with things”: Morten Lund, “Look Who’s Back at the Helm,” USA Today, July 25–27, 1986.

  592 “When the new morality hit in the late 60s, early 70s”: Washington Post Q&A, Cronkite-Katz, 1983.

  592 “four major dangers to civilization”: Timothy White, “Walter, We Hardly Knew You: A Candid Conversation with America’s Most Comforting Stranger,” Rolling Stone, February 5, 1971, p. 76.

  593 “What a wonderful time we all had”: Author interview with Jann Wenner, February 28, 2011.

  593 He collaborated with pianist Dave Brubeck: Author interview with Chris Brubeck, September 18, 2011.

  593 When composer Irving Berlin turned one hundred : “Irving Berlin’s 100th Birthday Celebration,” CBS-TV, 2100–2300 EST, Friday March 27, 1988.

  593 he “didn’t have a good singing voice”: Author interview with Kathy Cronkite, March 22, 2011.

  593 C
ronkite volunteered to be emcee and promo man for the opera: Michael Broson to Walter Cronkite, February 22, 1988, Box: 2M632, Folder: Nixon in China, WCP-UTA.

  593 Walter Cronkite thought it was a setup: Andy Warhol, Diaries, ed. Pat Hackett (New York: Warner Books, 1989).

  593 “While in the studio, I bumped into Cronkite”: Author interview with Mickey Hart, February 17, 2011.

  594 “Walter walked the walk as well as talking the talk”: Ibid.

  594 “We played drums together a lot”: Ibid.

  595 “ ‘Walter would never have done that’ ”: Author interview with Jeff Fager, January 10, 2012.

  595 Rather was widely criticized for the lapse: “Cronkite Criticizes Rather over Walkout,” AP, October 14, 1987.

  595 “Walter, I long knew, was competitive”: Author interview with Dan Rather, May 28, 2011.

  596 acknowledged that Cronkite had been purposely “shut out”: Peter J. Boyer, “Cronkite Idea for Special Is Rejected by CBS,” New York Times, June 8, 1988.

  596 “But to me, I guess, Dan just reeks of insincerity”: Cronkite and Carleton, Conversations with Cronkite, p. 338.

  596 “He was pushing this Kennedy anniversary special”: Author interview with Dan Rather, May 28, 2011.

  596 Cronkite was nixed from the entire enterprise: Ann Hodges, “CBS Offers Viewers the Moon with Apollo 11 Salute,” Houston Chronicle, July 12, 1989.

  597 “Walter and I met for two or three days, sometimes longer”: Carleton, “Cronkite’s Texas.”

  598 “Kill them all”: Author interview with Joe Klein, April 11, 2011.

  598 Cronkite would be in breach of his million-a-year contract: Robert Gillette, “Politics ’88,” Los Angeles Times, February 29, 1988.

  599 “Cronkite watched”: Ann Hodges, “Cronkite Would Rather Not Comment About Colleague,” Houston Chronicle, March 1, 1988.

  599 “It’s the glamour of the business that attracts them”: Eleanor Randolph, “Cronkite and Reston on the News Biz,” Washington Post, April 16, 1988.

  599 On September 20, Benjamin died: Jay Sharbutt, “Burton Benjamin, CBS News President,” Los Angeles Times, September 20, 1988.

  600 “Benjamin had been Walter’s backstop”: Author interview with Andy Rooney, March 15, 2011.