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Walter Cronkite

1916–2009 · 93 years Tier II

The wire-service man who turned down Murrow and stayed a reporter

Portrait of Walter Cronkite — Bernard Gotfryd — 1983-11 — Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

He edited the paper at San Jacinto High in Houston and quit the University of Texas in his junior year, in the autumn of 1935, because journalism was already paying him. United Press took him on in Kansas City in 1937. The war made him: North Africa, then a bombing run over Germany with the eight reporters the Army Air Forces called the Writing 69th, on which he fired a machine gun at a German fighter, then a glider landing with the 101st Airborne at Market Garden, then the Bulge, then Nuremberg, then three years running the UP bureau in Moscow. Edward R. Murrow offered him more than twice his salary to come to CBS. He took the wire service's counteroffer instead, and Murrow held it against him for years.

CBS got him in 1950 anyway, and he spent a decade doing everything — a late Sunday newscast, the 1952 conventions, a series that restaged history as breaking news — before taking the CBS Evening News desk from Douglas Edwards on April 16, 1962. He held it for 19 years. On November 22, 1963 he announced that Kennedy was dead, put his glasses back on and swallowed hard before reading the next line. He came home from the Tet Offensive and told the country on February 27, 1968 that being mired in stalemate seemed the only realistic conclusion. He rubbed his hands together and said whew, boy when the lunar module landed. He signed off, always, with and that's the way it is, and on March 6, 1981 he handed the chair to Dan Rather.

The authority rested on his appearing to have no opinions, and the most celebrated night of his career broke that rule. Even the line that certifies it is shaky: Lyndon Johnson is supposed to have said that losing Cronkite meant losing Middle America, but researchers doubt the attribution and note that Johnson spent that evening in Austin at a gala for John Connally. What is not in doubt is that off the air he never stopped. He wrote a syndicated column and later posted at the Huffington Post. He campaigned for world government, told a United Nations audience in 1999 that he was glad to sit at the right hand of Satan, condemned the invasion of Iraq, called Fox News a far-right organization, attacked the war on drugs, and fought a wind farm off Martha's Vineyard, where he owned property.

He died at home in Manhattan on July 17, 2009, at 92, of what was believed to be cerebrovascular disease, and his ashes went beside his wife Betsy in Kansas City. Brokaw, Rather, Couric, Sawyer and most of the rest of the trade filled St. Bartholomew's. Part of what they were burying was an accident of scale: three networks, one hour, and a poll that once called him the most trusted man in America. The phrase has been used ever since as a benchmark nobody clears, which says less about his successors than about an audience that no longer sits down together. Arizona State asked to put his name on its journalism school, and he said yes at once.

Lifespan

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Walter Cronkite's life against the full span of the corpus.

Notable works

You Are There television
Restaged historical events in the format of a live news report 1953
CBS Evening News television
Expanded to half an hour in 1963, opening with an interview of John F. Kennedy 1962
Report from Vietnam television
The February 27 broadcast that called the war a stalemate 1968
Apollo 11 coverage television
Co-hosted with the astronaut Wally Schirra, and the most watched of the mission 1969
The Dream is Alive film
His narration for the IMAX film about the Space Shuttle 1985
A Reporter's Life book
His memoir 1996

Life in brief

with age at each point

November 4, 1916 aged 0 Born in St. Joseph, Missouri The family moved to Houston when he was ten.
1935 aged ~19 Drops out of the University of Texas to work in journalism
1937 aged ~21 Joins United Press in Kansas City
1944 aged ~28 Lands by glider with the 101st Airborne during Operation Market Garden He had already flown a B-17 raid over Germany with the Writing 69th.
1950 aged ~34 Joins CBS News, recruited by Edward R. Murrow
April 16, 1962 aged 45 Succeeds Douglas Edwards as anchor of the CBS Evening News
November 22, 1963 aged 47 Announces the death of John F. Kennedy The studio camera was not ready, so the first bulletins went out from the radio booth.
February 27, 1968 aged 51 Tells viewers the war looks mired in stalemate He had just come back from reporting the Tet Offensive.
March 6, 1981 aged 64 Anchors his last CBS Evening News and hands over to Dan Rather