Cronkite’s letters recorded his loneliness, far from his wife, but also his friendships with fellow correspondents and others he met in London. He mentioned Fleet Street, the center of the British newspaper industry, in passing, as well as the building where the United Press had its offices during the war. He also mentioned 20 Grosvenor Square, the building that housed the U.S. military’s European theater of operations (ETO) headquarters. Grosvenor Square, where the U.S. Embassy was located, was the operational center of what historian David Reynolds has referred to as “the American occupation of Britain.” Cronkite complained about the high cost of living, starting with the $13 it cost him to stay overnight at the Savoy Hotel. Adjusted for inflation the bill for his night’s lodging would be about $174 in 2012 dollars—not unreasonable given that the sum included drinks and having his clothes pressed and shoes shined. But Cronkite had a thrifty streak, and his meager United Press salary made him feel he had to count every penny.
New Year’s Day, 43
I got your wonderful letter this morning … I was very down in the dumps until I got it. It is raining and very gloomy here today and last night, such as it was, was a horrible washout. So you see how badly I needed that letter, and it was just what I wanted to hear, the family gossip. (It is good when you are so far away from it) …
What hours I’m going to be working and what I’m going to be doing I won’t know until Monday when I meet with the Navy bigwigs and find out how much of an assignment the Atlantic Fleet thing is going to be. I’m hoping it will be big enough to keep me out of the office most of the time. I have no desire to sit on the desk writing cables, and if the Navy job is not going to keep me out of the office, I shall put in for some other outside assignment. British [United Press] manager Cliff Day said today however that he was very much interested in getting complete coverage of the Navy, so perhaps I’ll get back into my element. Incidentally, the Navy boys here are starting agitation to put Navy correspondents in Navy uniforms, so when I next show up at home I might be in blues. (And I pray that the “Show up at home” will be soon.)
I’m going through my meager funds like they were pennies in an amusement arcade and unless Doug Werner and I get an apartment in a hurry I shall soon be sleeping in one of the Hyde Park air raid shelters. Of course the office is keeping me on an expense account until I find an apartment …
Well, I’m into the Savoy Wednesday morning so tired I really was seriously afraid of dropping in my tracks. When I awakened Wednesday night and took my first real look around the room, I was stricken with fright. My God, darling, it was sumptuous. A huge living-bedroom with a couch-bed effect, a huge hollywood night table with the phone and other necessities on swinging shelves within reach of the bed, a lamp larger than any street light in NY, 1 wall filled by a gigantic mirror out of which swung a dressing table, 2 closets each large enough for normal bedroom, a bath almost as large as our NY apartment. It was lovely but I was a little glad that the Savoy was only able to accommodate me for one night. I had 2 sets of drinks sent up to the room that night (You can get drinks in your hotel room when the bars are closed, which is most of the time), first for Doug Werner and 2nd for Jack Lovell, RAF Squadron Leader (comparable to a major). I had 2 suits and my overcoat pressed, and I had my shoes shined. The bill for the 24 hrs was $13.00. Wow.
I was kicked out of there as they told me I would be on Thursday (New Years Eve) noon. I was booked into the Grosvenor House, another of London’s finest, for Friday and Saturday nights so I decided on a finesse in an attempt to get a bed for Thursday night which, after calling every hotel in London, seemed to be an impossibility. I had that great stack of luggage brought rite here Thursday morning. I had the boy drop it right in front of the desk, and they told the desk they would have to find a place for it. That duffle bag, I believe, turned the trick. Obviously the Grosvenor House could not have it lying around. The frock-coated gentry were sorely perplexed, and the result was finding me a room for the night. It really was only a cell with an adjoining bath, on the top floor (highly undesirable on account of air raids which there have been none of for some time) and so cold that my breath was visible. But it was a bed, and now today I am in a very nice room again. I probably shall stay here until I find an apartment. I have no idea what this room is costing but I am sure it will not be on the Savoy level—indeed it doesn’t compare with the Savoy room.
Doug Werner, who arrived about three weeks ago, had just about closed a deal for a single apartment at Crane Court, a little joint right off Fleet Street and within only a couple of minutes of the office. He is checking there today to see if we can’t get a double apartment and I shall probably know something about that within the next day or so. Living there will be very reasonable, I believe, and my living allowance should well take care of it and any increase in food costs necessary. London apartment owners are not signing leases these days so Doug and I will still be available to find something larger with Sam [Hales] when he arrives, although the office has not received word that he will be en route within a couple of weeks.
Wednesday night I ate at the famous Simpson’s next door to the Savoy and had plenty of food—more than I could eat, really. There is a five shilling (one dollar) ceiling on restaurant meals but a service charge is permitted and at the better spots the service charge sometimes is more than the meal. Rackets, I suppose, are the same the world over …
Thursday I spent in a wholly fruitless pursuit of credentials, additional passport pictures which I needed, and other official business. Being New Years Eve, 20 Grosvenor Square was not interested in doing much business. This being New Years Day, although not normally a holiday here, the American force officers are in no mood for business, so it will actually be tomorrow or Monday before I get all lined up. Since I was here last, correspondents accredited to American forces have been extended additional privileges—all of the privileges, in fact, of any officer, which include trading at the post exchange where candy and peanuts and American cigarettes and uniforms and all the rest may be obtained at low, untaxed Army prices. Things are looking up a bit in other words.
Last night, as I have said, was a washout. Doug and I did our darndest to scrape up excitement with no luck. I wasn’t feeling so hot with absolutely no desire for liquor but I had a couple of wartime Martinis (No olive, less liquor, no boot, and .70) at Victors Bar here at the hotel, wandered to a crowded smoky joint called Shepherds Bar in Shepherds Market where they were out of liquor and serving only beer of which we had 1 glass each, and then to Piccadilly Circus where we were mauled by the Times Square type crowd in the blackout. Then to Doug’s dingy, gloomy hotel where we sat in the lounge, had 1 drink from his bottle, and a spam sandwich, wished each other a happy New Year at midnight, and went home. Gay, eh?…
IN THE UNDATED early January letter to Betsy that follows, Cronkite introduced her to two additional United Press colleagues: fellow correspondent Bill Dickinson, who was already covering the air war, and Harrison Salisbury, soon to arrive in London to take over from Joe Alex Morris as UP bureau chief. Salisbury later described the offices they shared in London without nostalgia: “Never had I known a place as cold as the United Press offices in the News of the World plant, a cement-floored factory building,” he wrote in A Journey for Our Times. “The only heat came from what the English called ‘electric fires,’ feeble grilles mounted on the ceiling; there was no heat whatever in my bleak office. In my trenchcoat, I huddled over my typewriter, a tiny heater tucked in the knee space of the rolltop desk, and batted out my early morning stories with frozen fingers.”
Cronkite’s letter features a good example of the “cablese” that crept into his letters. To save space in expensive trans-Atlantic cables, words in news stories were frequently shortened or combined—“United States” was rendered “Unistates.” In this case, “Czechoslovakia” becomes the slightly shorter and considerably more whimsical “Czechosloetc.”
Cronkite was evidently frustrated that the United Press had not made e
ffective use of him since his arrival in London. In the midst of a great world conflict, his assignment to cover the exchange of notes between Britain and Argentina, he felt, was trivial, irrelevant, and boring—and unlikely to command headlines in American newspapers.
[Early January 1943]
Well, here I am at the Park Lane and here I’m afraid I’m likely to remain at least until Sam arrives. Everyone in the office practically is looking for an apartment and all of them want to go in with everyone else but that is as far as the thing goes. They are an impossible bunch to get organized and the more I think it over the more I believe that I’d rather live holed up here in a hotel room by myself than have to tolerate other people around all the time. The difficulty, of course, arises in the expenses. This spot … is costing about $3.60 per day and every penny of it is too much. The only advantage is that you can tell the folks at home that people see me outside Buckingham Palace—that’s where I live; outside Buckingham Palace and face on the Mall (but my room doesn’t).
They are clamping me on the night desk alongside Bill Dickinson, a capable editor … who should be able to teach me a lot. Harrison Salisbury is en route to take over from Joe Alex.
I have a rotten cold and cough that I can’t seem to shake. I caught them on the boat but had them pretty well under control when I was sent on a story Saturday. With a dozen other newsmen I rode 6 hrs. in an open army truck, then sloshed around at a certain point for a couple more hours, then found out that the story wasn’t coming off after all, and rode a drafty train back to London … I took it easy Sunday and stayed in bed all day. But that didn’t help much. I feel fine but the cough and stopped up nose are bothersome. Let me remind you not to worry about it, though, because it undoubtedly will be cured by the time you get this letter.
I had dinner several nights at the Grosvenor House simply because it was easier to go straight to the hotel from the office in the blackout than to try to find another restaurant … [Royal Air Force Squadron Leader Jack] Lovell, who I mentioned in the other letter, joined me 1 night and Surgeon Lt. Mathews another night. It is really a most cosmopolitan joint. Almost every night you see the uniforms of Poland, Netherlands, Czechosloetc, New Zealand, Canada, Fighting French, Norway, Greece, and the babble of tongues is about what you would imagine.
I’ve written only two stories, really, since I’ve been here. They were both on the exchange of notes between Argentina and England. For them I had to contact the Argentine embassy, which is just about as impressive as my Park Lane hotel room …
I haven’t heard from you in six days, but I’m praying for one tomorrow. You probably shall never know how important your letters are … Walter
CRONKITE MENTIONED THREE additional United Press colleagues in London for the first time in his January 9, 1943, letter to Betsy: Jim McGlincy, Bob Musel, and John Parris. Of the three, McGlincy played the largest role in Cronkite’s life during the next year and a half—as friend, roommate, and drinking companion (although Cronkite did not keep up with the hard-drinking McGlincy). He made a passing reference to Webb Miller, a United Press foreign correspondent who had covered Europe since the First World War and died in an accident in the London Underground in 1940.
Food emerged as another preoccupation in his correspondence. He waged a never-ending but largely futile effort to satisfy a young American’s appetite and culinary preferences in austere, rationed, wartime Britain.
This is also the first letter in which Cronkite made direct reference to continued if sporadic German (or “Jerry”) bombing raids on England, although he downplayed the dangers involved. The blackout imposed on British cities, and rigorously enforced by the authorities, was another aspect of wartime Britain that impressed American newcomers, especially those like Cronkite who had come from cities like New York, where welllit streets remained the norm even after Pearl Harbor (although the neon advertising in Times Square was sacrificed to the city’s wartime dimout).
January 9, 1943
I have tonight off after being on the 2 to 10 p.m. shift all week. Those apparently are going to be my hours every day except Saturday, when I’ll be working from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Wednesday when I’ll be off. I’ll work a regular trick Sunday, it seems.
Tonight Jim McGlincy is coming by after a while and we are going over to the Red Cross officers club for dinner, then because it will be too late for a movie (last movie eight pm most places) we shall have beers til the bars close at 11 pm, and then home to bed on account (a) there is nothing else to do in this wartime town, and (b) McGlincy has the eight am showup in the morning. It is six now and the blackout has been on a half hour—eugg!
Which reminds me: I forgot my “torch” last night. Having come to work in daylight I didn’t realize I had forgotten it until I got ready to go home. Not having it was serious. In the first place, it was a pitch black night and I stood serious danger of tripping over a curb or running into a wall, or worse, completely losing my way—which isn’t a darned bit hard to do even for the oldest Londoners. In the second place, the nearest bus stop to our office is a “request only” stop, which means that you have to hail your bus. In the blackout that is almost totally impossible unless you have your torch to signal with. Furthermore, although it is seldom you can get a cab in Fleet St. that late at night anyway, if one should have come by I couldn’t have caught him so easily without a light. But fortunately I did wangle that. A cab did pass, I whistled, and some how or other we found each other in the pitch blackness. Thus ends the adventure of our rover boys in the blackout.
I’m sure that you have written but the darned mails must be fouled up and I haven’t had a single letter since that first one which arrived New Years Day, nine days ago. It is badly worn now and shall be a total loss from constant rereading unless I get another early next week. McGlincy and Bob Musel, incidentally, make me pretty sore. They get stacks of correspondence almost daily apparently from scores of relatives and friends. It does seem a little strange how much a letter means when one is expatriated. Any deviation in delivery dates of our letters is the fault of the mails. (NOT the fault of the MALES, either, God, am I getting a British sensahumor?) …
The food is not quite so bad as I remember it last August and there is no trouble in filling the old belly. You can’t get a great big juicy steak or fruits or all the milk you want and you can’t just drop in a restaurant at odd hours and get a meal (which makes it difficult for night workers) but I haven’t noticed any effects of starvation yet—either on me after 2 wks or the general populace after 3 yrs. Also some of the shortages in cigarettes (American), razor blades, soaps, etc. are alleviated for the Americans accredited to the forces here by the Post Exchange, an Army store set up right around the corner from the American headquarters …
You have been reading by now that Jerry has been giving the south coast a little taste of blitz every day or so (some of the stories whereof I wrote but not from the scene) but we don’t get any action at all and for that I’m now knocking on wood …
There is quite a bit of sickness in the office with Joe Alex Morris and Doug Werner both in bed but I believe my cold and cough are loosening up now, thanks to Dr. Framels Old Fashioned Cough Syrup (what in the world over here, including the plumbing isn’t old fashioned?) recommended by Miss [Sally] Stronoch who has been secretary in the London bureau since Webb Miller was in knee pants and who delights in mothering the boys … Enclosed is a new identification picture I had to have made for some additional passes here. I look as if one more shot of heroin would put me out—which, come to think of it, would. Tell mother I shall write soon … Walter
Walter Cronkite’s War Department visa
LIFE IN WARTIME London wasn’t all plucky and heroic stoicism, as evidenced by the misadventure revealed in Cronkite’s next letter to Betsy. During the war a dramatic increase in personal crimes occurred in the city, including robberies, rapes, and murders. Cronkite, in many ways a stereotypical “innocent abroad” during those first weeks in London, h
ad a lot to learn about big city life.
January 10, 1943
This week was horrible—my wallet was stolen. I lost about 10 pounds (sterling—$40.00) as well as all my valuable identification papers—passport, War Department passes, Muehlebach and Lexington Hotel credit cards, etc. But more important, I lost your picture. So, Darling, will you please airmail me another one immediately …
Re the wallet: It was the black moroccan one, you know, that I had so I could carry a passport. It was in my suit coat pocket when I hung the coat on a rack. When I returned to the rack two hours later, the wallet was gone. Joe Morris was very concerned so we called in Scotland Yard. I was very disappointed. They didn’t show up with peaked, checked caps and long pipes at all. In fact they looked to be, and apparently are, right of the same ilk as our Kansas City flatfeet. A very nice and pleasant inspector is working on the case and the Embassy and War Dept are pressing the investigation greatly concerned, are they, over the loss of the identity card but it has been six days now and I have heard nothing.
It really was my own stupidity for leaving the wallet in my coat. I usually removed it, but with the passport in it, it was a bulky thing to put in any other pocket and I was always concerned lest it slip out of my hip pocket or that I fail to put it back in my coat pocket when I left the building. In that case it would have been a perfect mark for pickpockets, who are busy little bees in the blackout.
The office loaned me a little money to get through the week on and I believe that I am going to be able to get along without the lost funds and without going in the hole …
Cronkite's War Page 5