Salinger, Pierre (1925–2004): Press secretary to JFK and LBJ. Salinger interfered in Cronkite’s 1963 interview with JFK for the CBS Evening News in such a way that Cronkite’s journalistic integrity was compromised, resulting in bad blood between the two men until the president was assassinated later that same year.
Schieffer, Bob (1937– ): CBS News correspondent since 1969. He anchored the Saturday edition of the CBS Evening News from 1973 to 1966 and has moderated Face the Nation since 1991.
Schirra, Walter “Wally” (1923–2007): One of seven astronauts selected for NASA’s Project Mercury. As one of the “Mercury Seven,” Schirra orbited Earth six times in the Sigma 7 spacecraft in 1962 as part of the manned space mission Mercury-Atlas 8. He was the commander of Apollo 7 and served as a news consultant for the subsequent Apollo missions. In this capacity, he co-anchored the Apollo 11 moon landing with Cronkite.
Schorr, Daniel (1916–2010): CBS News correspondent from 1953 to 1976. He won three Emmy Awards while at CBS and famously read Nixon’s Enemies List (including his own name) on live television. After resigning from CBS in 1976, Schorr served as a news analyst for CNN from 1979 to 1985 and then as senior news analyst for NPR until his death in 2010.
Sevareid, Eric (1912–1992): CBS News correspondent from 1939 to 1977. He famously covered the surrender of France and the London blitz during World War II as a Murrow Boy and won several Emmy and Peabody awards for the two-minute segments he made for the CBS Evening News with Cronkite from 1964 until his retirement from CBS in 1977.
Shadel, Willard Franklin “Bill” (1908–2005): CBS Radio correspondent from 1943 to 1957 and ABC correspondent from 1960 until his retirement from broadcasting in 1975. He covered World War II for Edward R. Murrow before working at WTOP for the decade following the war. At ABC, Shadel replaced John Daly as the anchor of the network’s evening news show, moderated the third presidential debate between Nixon and JFK in 1960, and covered John Glenn’s Mercury-Atlas 6 flight in 1962.
Shaw, Bernard (1940– ): Broadcast journalist for CBS News from 1971 to 1977 and for CNN from 1980 until his retirement in 2001. As a corporal in the U.S. Marines, Shaw met Cronkite, his idol, and expressed a desire to become a news anchor. After corresponding with Cronkite throughout his education at the University of Illinois–Chicago, Shaw became his colleague when he was hired by Bill Small in 1971 to work in CBS’s Washington, D.C., bureau.
Shepard, Alan, Jr. (1923–1998): One of the seven astronauts selected for NASA’s Project Mercury. Shepard became the first American to travel to space in 1961 when he piloted the Freedom 7, an event covered by Cronkite for CBS. He commanded Apollo 14 in 1971, becoming the fifth person to walk on the Moon.
Shirer, William L. (1904–1993): CBS correspondent from 1937 to 1947 who worked closely with Edward R. Murrow to report on World War II from Europe. He left CBS after a public falling-out with Murrow and went on to publish the wildly successful The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany in 1960.
Simon, Bob (1941– ): CBS News correspondent since 1967. Simon has been a 60 Minutes correspondent since 1996 and was won twenty-four Emmys, two Peabodys, and five Overseas Press Club Awards for his foreign reporting. He was Cronkite’s favorite.
Simon, Joanna (1940– ): Opera singer and real estate broker who began dating Cronkite after their respective spouses died within a year of each other. They were together from 2005 until Cronkite’s death in 2009.
Small, William “Bill” (1926– ): CBS News Washington bureau chief from 1961 to 1974 (during which time he hired Lesley Stahl, Connie Chung, and Bernard Shaw) and CBS senior vice president for news from 1974 to 1979. He left CBS to become president of NBC in 1979. After failing to overtake CBS in the nightly news ratings, Small was forced to resign in 1982.
Socolow, Sandy: Longtime producer of Walter Cronkite who was with CBS News from 1956 to 1988. He produced political convention coverage from 1960 to 1980, the CBS Evening News (under Cronkite and Rather), and CBS News coverage of NASA’s various manned space programs. He was a founding producer of Cronkite, Ward from 1993 to 1997 and worked for Cronkite Productions from 1998 to 2002.
Stahl, Lesley (1941– ): CBS News correspondent since 1972. She moderated Face the Nation from 1983 to 1991 and has reported for 60 Minutes since 1991.
Stanton, Frank (1908–2006): President of CBS from 1946 to 1971, a period of significant growth for the network. Believing that the television networks had a public service duty, he helped orchestrate the first televised presidential debate in 1960 and risked going to jail for his role in the 1971 CBS Reports documentary “The Selling of the Pentagon.”
Trout, Robert (1909–2000): Longtime CBS broadcaster who coached Edward R. Murrow for his career in radio and hosted the “European News Round-Up” for CBS immediately following the Anschluss in 1938. After Cronkite’s ratings for the coverage of the 1964 Republican Convention came in behind Chet Huntley and David Brinkley’s, Trout was called in to anchor the Democratic gathering. When he also failed to beat the NBC dream team, Cronkite was permitted to remain as the host of the CBS Evening News.
Turner, Ted (1938– ): Media tycoon who founded TBS in 1976 and CNN in 1980. He made a failed attempt to buy CBS in 1985. Cronkite was a fan of CNN and even covered John Glenn’s return to space for the network in 1998.
Vitarelli, Bob (1930– ): Longtime friend of Cronkite’s and decades-long employee of CBS. He started out in the CBS mail room in 1953 and eventually worked his way up to be named the director of the CBS Evening News under Cronkite and of Face the Nation.
Wallace, Mike (1918–2012): CBS correspondent and close friend of Cronkite who hosted an early iteration of the CBS Morning News from 1963 to 1966 and reported for 60 Minutes from its inception in 1968 to his semiretirement in 2006.
Walters, Barbara (1929– ): Broadcast journalist who got her start writing copy for CBS’s The Morning Show (hosted by Walter Cronkite) and subsequently anchored NBC’s Today show from 1961 to 1976, the ABC Evening News from 1976 to 1978, 20/20 from 1984 to 2004, and The View since 1997.
Ward, Jonathan: Producer of the CBS Evening News during the Cronkite years and founding partner of Cronkite, Ward, and Company, which produced hours of documentary footage for PBS and the Discovery Channel.
Weisman, Alan (1950– ): Longtime producer, senior producer, and executive producer at CBS News, Time-Warner, PBS, and ABC who accompanied Cronkite to Cairo in 1981 to help CBS News cover the assassination of Anwar Sadat.
Wenner, Jann (1946– ): Founder of Rolling Stone magazine who became friends with Cronkite during the anchorman’s retirement from the CBS Evening News.
Wershba, Joseph (1920–2011): CBS News journalist from 1944 to 1988. He worked with Cronkite at WTOP in the 1950s and was one of the original producers of 60 Minutes. Wershba and his wife, Shirley, helped Cronkite prepare his memoirs in the 1980s.
Wershba, Shirley: CBS producer and wife of Joseph Wershba who helped Cronkite ready A Reporter’s Life for publication.
Weymouth, Lally (1943– ): Daughter of Katharine and Philip Graham, publishers of The Washington Post, who conducted an interview with Cronkite in 1981 about his “Report from Vietnam”; she is now senior associate editor of the Post.
Zenker, Arnold (1938– ): Manager of news programming for CBS in 1967 when he was asked to fill in for Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News during an AFTRA strike that lasted thirteen days.
NOTES
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.
Prologue
2 “The actual crisis is upon”: Kurt Vonnegut, “A Reluctant Big Shot,” The Nation, March 7, 1981.
2 Cronkite trained himself to speak: David Hinckley, “Walter Cronkite Remains Gold Standard for Journalists,” New York Daily News, July 18, 2009.
2 “Go
d, mother, the American flag”: Harold Jackson, “The Age of Cronkite,” World Press Review, April 1981, p. 46.
3 “the calm eye of the newsgathering storm”: Doug James, Walter Cronkite: His Life and Times (Brentwood, TN: JM Press, 1991), p. 4.
3 “I never spent any time examining my navel”: Walter Cronkite and Don Carleton, Conversations with Cronkite (Austin: Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin, 2010), p. 7.
3 “It can be said of three men”: John J. O’Connor, “Exit Cronkite, a Conscientious Superstar of TV News,” New York Times, March 8, 1981.
4 “He had the voice, calmness, and organic writing style”: Author interview with Roger Ailes, October 26, 2011.
4 “Cronkite has the capacity to make people believe”: “1981: A Conversation with Fred Friendly,” Nieman Reports (Winter 1999–2000), http://nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/102063/1981-A-Conversation-With-Fred-Friendly.aspx.
4 “I don’t suppose you’ll see another Cronkite”: “1981: A Conversation with Fred Friendly,” Nieman Reports, (Winter 1999–2000).
5 “I guess Dad is leaving us”: Mary Battiata, “Anchor’s Away,” Washington Post, March 7, 1981.
5 “In many countries during four such traumatic days”: “1981: A Conversation with Fred Friendly,” Nieman Reports (Winter 1999–2000).
5 “You’ve always been a pro”: “Ronald Reagan: Excerpts from an Interview with Walter Cronkite of CBS News,” March 3, 1981, John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=43497#axzz1hm0H9919 (accessed September 5, 2011).
6 The banner read, “After Cronkite”: H. F. Waters, “After Cronkite,” Newsweek, March 9, 1981.
6 “Introducing Our Newest Correspondent”: William Leonard, In the Storm of the Eye: A Lifetime at CBS (New York: Putnam, 1987), p. 226.
6 “Thank you, Walter” ads: Steven Reddicliffe, “Tonight Cronkite Is the Big Story,” Miami Herald, March 6, 1981.
6 more media attention was being paid to Cronkite’s departure: “Cronkite Leaves as Anchorman,” Sentinel Wire Services, March 7, 1981.
6 “he looks like everyone’s dentist”: Cleveland Amory, “What Walter Cronkite Misses Most,” Parade Magazine, March 11, 1984, p. 4.
6 “When it no longer appears at the anchor desk”: Mark Crispin Miller and Karen Runyon, “And That’s the Way It Seems,” New Republic, February 14, 1981.
7 Cronkite’s wife, children, and agent watched the public adieu: Tom Shales, “Anchor’s Away: A Farewell from Walter Cronkite’s Sign Off,” Washington Post, March 7, 1981.
7 “And that’s the way it is”: Tony Schwartz, “Amid the Fuss, Cronkite Says a Quiet ‘Good Night,’ ” New York Times, March 7, 1981.
7 “As a parting gesture”: Nine-part oral history of James Wall, Television Academy Foundation’s Archive of American Television, http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/james-wall (accessed July 5, 2011).
7 “School’s out!”: Shales, “Anchor’s Away.”
One: Missouri Boy
11 “My father and I went up in an old Curtiss-Wright”: David Friend, “Space Shuttle: Interview with Walter Cronkite,” Life, August 9, 1984 (unpublished), David Friend Archive, Garden City, NY (hereafter Friend Archive).
12 “begin with ancestors”: Clarence Darrow, The Story of My Life (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932), p. 1.
12 “We Dutch are a very pragmatic people”: Walter Cronkite, “200th Anniversary of Friendship and Unbroken Diplomatic Relations with the Netherlands,” August 18, 1981 (script draft), Box: M630, Folder: Dutch Filming, Walter Cronkite Papers, University of Texas at Austin (hereafter WCP-UTA).
12 Cronkite’s pride in his Dutch heritage: Author interview with Kathy Cronkite, March 22, 2010.
12 “our Dutch ancestry is a valued legacy”: Ibid.
13 Even Coca-Cola had to stop: David Dary, Frontier Medicine: From the Atlantic to the Pacific (New York: Knopf, 2008), pp. 271–302.
13 Honest and scrupulous, Dr. Cronkite made: James, Walter Cronkite, p. 20.
13 “Office and Cabatory of Dr. F. P. Cronkite”: Items of Interest: A Monthly Magazine of Dental Art, Science and Literature 21 (1899): 586.
14 He and his wife, Anna, enjoyed a spacious home: George Gurley, “And Now the Newsman,” Kansas City Star, January 30, 1997.
14 Helen Fritsche, a Kansas girl: “Helen F. Cronkite, 101, Mother of TV Anchor,” Washington Times, November 11, 1993.
15 “It is unlikely that my parents”: Walter Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life (New York: Knopf, 1996), p. 6.
15 his father voted at the Frederick Boulevard firehouse for Woodrow Wilson: Ibid.
16 “Report for examination”: “Walter L. Cronkite,” Debra Graden, comp., Missouri State Offices Political and Military Records, 1919–1920 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 2001), p. 384, http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=5594 (accessed August 14, 2011).
16 The Cronkites took up residence in Sapulpa, Oklahoma: Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life, p. 8.
17 “he acknowledged having known the chap”: Ibid.
17 “I know exactly how they felt”: Ron Powers, “Walter Cronkite: A Candid Conversation with America’s Most Trusted Television Newsman,” Playboy, June 1973.
18 Ninth Street trestle: Monroe Dodd, A Splendid Ride: The Streetcars of Kansas City, 1870–1957 (Kansas City: Kansas City Star Books, 2002).
18 “I was always a researcher”: Cronkite and Carleton, Conversations with Cronkite, p. 8.
19 six blocks away was the Electric Park: Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life, p. 14.
19 “They had horses”: “Walter Cronkite,” St. Joseph News-Press, 1994.
20 Besides peddling newspapers he also sold: Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life, p. 10.
20 “I can’t quite reconstruct today what led me”: Jim Poniewozik, “Walter Cronkite: The Man with America’s Trust,” Time, July 17, 2009.
20 Dr. Cronkite was invited to join: “About the School,” University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Dental Branch, http://www.db.uth.tmc.edu/ (accessed July 22, 2011).
21 so “grown-up” about moving: Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life, p. 26.
21 often dreamed about Buchanan County’s apple orchards: Bob Slater, “Interview Provided Insights into Cronkite,” St. Joseph News-Press, July 18, 2009.
Two: Houston Youth
22 Walter dutifully read up on Houston: Richard Connelly, “Walter Cronkite’s Houston, or What Is Left of It,” Houston Press Blog, July 20, 2009, blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2009/07/walter_cronkites_houston_or_wh.php (accessed August 1, 2011). Also see Dyer, “Forgotten Houston.”
22 “I expected to see an ocean-going ship”: Cronkite and Carleton, Conversations with Cronkite, p. 8.
23 “We communicated by Morse code”: Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life, p. 26.
23 “I might have grown up to help build the Lincoln Tunnel”: Ibid., pp. 26–27.
23 “And the job boom was beginning”: Walter Cronkite, “And That’s the Way It Was,” Houston Post, March 31, 1985.
24 “I hit a sparrow”: Ibid.
24 The Ku Klux Klan was thriving: Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Texas, Houston: A History and Guide (Houston: Anson Jones Press, 1942), p. 115.
24 “My natural sympathy”: Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life, p. 290.
25 “ ‘Helen, Walter, we’re leaving’ ”: Powers, “Walter Cronkite: A Candid Conversation.”
25 “I was horrified about the incident”: Walter Cronkite interview with the Archive of American Television (transcript), April 18, 1998.
26 “It had a wonderful aura”: Walter Cronkite, “And That’s the Way It Was,” Houston Post, March 31, 1985.
27 “I guess the Houston Post was a small newspaper”: Ibid.
27 During summer breaks: David Barron, “With Houston Roots, Cronkite Left Mark on the World,” Houston Chronicle, July 17, 2009.
27 “I could get more
kids in that car”: “My First Car,” Parade, October 14, 1962.
28 “We had actually run out of food”: Walter Cronkite interview, Archive of American Television, April 28, 1998, p. 6.
28 “Presbyterian-Lutheran kind of Calvinist background”: James, Walter Cronkite, p. 35.
29 “It’s one of those gray areas, Walter”: Parade, March 23, 1980.
29 tales from the world of print: Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life, p. 31.
29 “he was ordering me to don my armor”: Ibid., p. 32.
29 “He was so in love with his work”: Donna Sue Walker, “Army of Fans Enjoys ‘Evening with Cronkite,’ ” Tulsa World, April 21, 1999.
29 A typical news flash: Joe Adcock, “Walter Cronkite,” Texas Magazine, November 27, 1966.
29 voted by his peers as best reporter: Campus Cub, May 22, 1933.
29 maintain a “high standard of quality”: San Jacinto High School Yearbook, 1933.
30 “He was always running up and down the corridors”: John G. Rogers, “Walter Cronkite’s Favorite Teacher,” Parade, February 18, 1973, p. 23.
31 as if he’d been “dipped in phosphorous”: Amy Henderson, On the Air: Pioneers of American Broadcasting (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1988), p. 186.
31 “an exalted copy boy”: Walker, “Army of Fans.”
31 “I had discovered journalism”: Cronkite, “And That’s the Way It Was.”
31 “I could watch fellow passengers reading my story”: Ibid.
31 “No corrections”: Walter Cronkite (clippings), WCP-UTA.
33 “Tall, very Blonde—Good Dancer”: Cornelia “Bit” Winter scrapbook (1935), Don Michel Archive, Anna, IL.
33 he couldn’t afford to purchase a Balfour class ring: Connelly, “Walter Cronkite’s Houston.”
33 “the smartest person in the school”: Author interview with Fay Shoss, May 24, 2011.
33 “the man Americans are most likely to buy a used car from”: “Press Club Hails Cronkite,” Houston Post, October 27, 1973.
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