Cronkite (91 page)

88 in a room he deemed a “cell”:
Walter Cronkite to Betsy Cronkite, January 9, 1943, WCP-UTA.

88 “Joe Morris and Ed Beattie were organizing”:
Walter Cronkite to Betsy Cronkite, January 1, 1943, WCP-UTA.

88 “What hours I’m going to be working”:
Ibid.

89 “I’m going through my meager funds”:
Walter Cronkite to Betsy Cronkite, January [nd] 1943, WCP-UTA.

90 about accompanying a Lancaster crew on its flight:
“James M’Donald, Times Reporter: Retired Correspondent Dies,”
New York Times
, June 20, 1962.

90 “Royal Air Force bombers transformed”:
James MacDonald, “Fires Rage in City,”
New York Times
, January 18, 1943.

91 “Walter was a charmer”:
Author interview with Andy Rooney, March 7, 2011.

92 a “babble of tongues”:
Walter Cronkite to Betsy Cronkite, January [nd] 1943, WCP-UTA.

92 The Latrio disbanded not long after:
“Manhattan Merry-Go-Round,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, March 6, 1991.

93 “A Flying Fortress called ‘Banshee’ ”:
Walter Cronkite, “Flier Claims He Was First over Reich,” UP, January 28, 1943.

93 “It just seemed wrong”:
Rooney is quoted in Michelle Ferrari and James Tobin, eds.,
Reporting America at War: An Oral History
(New York: Hyperion, 2003), p. 53.

94 “ ‘Gosh, I wonder what Gladwin’ ”:
Cronkite and Carleton,
Conversations with Cronkite
.

94 “I don’t know who decided to do it”:
Ferrari and Tobin,
Reporting America at War
, p. 53.

94 “wild elephants couldn’t have kept Cronkite”:
Jim Hamilton,
The Writing 69th
(Marshfield, MA: Green Harbor Books, 1999), p. 46.

95 was “to hold a ticket to a funeral”:
Harrison E. Salisbury,
A Journey for Our Times
(New York: Harper and Row, 1983), p. 196.

95 “Walter came back all right”:
H. D. Quigg, “Uncle Walter: Making of a Superanchor,”
New York Daily News
, March 1, 1981.

95 “For the past week six other correspondents and I”:
Walter Cronkite to Betsy Cronkite, February 6, 1943, WCP-UTA.

95 “I don’t know how that Writing Sixty-Ninth stuff”:
Author interview with Andy Rooney, March 15, 2011.

96 “Walter was really the class clown”:
Author interview with Andy Rooney, March 15, 2011.

96 “That’s it”—the plane his movie would be based on:
Miller,
Masters of the Air
, p. 117.

96 a curriculum that covered “first aid, the use of oxygen”:
Gladwin Hill, “Newsmen Train to Cover Raids in Bombers,”
Schenectady Gazette
, February 9, 1943.

96 “God help Hitler!”:
Miller,
Masters of the Air War
, p. 115.

97 “There are ten of us here now”:
Hamilton,
The Writing 69th
, p. 46.

97 “Listen, it happens”:
Rooney,
My War
, p. 121.

97 Cronkite left Molesworth in a B-17:
“Bomber Command Narrative Operations, Mission No. 37—26 February, 1943, Target-Wilhelmshaven, Germany,” WCP-UTA.

97 “It was terrible”:
Quigg, “Uncle Walter.”

97 The crew and the embedded Bob Post parachuted:
“Bomber Command Narrative Operations, Mission No. 37.”

97 Cronkite saw German FW-190:
Ibid.

97 the crew gave Cronkite a job:
Ibid.

98 “I fired at an awful lot”:
Walter Cronkite oral history interview, p. 106, WCP-UTA.

99 “I had by far the best story”:
Ferrari and Tobin,
Reporting America at War
, p. 55.

99 Cronkite and Bigart felt lucky:
Hamilton,
The Flying 69th
, p. 116.

99 put his hand on Cronkite’s arm and moaned, “Y-y-y-y-you wouldn’t”:
Powers, “Walter Cronkite: A Candid Conversation.”

99 “I swept the boards with my story”:
Quigg, “Uncle Walter.”

99 “to get the smell of warm blood into their copy”:
Carl Sessions Stepp, “Down to the Wires,”
American Journalism Review
(August–September 2003).

100 “Bigart, Cronkite and Hill were badly shaken”:
Harrison Salisbury, foreword in Wade, ed.,
Forward Positions: The War Correspondence of Homer Bigart
(Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1992), p. xiv.

100 the best journalistic account:
Louis Snyder, ed.,
Masterpieces of War Reporting: Great Moments of World War II
(New York: Julian Messner, 1962), p. 239.

100 “The impressions of a first bombing mission”:
Maurice Isserman and John Steward Bowman,
World War II
(New York: Facts on File, 2003), p. 131.

101 “This is the story of Bob Post”:
Walter Cronkite, “Bob Post,” UP, February 25, 1943.

102
The New York Times
declared Post dead:
Hamilton,
The Writing 69th
, p. 123.

102 “I was scared to death”:
Author interview with Andy Rooney, March 15, 2011.

102 “The Yanks are here”:
Walter Cronkite, “Yanks in European Air Offensive in Full Force Now,” UP, May 15, 1943.

102 “We were all on the same side”:
Cronkite,
A Reporter’s Life
, p. 289.

103 His November 19 dispatch:
Walter Cronkite, “Nazi Air Force Seen Beaten at Every Turn,”
New York World-Telegram
, November 19, 1943.

103 “We do not have the least idea”:
Morris,
Deadline Every Minute
, p. 254.

103 “I’m embarrassed when I’m introduced”:
Powers, “Walter Cronkite: A Candid Conversation.”

Seven
: Dean of the Air War

104 “It expressed the jargon”:
Walter Cronkite, “Dramatized WWII Radio Program ‘Soldiers of the Press,’ ”
All Things Considered
, NPR, July 21, 2003.

105 Murrow, a gifted talent scout, asked:
John A. Steuart,
Robert Louis Stevenson: A Critical Biography
, 2nd ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1924), p. 180.

105 This group—which included:
Stanley Cloud and Lynne Olson,
The Murrow Boys
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996), Author’s Note.

105 “I guess he was looking for cannon fodder”:
Walter Cronkite interview, Archive of American Television, April 18, 1998.

106 “Well, he drove a stake”:
Walter Cronkite, oral history interview with Don Carleton, WCP-UTA.

106 “He gave me a sales pitch”:
Ibid.

107 “I don’t think it cost him”:
Walter Cronkite interview, Archive of American Television, April 28, 1998.

107 “Murrow couldn’t believe it”:
Cloud and Olson,
The Murrow Boys
, p. 297.

107 “a certain chill” pervaded Cronkite’s relationship:
Stephen Miller and Sam Schechner, “Walter Cronkite, Broadcasting Legend, Dies at 92,”
Wall Street Journal
, July 18, 2009.

108 to worry about his Q factor with Murrow:
Alexander Kendrick,
Prime Time: The Life of Edward R. Murrow
(New York: Little, Brown, 1969), p. 275.

108 Cronkite reliving the flight over Wilhelmshaven:
Walter Cronkite, “My Favorite War Story,”
Look
, November 16, 1943.

108 “Despite my turning down Ed’s offer, CBS kept inviting me”:
Cronkite and Carleton,
Conversations with Cronkite
, pp. 63–64.

108 “a kind of orchestrated hell”:
Belyn Rodgers, “Edward R. Murrow’s ‘Orchestrated Hell’: A Rhetorical Analysis,” University of Texas at Tyler, http//www.uttyler.edu/meidenmuller/publicomm/belynrogers.htm (accessed October 5, 2011).

109 “gratitude for getting us back”:
Photograph on the Writing 69th Home Page, Green Harbor Publications, http://www.greenharbor.com/wr69/wr69.html.

110 “That the first two years seemed to go”:
Walter Cronkite to Betsy Cronkite, March 29, 1944, WCP-UTA.

110 Cronkite conveyed how “broken hearted”:
Walter Cronkite to Betsy Cronkite, May 14, 1944, WCP-UTA.

110 “We’ve gotten a new mission”:
Walter Cronkite oral history interview with Don Carleton, WCP-UTA.

110 “It struck me”:
Walter Cronkite, “Cronkite Left in Fog on D-Day,”
New York Daily News
, June 4, 1984.

111 Leyshon warned Cronkite that the flight would be at a very low altitude:
Walter Cronkite, “R.A.F. Bombers Blasted Path for Invasion,” UP, June 6, 1944.

111 “And then the order came to arm”:
Cronkite, “Cronkite Left in the Fog on D-Day.”

111 “didn’t seem to be room for any more”:
Cronkite,
A Reporter’s Life
, p. 104.

112 “Many of the German gun nests were blanketed”:
Walter Cronkite, “RAF Bombers Rip Coast,” UP, June 6, 1944.

112 “The planes come over closer”:
Erik Barnouw,
The Golden Web: A History of Broadcasting in the United States, 1933 to 1953
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 199.

112 “everything was anti-climax”:
Paul White,
News on the Air
, p. 356.

113 Murrow was anointed president of the London-based organization:
Bob Edwards,
Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism
(Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2004), p. 78.

113 “I did fly the morning of the invasion after all”:
Walter Cronkite to Betsy Cronkite, June 12, 1944, WCP-UTA.

113 “I think it was Omaha”:
Cronkite and Carleton,
Conversations with Cronkite
, p. 59.

114 Cronkite got the opportunity to interview:
Stephen E. Ambrose,
D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 583.

114 “To think of the lives that were given”:
Walter Cronkite interview with Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 6, 1964,
CBS Special Report
, CBS News Reference Library, New York.

114 “I actually have been just as busy since D-Day”:
Walter Cronkite to Helen Cronkite, August 15, 1944, WCP-UTA.

115 “Hugh Baillie is coming”:
Ibid.

115 “There’s no question that television has”:
White,
News on the Air
, p. 372.

115 He roundly disdained the rest of CBS’s programming:
Conway,
The Origins of Television News in America
, p. 126.

Eight
: Gliding to V-E Day

118 “I was unceremoniously crash-landed in a troop-carrying glider”:
Cornelius Ryan,
A Bridge Too Far
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974), p. 216.

118 silent glide into eternity”:
Cronkite,
A Reporter’s Life
, p. 10.

118 “don’t go by glider!”:
Ibid.

118 “I thought the wheels of the glider”:
Ryan,
A Bridge Too Far
, p. 216.

119 “Thousands of Allied parachutists and glider troops landed”:
Walter Cronkite, “Arnhem,” UP, September 18, 1944.

119 Cronkite’s upbeat Market Garden stories ran:
Walter Cronkite, “Sky Troops Fight as They Hit Earth,”
New York Times
, September 18, 1944.

120 “lame”:
Ryan,
A Bridge Too Far
, p. 12.

120 “I can see their chutes going down now”:
Murrow and Bliss,
In Search of Light
, p. 84.

120 Murrow’s “That’s the way it was” antedated:
Edward Bliss Jr.,
Now the News: The Story of Broadcast Journalism
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), pp. 161–162.

121 Cronkite reported on the battles to liberate:
Cronkite, “200th Anniversary of Friendship and Unbroken Diplomatic Relations with the Netherlands.”

121 “It looked like a gigantic skyrocket”:
“Cronkite Believes He Saw V-2 Rocket,”
New York Times
, December 2, 1944.

121 with Downs as his constant companion:
Expansion of CBS war coverage from Columbia Broadcasting System 1944 Annual Report, March 24, 1945, pp. 20–21. Also see Bliss,
Now the News
, pp. 91–97.

121 “I couldn’t go around calling
your
name”:
Bliss,
Now the News
, p. 162.

122 “I was back in Brussels”:
Cronkite and Carleton,
Conversations with Cronkite
, p. 68.

123 “During the early days of the Bulge”:
“Remembering the Battle of the Bulge, which took place 60 years ago this week,”
All Things Considered
, NPR, September 27, 2004.

123 “The heroic events of that Christmas”:
Ibid.

124 “He really didn’t deserve the credit”:
Cronkite and Carleton,
Conversations with Cronkite
, p. 68.

124 the ability to say he’d been a war correspondent:
Mark Bernstein and Alex Lubertozzi,
World War II: On the Air
(New York: Sourcebooks, 2003), p. xiv.

124 “Before you knew it, you could hear”:
Don Hewitt,
Tell Me a Story
(New York: Public Affairs, 2002), p. 32.

125 “Downs, lying behind me, began tugging”:
Cronkite,
A Reporter’s Life
, p. 114.Also, Edwards,
Edward R. Murrow
, p. 81.

125 “They pelted us with tulips”:
Cronkite,
A Reporter’s Life
, p. 123.

125 “I got a lot of garlands”:
“Television: The Most Intimate Medium,”
Time
, October 14, 1966.

126 Cronkite was proud to be among the brave Dutch:
Ibid.

126 “The sound of Allied aircraft”:
Cronkite, “200th Anniversary of Friendship and Unbroken Diplomatic Relations with the Netherlands.”

126 “Through their tears of joy they couldn’t wait to tell”:
Cronkite,
A Reporter’s Life
, p. 123.

127 “There were a number of great stories”:
Cronkite and Carleton,
Conversations with Cronkite
, p.74

127 When Murrow took to the CBS Radio airwaves, he prayed:
Edwards,
Edward R. Murrow
, pp. 74–84.