Cronkite (99 page)

385 “He asked me whether I had felt betrayed by him”:
Author interview with Tim O’Brien, August 15, 2011.

385
Newsweek
, echoing O’Brien, noted that it was as if Lincoln himself:
Harry F. Waters, “A Man Who Cares,”
Newsweek
, March 9, 1981, p. 58.

386 “that a war had been declared over by a commentator”:
David Halberstam,
The Powers That Be
, p. 716.

Twenty-Three
: Calm and Chaos of 1968

389 “You must announce your intention to run”:
Frank Mankiewicz, “Vice President Walter Cronkite,”
Washington Post
, July 25, 2009.

390 “ ‘Walter, I’ll run for president if’ ”:
Ibid.

391 Instead of declaring it on the
CBS Evening News
, he did so:
“Scene Is the Same, But 8 Years Later,”
New York Times
, March 17, 1968.

392 “I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination”:
“Lyndon B. Johnson,”
The American Experience: The Presidents
, Public Broadcasting Service, http//www.pbs.org/ wgbh/amex/presidents/ 36_l_johnson/ printable.html (accessed December 11, 2011).

392 “that the president himself would react like he did”:
Walter Cronkite to Bob Manning. Manning had been editor of
The
Atlantic Monthly
from 1966 to 1980. Cronkite wrote Manning this important reflection on a “Report from Vietnam” while Manning was working at the Boston Publishing Company.

393 “left me shocked, disbelieving and babbling”:
Mudd,
The Place to Be
, p. 231.

393 “I think that Johnson felt like most of the American people said”:
Cronkite and Carleton,
Conversations with Cronkite
, p. 213.

393 “Daddy and Walter stayed close”:
Author interview with Lynda Johnson Robb, November 16, 2011.

394 TV didn’t just report events; it also helped shape:
Kurlansky,
1968: The Year That Rocked the World
, p. 102.

394 He feared that the “middle-of-the-road folks”:
Donovan and Scherer,
Unsilent Revolution
, p. 102.

394 he’d socialize with Lady Bird:
Author interview with Kathy Cronkite, March 22, 2011.

394 “You have been a great force for good”:
Lady Bird Johnson to Walter Cronkite, October 30, 2001, WCP-UTA.

395 “A lot of people were trying to connect Walter’s Tet offensive report”:
Author interview with Sandy Socolow, February 18, 2011.

395 “It didn’t quite happen that way”:
George Christian Oral History, Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, TX.

395 “What Walter was saying about Vietnam wasn’t all that dramatic”:
Author interview with Marvin Kalb, November 11, 2011.

395 “I don’t feel that a journalist’s influence is so great”:
Richard Snow, “He Was There” (interview with Walter Cronkite) (New York:
American Heritage
, December 1994).

396 Dan Rather broke the news of Dr. King’s death:
Jack Gould, “TV: Networks React Quickly to the King Murder,”
New York Times
, April 5, 1968.

396 “the apostle of the civil rights movement”:
“Walter Cronkite breaks news of Dr. Martin Luther King’s death,”
Los Angeles Times
video archive.

396 “I’d hate to be up on U Street tonight”:
Cronkite and Carleton,
Conversations with Cronkite
, p. 281.

396 Cronkite wanted to attend King’s funeral services:
Alfred Robert Hogan interview with Joan F. Richman, October 22, 2003 (transcript), Hogan Archive, Washington, DC.

397 “I’d left our New York newsroom right after reporting that primary”:
Walter Cronkite,
Cronkite Remembers
, documentary.

397 “Robert Kennedy was shot at 12:15 am”:
“From the Vault: ‘Robert F. Kennedy: 1925–1968,’ ” CBS News, video, June 22, 2007.

398 politicians of all stripes considered him the fairest:
“Congress Backing of Agnew Is Found,”
New York Times
, December 19, 1969.

398 “the master of subtle variations in intonation of speech”:
Jack Gould, “TV: ABC Still Seeking a Distinctive News Image,”
New York Times
, June 17, 1968.

399 “We got married in October ’68”:
Author interview with Morley Safer, January 16, 2012.

399 “the best coverage is not necessarily the one with the best pictures”:
Frank Stanton, CBS Memorandum to CBS Officers or Groups, Divisions.

399 Covering the entire 1968 election cost:
Russo, “CBS and the American Political Experience,” p. 467.

399 “Avoid using lights when shooting pictures”:
“Notes on meeting held on August 20, 1968,” Re: CBS News Coverage of Civil Disorder, Box: 43700, CBS Records.

399 “great, brawling sweatshops of American political history”:
Walter Cronkite, “Recalling the Mayhem of ’68 Convention,”
All Things Considered
, NPR, July 23, 2004.

400 “We anticipated trouble”:
Cronkite and Carleton,
Conversations with Cronkite
, p. 214.

400 the blunt headline:
“Boring Convention Ignored by Viewers,”
Washington Post
, August 9, 1968.

400 Ultimately, American viewers preferred real drama:
Cynthia Lowry, “Networks Conceded Very Early,” AP, August 8, 1968.

400 “tanks in which to travel from A to B”:
Frank Kusch,
Battleground Chicago: The Police and the 1968 Democratic National Convention
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), p. 60.

400 “All the executive producers were busy at the convention hall”:
Author interview with Jack Laurence, January 16, 2012.

401 “I was awful when I was growing up”:
Kathy Cronkite,
On the Edge of the Spotlight
:
Celebrities’ Children Speak Out About Their Lives
(New York: William Morrow, 1981), p. 60.

401 many families were divided:
Cronkite,
A
Reporter’s Life
, p. 194.

402 “I didn’t like their attitude”:
Walter Cronkite oral history interview, p. 551, WCP-UTA.

402 Buckley “admired Cronkite’s mind”:
Garry Wills,
Outside Looking In: Adventures of an Observer
(New York: Viking, 2010), p. 157.

402 “The anti-war demonstrators,” Cronkite reported:
Walter Cronkite, “Recalling the Mayhem of ’68 Convention.”

402 Cronkite, as usual, refused to wear an IFB:
Russo, “CBS and the American Political Experience,” p. 405.

403 “I think we’ve got a bunch of thugs here”:
Dan Rather,
The Camera Never Blinks Twice
, p. 309.

403 “only time in his long career that Cronkite displayed”:
Gary Paul Gates,
Air
Time: The Inside Story of CBS News
(New York: Berkley Publishing, 1979), p. 210.

403 “Network media personnel such as Cronkite”:
Small,
To Kill a Messenger
, p. 208.

404 “We put it on the air”:
Cronkite, “Recalling the Mayhem of ’68 Convention.”

404 “The intellectuals of America,” he declared:
R. W. Apple, “Daley Defends His Policies,”
New York Times
, August 30, 1968.

404 “I can tell you this, Mr. Daley”:
CBS News
Special Report
, August 29, 1968.

405 “It wasn’t in him to climb all over Daley”:
Author interview with Brit Hume, August 24, 2011.

405 “Daley took Cronkite like Grant took Richmond”:
Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor,
American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation
(New York: Warner Books, 2000), p. 6.

405 “He just didn’t know how to interview Daley”:
Author interview with Stanhope Gould, November 9, 2011.

406 “The pictures and sound of the Chicago police department in action”:
Apple, “Daley Defends His Policies.”

406 “My interview technique is not to have blood spurt”:
Gates,
Air Time
, p. 211. See also Cronkite and Carleton,
Conversations with Cronkite
, p. 216.

406 The Justice Department would soon go after the “Chicago Eight”:
Michael R. Belknap,
American Political Trials
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994), p. 240.

407 “I took your advice, you know”:
Dana Cook, “Walter Cronkite, 1916–2009,”
Salon
, July 18, 2009.

407 “the terrible sixties”:
Cronkite,
A Reporter’s Life
, p. 192.

407 “This is something we’ve been aiming at”:
Fred Ferretti, “Cronkite on Endurance: ‘You Don’t Think of That,’ ”
New York Times
, July 24, 1969.

Twenty-Four
: Mr. Moon Shot

408 Cronkite kept one intense eye fixed on the
Apollo 7
flight:
“CTN Special Programs” logbooks at the CBS News Reference Library, CBS Space Log 1957–1960, CBS News Archive, New York.

408 “Walter had grown very sick of the 1968 election”:
Author interview with Jeff Gralnick, June 11, 2010.

409 It was hard not to feel the healing and unifying effects:
David Woods and Frank O’Brien, “Day 1: The Green Team and Separation, TIMETAG 003:42:55,”
Apollo 8 Flight Journal
, NASA Historical Center, Houston, TX.

409 “We are the lucky generation”:
Walter Cronkite, “Foreword” to William E. Burrows,
The Infinite Journey: Eyewitness Accounts of NASA and the Age of Space
(New York: Discovery Books, 2000).

409 CBS News was now devoting more and more resources:
“CTN Special Programs” logbooks at the CBS News Reference Library, CBS Space Log 1957–1960, CBS News Archive, New York.

410 “Never before had I seen Dad with such thick binders”:
Author interview with Chip Cronkite, March 11, 2011.

410 “Walter would have on a Hawaiian shirt”:
Author interview with Norman Mailer, August 17, 2006.

410 “We were given absolute freedom to report the story”:
Walter Cronkite, “We Are the Children of the Space Age,”
TV Guide
, July 9, 1969, p. 12.

411 “Nobody ever said it because nobody had to say it”:
Hewitt,
Tell Me a Story
, pp. 72–74.

411 put a man on the Moon “before the decade is out”:
Lawrence Laurent, “Space Show Gives TV Its Finest Hours,”
Washington Post
, July 22, 1969.

411 “We do not have an official or unofficial ‘honorary astronaut’ title”:
Julian Scheer to Thelma Jones, March 18, 1969, NASA Archives, Clear Lake City, TX.

412 moon exploration lifted the national spirit:
Leon Wagener,
One Giant: Neil Armstrong’s
S
tellar American Journey
(New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2004), p. 15.

412
Reader’s Digest
had distributed an astonishing 68 million:
Ibid., p. 16.

413 “Now the moon has yielded”:
Neil McAleer,
Arthur C. Clarke: The Authorized Biography
(Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1993), p. 230.

413
Apollo 11
presented some of the most “formidable challenges”:
Robert Wussler and Richard Salant, Foreword,
10:56:20 PM 7/20/69
:
The Historic Conquest of the Moon as Reported to the American People by CBS News over the CBS Television Network
(Darby, PA: Diane Publishing, 1970).

413 “we’ve been this nervous since back in the early days”:
Wagener,
One Giant Leap
, p. 536.

414 as “Walter to Walter” coverage:
Display Ad for
Apollo 12
,
Toledo Blade
, November 13, 1969.

414 “There she goes! It’s beautiful”:
Wussler and Salant,
10:56:20 PM 7/20/69
, pp. 9–10.

414 “Oh boy, oh boy, it looks good, Wally”:
Walter Cronkite, “
Apollo 11
Liftoff,” July 16, 1969 (tape), CBS News Archive, New York.

414 “The principal let me go into his office to watch Dad”:
Author interview with Kathy Cronkite, May 17, 2011.

414 “I had deep reservations”:
Author interview with Nancy Cronkite, May 16, 2011.

414 “My previous
Apollo
experience”:
Author interview with Chip Cronkite, May 16, 2011.

415 “I wanted to be able to say”:
Wussler and Salant,
10:56:20 PM 7/20/69,
p. 16.

415 “not a big Lyndon Johnson fan”:
Alfred Robert Hogan interview with Joan F. Richman, October 22, 2003 (transcript), Hogan Archive, Washington, DC.

415 LBJ might replace Schirra as Cronkite’s new astrobuddy:
Wussler and Salant,
10:56:20 PM 7/20/69
, pp. 18–19.

415 LBJ on the Great Society:
James Hansen,
First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), pp. 5–6.

415 “Our family never held a grudge against Walter”:
Author interview with Lynda Johnson Robb, November 16, 2011.

416 whereby “anyone on earth could locate himself by means of a couple of dials”:
Arthur C. Clarke to Andrew G. Haley, August, 1956, Clarke Archive.

416 “Walter had so bought into Space”:
Author interview with Bill Plante, December 2, 2010.

416 What differentiated Cronkite from Armstrong was the effusiveness:
Hansen,
First Man
, p. 585.

417 “No, I never did that”:
Author interview with Neil Armstrong, September 19, 2011.

417 “short-haired, white athletes”:
Charles J. Shields,
And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life
(New York: Henry Holt, 2011), p. 264.

417 “This was the first—and last, for that matter—time”:
Captain Walter M. Schirra Jr., with Richard N. Billings,
Schirra’s Space
(Boston: Quinlan Press, 1988), pp. 221–222.

418 “Walter and his guests discussed the epochal events”:
McAleer,
Arthur C. Clarke
, p. 227.

418 he developed a condition “in which one’s eyeballs become uncoordinated”:
Dick West, “Go West for News on the Moon,”
Bryan
(Ohio)
Times
, July 24, 1969.