Walter Cronkite centennial
Walter Cronkite (1916-2009) was named the “most trusted” public figure in the country by Americans in a 1973 public opinion poll. Affectionately known to viewers as “Uncle Walter,” Cronkite was the face of the “CBS Evening News” from 1962 to 1981, covering such stories as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights struggles, the Vietnam War, Man’s first landing on the Moon, Watergate and the Iranian hostage crisis.
Walter Cronkite
Born in November 4, 1916, in St. Joseph, Missouri, Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. got his training in broadcast journalism at Midwestern radio stations. He was the first play-by-play radio announcer for Oklahoma football, making his debut Sept. 25, 1937. Cronkite described his first broadcast as a disaster, but said the experience taught him a valuable lesson about preparation.
During World War II, he covered the European theater for United Press. After the war, he served as UP’s chief correspondent at the Nuremberg trials of Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, and other top Nazi officials.
Walter Cronkite
CBS News correspondent Walter Cronkite delivers the news from behind a microphone and a bank of telephones in 1951.
Walter Cronkite
CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite broadcasts the news from Washington D.C, May 10, 1952.
Walter Cronkite
CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, center, hosts the political telecast “Pick the Winner” with guests Averell Harriman, left, and John Foster Dulles in August 1952. Cronkite, who joined CBS News as a correspondent in 1950, was the anchorman for CBS’s political convention and election coverage from 1952 to 1980.
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite, host of CBS Television’s “The Morning Show,” talks with his daily guest, Charlemagne the Lion, one of the Bil and Cora Baird Puppets, in 1954.
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite checks “The Farmer’s Almanac” on the set of the CBS News program “The Morning Show” on June 1, 1954. He was later replaced by Jack Paar.
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite and Sandra Nemser of CBS Radio’s “Answer Please” in 1958.
Walter Cronkite
CBS newscaster Douglas Edwards, left, news anchor Walter Cronkite, center, and news commentator Edward R. Murrow in the CBS studios in New York in the 1950s.
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite hits the campaign trail for CBS News’ Campaign Cavalcade coverage in the 1950s.
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow on the set in the 1950s.
Walter Cronkite
Covered in snow, Walter Cronkite covers the Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, Calif., on Feb. 18, 1960.
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite is shown in the newsroom in an undated photo.
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite at CBS News Control Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla., where astronaut Scott Carpenter was set to launch in his Aurora 7 spacecraft, May 22, 1962.
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite, anchor and managing editor of the “CBS Evening News,” is pictured in the CBS newsroom, Aug. 23, 1963. The program expanded from 15 to 30 minutes on Sept. 2, 1963, making Cronkite the anchor of American network television’s first nightly half-hour news program.
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite has makeup applied prior to anchoring the live TV broadcast of the “CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite” on Aug. 29, 1963.
Walter Cronkite
A CBS News bulletin slide came up suddenly during the afternoon soap opera, “As The World Turns,” on November 22, 1963, at which time Walter Cronkite announced that President John F. Kennedy had been shot. An emotional Cronkite would later confirm the tragic news: “From Dallas, Texas, the flash - apparently official - President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time ... some 38 minutes ago.”
Walter Cronkite
Bill Leonard and Walter Cronkite at the 1964 Republican National Convention, which took place at San Francisco’s Cow Palace.
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite reports from an airfield in Vietnam for a CBS News special, July 19, 1965.
Walter Cronkite
After the 1968 Tet offensive, Walter Cronkite visited Vietnam and wrote and narrated a “speculative, personal” report advocating negotiations leading to the withdrawal of American troops. After the broadcast, President Lyndon B. Johnson reportedly said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite interviews former Vice President Richard M. Nixon in Nixon’s New York apartment, April 1, 1968.
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite anchored CBS News’ coverage of the Apollo XI moon landing, July 20, 1969. When the Eagle lander safely made it to the lunar surface, Cronkite’s glee - and relief - was evident: “Phew! Oh boy!” he exclaimed.
Walter Cronkite
CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite holds up a copy of the New York Daily News July 21, 1969, the day after Apollo 11 first landed on the moon. “(That) man, having left his own environment, could go to a distant orb, could go to the moon, was quite clearly a breakthrough that was going to make an immense difference to the future of mankind,” Cronkite said in 2000.
Walter Cronkite
CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, who said government control over broadcasting is like a threatening axe hanging over the industry, went before a Senate sub-committee on Sept. 30, 1971, to testify for freedom of the press.
Walter Cronkite
From October 1974, the CBS News election night team. From left: Roger Mudd, Lesley Stahl, Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather and Mike Wallace.
Walter Cronkite
WJM news anchor Ted Baxter (played by Ted Knight) always dreamed that he’d meet his idol. Here, Baxter shakes hands with Walter Cronkite when the famed CBS newscaster appeared on an episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” in 1975. (With Ed Asner, Mary Tyler Moore and Gavin MacLeod.)
Walter Cronkite
Cronkite in 1977. During his time on the air at CBS, he anchored coverage of such major events as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, man’s first walk on the moon, the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the Iranian hostage crisis.
Walter Cronkite
CBS Founder William S. Paley, right, is shown with Walter Cronkite in an undated photo. Cronkite was the broadcaster to whom the title “anchorman” was first applied, and he became so identified in that role that his name became the term for it in other languages. Swedish anchors are known as Kronkiters; in Holland, they are Cronkiters.
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite poses with his Emmy at the 31st Emmy Awards Sept. 9, 1979, in Los Angeles. In 1985, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame.
Cronkite received four Peabody Awards for excellence in broadcasting over his career, and won virtually every electronic journalism award in existence during his tenure.
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite anchors CBS News’ Election 1980 coverage, accompanied by Dan Rather, Bob Schieffer and Lesley Stahl.
Walter Cronkite
On Nov. 4, 1980, his 64th birthday, Walter Cronkite anchored his last CBS Election Night special. Here he reports the results of the 1980 Presidential election, in which Ronald Reagan defeated President Jimmy Carter. He stepped down as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” four months later, on March 6, 1981.
Water Cronkite
Walter Cronkite talks on the phone in his office on his last day as the anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” in New York, March 6, 1981. Behind his desk is a drawing of Mickey Mouse watching Cronkite make his final announcement as anchor: “And that’s the way it is!”
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite and his wife, Betsy, pose shortly after leaving a reception at New York’s City Hall, in honor of the CBS anchorman who was departing the “CBS Evening News” on March 7, 1981. The couple, who married in 1940, had three children: Nancy, Mary Kathleen and Walter Leland III. Betsy died in 2005.
Walter Cronkite
A jubilant Walter Cronkite conducts The Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra during the Christmas concert at the Conference Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Dec. 13, 2002.
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite, spokesman and honorary chairman of the Interfaith Alliance, presented the Walter Cronkite Faith and Freedom Award to actor and activist George Clooney, in New York, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2006.
Walter Cronkite
With his family by his side, Walter Cronkite died from cerebrovascular disease on Friday, July 17, 2009, at his Manhattan. He was 92.
Walter Cronkite
“I did not know Mr. Cronkite personally,” President Barack Obama said at the memorial service for the CBS newsman, in New York City, September 9, 2009. “Nor, for that matter, did I know him any better than the tens of millions who turned to him each night in search of the answer to a simple question: ‘What happened today?’ But like them and like all of you, I have benefited as a citizen from his dogged pursuit of the truth, his passionate defense of objective reporting, and his view that journalism is more than just a profession -- it is a public good vital to our democracy.”
“Face the Nation” anchor Bob Schieffer added, “Walter Cronkite was the most curious man I had ever met. He always wanted to know everything about everything, and he wanted to know it before everyone else knew it.”
Walter Cronkite
Veteran CBS newsman Walter Cronkite (1916-2009).