Cronkite (104 page)

540 Cronkite was “seemingly embarrassed” by the commotion:
B. Drummond Ayres Jr., “Reporter’s Notebook: Kennedy Takes Off His Gloves,”
New York Times
, April 21, 1980.

540 the “preeminent figure” in contemporary journalism:
“List of Those Honored at Harvard Ceremonies,”
New York Times
, June 6, 1980.

540 “they believed you at a time when they needed somebody to believe”:
“1981: A Conversation with Fred Friendly,” p. 165.

540 The big unknown was who would run with him:
Mark Updegrove,
Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House
(Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2006), p. 129.

540 A movement, somewhat unprecedented, was launched to have former president Gerald Ford be:
Author interview with David Kennerly, May 23, 2011.

541 “scoop of scoops”:
Tom Shales, “Back to You, CBS,”
Washington Post
, July 17, 1980.

541 “and be a figurehead vice-president”:
Author interview with David Kennerly, May 23, 2011.

541 “Cronkite had me in a pickle”:
Author interview with Gerald Ford, March 23, 2003.

541 “Barbara and I had an argument”:
Sandy Socolow to Douglas Brinkley, December 18, 2011.

541 “She had planted herself right outside the door”:
Author interview with David Kennerly, May 23, 2011.

542 “suffered when Barbara twisted his arm to get him onto ABC”:
Cronkite,
A Reporter’s Life
, p. 238.

542 “She said she was sorry”:
Sandy Socolow to Douglas Brinkley, December 18, 2011.

542 “an entertaining brawl with elements of farce”:
Tom Shales, “The Last Hurrah,”
Washington Post
, August 12, 1980.

542 “I am overwhelmed,” he said. “I really am”:
“Unplugging the Miles,”
Washington Post
, August 16, 1980.

543 “teaching three generations of Americans the political process”:
“CBS Retires Cronkite’s Mike as He Anchors Last Convention,”
Boston Herald
, August 16, 1980.

543 “I don’t believe there are any who distrust him”:
Jimmy Carter, “Medal of Freedom to Walter Cronkite,” January 16, 1981 (transcript), CBS News Archive, New York. Also see Henry Mitchell, “Any Day,”
Washington Post
, January 17, 1981.

Thirty-One
: Retirement Blues

547 “Keep it up, you’re getting better”:
William Hickey, “Uncle Walter Departs,”
Cleveland Plain Dealer
, March 5, 1981.

547 “Walter Cronkite, television and radio newsman, died today”:
Albin Krebs and Robert Thomas, “Notes on People: In Cronkite’s Mailbox,”
New York Times
, January 21, 1981.

548 In 1980,
Universe
ran four additional times:
Peter Goodman to Bill Leonard–Walter Cronkite, April 6, 1981, Folder: Awards 1981, Box: 2M609, WCP-UTA.

548 “That little guffaw laugh of his wasn’t around anymore”:
Author interview with Connie Chung, July 28, 2011.

548 “We were impressed by his calm and physical courage during that hurricane”:
Gates,
Air Time
, p. 307.

549 “This is shakier than cafeteria Jell-O”:
Ken Auletta, “Sign-Off: The Long and Complicated Career of Dan Rather,”
New Yorker
, March 7, 2005.

549 “I’m a different person than Walter Cronkite”:
Eric Mink, “His Challenge Is Replacing the Most Trusted Journalist,”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, March 8, 1981.

549 Cronkite’s old beige set backdrop was repainted blue-gray:
Tony Schwartz, “Amid the Fuss, Cronkite Says a Quiet ‘Good Night,’ ”
New York Times
, March 7, 1981.

549 “But I broadcast the news from Walter’s chair”:
Author interview with Bob Schieffer, August 31, 2011.

550 “ ‘Socolow, he’s standing up! He’s standing up’ ”:
Author interview with Sandy Socolow, July 7, 2011.

550 “It was a near-catastrophe that will not be soon forgotten”:
Sandor M. Polster, “The Empty Throne,” Blog post, March 7, 2011.

550 “What an asshole thing to do”:
Author interview with Sandy Socolow, July 18, 2011.

550 “I still can see Dan Rather perched on that typewriter table”:
Polster, “The Empty Throne.”

550 “Dan looked like he was going to the crapper”:
Author interview with Bob Schieffer, August 31, 2011.

550 “By the first commercial break he knew better and sat down”:
Author interview with Sandy Socolow, July 8, 2011.

550 Chung nicknamed him the “Stealth Bomber”:
Author interview with Connie Chung, July 28, 2011.

551 “Rather was determined to wipe out every vestige of Cronkite”:
Author interview with Morley Safer, September 17, 2011.

551 “He told me he wasn’t happy I got the job”:
Author interview with Jeff Fager, January 9, 2011.

551 Ratings dipped by 9 percent at
CBS Evening News
:
Peter J. Boyer, “Rather’s Ratings Slip in First Week,” AP, March 19, 1981.

551 “Walter wasn’t big on diplomacy”:
Author interview with Gordon F. Joseloff, June 19, 2011.

552 “I’ll never forget Walter’s reaction as he heard those words”:
Gordon F. Joseloff, “A Westporter Remembers His Friend, Walter Cronkite,”
Westport Now
, July 18, 2009.

552 “America once again had Walter”:
Ibid.

552 The Reagan assassination attempt put him in a deep funk:
“Cronkite Talks of Regrets and Doing the Job,”
Lancaster
(PA)
New Era
, April 12, 2000.

553 “It was a damn good interview; I’m very proud of it”:
Cronkite and Carleton,
Conversations with Cronkite
, p. 342.

554 his boneheaded decision to join the Pan Am Board:
Bob Langford, “Cronkite’s Uneasy Retirement: Why Isn’t There a Place for Uncle Walter?”
News & Observer
, April 13, 1992.

554 Cronkite quit Pan Am to save his reputation:
Walter Cronkite to Pan Am Board, October 8, 1981, CBS News Research Archives, New York.

554 “the Yankees when they had Murderers’ Row”:
Desmond Smith, “Is This the Future of TV News?”
New York
, February 22, 1982.

554 Arledge was “like a boxer who smells the kill”:
“TV After Cronkite,”
Newsweek
, March 9, 1981.

554 he visited the far reaches:
Arthur Unger, “Walter Cronkite in Retirement: A Tradition Winds Down,”
Christian Science Monitor
, March 6, 1981.

554 “crash courses at This-Is-the-World night school”:
Author interview with Ed Bradley, December 21, 2004.

554
Universe
was conceived as a half-hour newsmagazine:
Richard F. Shepard, “TV Weekend: ‘Cronkite’s Universe,’ ”
New York Times
, June 19, 1981.

555 “The basic idea was to take subjects that could have a strong impact”:
Author interview with Charles Osgood, April 17, 2011.

555
Universe
was akin to PBS’s
NOVA
before its time:
CBS News Reference Library files; also, Daniel Einstein,
Special Edition: A Guide to Network Television Documentary Series and Special News Reports,1980–1989
(Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1997)
.

555 he later flew over the Arctic Circle to see the aurora borealis:
“Cronkite’s Show Takes Him Places He’s Not Even Known,” AP, June 10, 1982; Fred Rothenberg, “Cronkite Fesses Up,” AP, June 7, 1982.

556 “Walter essentially ran the camera on the
Alvin
himself”:
Author interview with Isadore “Izzy” Bleckman, February 23, 2011.

556 “I asked the owner about the fish”:
Ibid.

556 “Let’s go drink at the Ritz Bar”:
Author inteview with Charles Osgood, April 17, 2011.

557 “is not a genius at anything except being straight, honest and normal”:
Andy Rooney, “Good Ol’ Walter,” syndicated column, February 21, 1981.

557 “One would think that the grandeur of the universe needs no assistance”:
Neil Postman,
Amusing Ourselves to Death
(New York: Penguin Books, 1995), p. 123.

557 “It was our way of telling Walter thank you”:
Author interview with Dale Minor, August 16, 2011.

557 one of the producers wore a Failure Analysis ball cap:
Ibid.

558 “Socolow and Cronkite were just banging the tom-toms against me”:
Author interview with Dan Rather, December 30, 2011.

559 a CBS News documentary:
John Corry, “TV: A Cronkite Report, Children of Apartheid,”
New York Times
, December 5, 1987.

559 It aired on December 5, 1987, and won both an Emmy:
“Walter Cronkite . . . CBS News Special Correspondent,” industry biography.

559 “You don’t
have
to be the most trusted man in America”:
Author interview with Isadore “Izzy” Bleckman, February 23, 2011.

559 “caterpillar in a jar”:
Kathy Cronkite,
On the Edge of the Spotlight
, pp. 17–18.

560 “There were moments when reading this book”:
Walter Cronkite, Foreword, in ibid., p. 9.

561 “But someone might recognize me”:
Alan Weisman, Diary notes, September 1981. The retelling of Cronkite’s trip to Egypt comes directly from this diary.

562 “Look at this. Nothing”:
Ibid.

563 “Put that down”:
Author interview with Alan Weisman, January 22, 2012.

563 “Deal”:
Author interview with Sandy Socolow, June 2, 2011.

564 “You did it again!”:
Weisman, Diary notes.

564 “It was a killer look”:
Author interview with Alan Weisman, January 22, 2012.

564 the Carters held a grudge against him:
Ibid.

564 “Wasn’t that a time”:
Weisman, Diary notes.

564 “strive valiantly”:
Donald J. Davidson, ed.,
The Wisdom of Theodore Roosevelt
(New York: Kensington, 2003), p. 48.

565 “He blamed CBS dissing him”:
Author interview with Connie Chung, July 27, 2011.

566 “I very much regretted it because it didn’t work out”:
Walter Cronkite oral history interview, pp. 681–82, WCP-UTA.

566 “It was somewhere between awkward and a strain”:
Author interview with Dan Rather, December 30, 2011.

567 Socolow learned that the desk had been pulped:
Author interview with Sandy Socolow, June 2, 2011.

567 “has been putting dirt on me for years”:
Author interview with Dan Rather, December 30, 2011.

567 So Brinkley quit:
Brinkley,
A Memoir
, p. 234.

567 “I thought, well, the hell with them, if they want to pay me”:
Walter Cronkite oral history interview, p. 683, WCP-UTA.

568 “Walter was bound to fail”:
Author interview with Bud Lamoreaux, February 28, 2011.

568 “the Cronkite age is behind us”:
Smith, “Is This the Future of TV News?”
New York
, February 22, 1982.

568 He was convinced that turning away from that kind of passion for news:
Peter Kerr, “Cronkite Now Critical of CBS News,”
New York Times
, December 7, 1983.

568 “Cronkite was always one step short of disillusionment”:
Author interview with Peter Kaplan, August 7, 2011.

Thirty-Two
: Struggling Elder Statesman

570 “I screened the broadcast”:
Bill Leonard,
In the Storm of the Eye
, p. 223.

570 “blame on my back”:
Lewis Sorley,
Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam
(New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), p. 129.

570 the “definitive centrist American” and “everybody’s uncle”:
Al Reinert, “The Secret World of Walter Cronkite,”
Texas Monthly,
January 1976
.

571 “The total absence of privacy”:
Walter Cronkite, “Orwell’s 1984—Nearing?”
New York Times
, June 5, 1983.

571 “Walter blew his stack”:
Author interview with Dale Minor, August 16, 2011.

571 had put Cronkite on its blacklist for being “too liberal”:
“USIA Blacklisted 84 from Speaking Program,”
Los Angeles Times
, February 10, 1984.

572 Reagan, who respected Cronkite, was embarrassed:
Ibid.

572 “The White House does not condone any blacklist”:
Howard Kurtz, “Democrats Blast USIA Blacklist,”
Washington Post
, February 11, 1984.

572 “Everybody wanted to keep shaking Walter’s hand”:
Author interview with Missie Rennie, February 22, 2011.

572 World War II veterans started asking Cronkite to blurb:
Walter Cronkite to Susan Wiant, March 13, 1989.

573 “We all know, the shortest way home is through Tokyo”:
“Interview with Walter Cronkite of CBS News in Normandy, France, June 6, 1984,” The Public Papers of President Ronald W. Reagan, Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library, Simi Valley, CA.

573 “Just tell them what we’ve done”:
Ibid.

573 “The convention pairing that garnered”:
Maureen Dowd, “Reporter’s Notebook; With Rather and Cronkite, That’s the Way It Is,”
New York Times
, July 18, 1988; author interview with Sandy Socolow, July 16, 2011.

574 “Four years
is
too long”:
“Cronkite’s Corner,” New York
Daily News
, July 12, 1984.

574 CBS aired “The Legacy of Harry S. Truman” in prime time:
Gordon Walek, “Lots of Attention Given to Truman,”
Chicago Herald
, July 18, 1984.

574 “Walter was an excellent interviewer”:
Author interview with Barbara Walters, August 24, 2011.

575 “The main thing was that this hall listened”:
Tom Starner, “Some Stars Were Brighter,”
Syracuse Herald-Journal
, July 7, 1984.

575 Cronkite was barely given a cameo on CBS:
“First Convention Since 1952 Without Cronkite,”
New York Daily News
, July 16, 1984.