July 12, 2012
NY Times Sunday Book Review: Cronkite
And That's a Way It Was
'Cronkite,' a Biography by Douglas Brinkley
Reviewed by Chris Matthews
"From Dallas, Texas. . . . " The haggard newsman has only been handed handle copy. He removes his glasses. He looks in to a camera as well as gives us a initial hard headlines which a young trainer will never grow old. He marks a time of genocide upon a newsroom clock as well as holds a moment of silence.
This was Walter Cronkite upon November. 22, 1963, announcing a genocide of 
John F. Kennedy. It was consummate Cronkite unscripted, authentic as well as heartfelt. For 19 years, a anchor of "The CBS Evening News" common in a public grief as well as celebration. He was a single of us, as well as Douglas Brinkley's "Cronkite" is a stately autobiography of America's greatest as well as most dear promote journalist.
"He was reassuringly permanent when so most was in flux," writes Brinkley, a historian as well as contributing editor during Vanity Fair. "Even when he was announcing comfortless news, he was himself a sign which America would persevere."
Perseverance was a hallmark of Cronkite's surprisingly choppy career. He was buoyed by his ability to bond with an audience, a tie never some-more strong than during CBS's marathon coverage of a Kennedy assassination. Seventy million Americans as well as viewers in t! wenty-th ree countries tuned in. "CBS News became a assembly hall, a cathedral, a corner bar as well as a locale block wherever people went when they longed for a recovering comfort of a group," Brinkley writes, as well as Cronkite was a "impresario" of mourning, a unofficial inhabitant grief counselor.
Cronkite never shied divided from telling hard truths. Recall his half-hour "Report From Vietnam" upon Feb. 27, 1968, in which he spoken a Vietnam War a "stalemate." It was a outcome a veteran fight match didn't penchant delivering, though Cronkite, who had recently returned from stating upon a Tet offensive, now believed which a fight was unwinnable as well as indefensible. He felt "conned" by Lyndon Johnson, Brinkley writes, as well as "sickened" which his network had swallowed a Pentagon's spin.
"The aftershock of Cronkite's reports was seismic," Brinkley adds. President Johnson reportedly said, "If I've mislaid Cronkite, I've mislaid a country."
How did Cronkite get a credentials to be taken during his word which an American fight could not be won?
Born in 1916 in St. Joseph, Mo., Cronkite dreamed of apropos a broadcaster. An unexcited student, he forsaken out of a University of Texas after dual years as well as entered a journal business, covering a nightclub as well as church beats for The Houston Press.
At 19, he got his initial air wave pursuit during Kansas City's KCMO station, inform college football games underneath a name Walter Wilcox (Cronkite sounded as well German). He examination a plays off a handle ticker, afterwards re-enacted them for a audience as if he were during a game. "I didn't need any facts," he said. "I only used my imagination."
Cronkite's KCMO years were important for dual events: He met as well as married Mary Elizabeth Maxwell, well know! n as Bet sy, a KCMO advertising copywriter, as well as he was during once fired. He refused to inform upon a fire during city gymnasium in which three firefighters had supposedly died. He defied his boss, insisting upon removing a second source before starting upon air. It was a customary which mattered: get a story right as well as then, first.
He landed upon his feet as a night editor during United Press. It was "his proving ground," Brinkley writes, a pursuit which formed Cronkite as a journalist. He did all from fact-checking to reporting, as well as in 1943 he covered a American bombing campaign over Germany. He assimilated a cadre of correspondents including Andy Rooney; they called themselves a "Writing Sixty-Ninth," as well as they were instructed by Hugh Baillie, trainer of U.P., to "get a smell of warm red blood in to their copy."
Here is Cronkite's inform from a raid he accompanied over Germany: "American Flying Fortresses have only come behind from an choice to ruin a ruin of 26,000 feet above a earth, a ruin of burning tracer bullets as well as ripping gunfire, of crippled Fortresses as well as burning German warrior planes, of parachuting men as well as others not so lucky."
This dispatch caught a courtesy of Edward R. Murrow, a legendary CBS broadcaster, who offered him a CBS Radio pursuit formed in Stalingrad. Cronkite accepted only to spin it down. "Radio was a brand new print," Brinkley writes, though a U.P. male stayed loyal to handle reporting.
Cronkite's work during a fight sensitive a rest of his career. As Bob Schieffer pronounced upon a "Face a Nation" module honoring Cronkite, it's why Americans devoted him. "Everybody knew which Walter didn't get his suntan in a college of music lights."
Cronkite was finally recruited by Murrow to cover a Korean War. He tried
his palm during radio headlines and, according to Brinkley, exhibited an roughly "innate understanding of a medium." From 1953 to 1957, Cronkite was a horde of "You Are There," a weekly module upon which he simulated to be a headlines contributor covering a vital chronological eventuality similar to a Boston Tea Party (and charity growth critiques of McCarthyism), though his career continued to be rocky. In 1954, he was hired as well as shortly fired as horde of "The Morning Show"; later, he was upheld over for "Face a Nation," which a network was creating to rival NBC's "Meet a Press."
Even anchoring inhabitant domestic conventions his specialty valid challenging. He was overshadowed during a 1956 domestic conventions by NBC's charismatic team of Chet Huntley as well as David Brinkley.
"If something quirky happened in Chicago or San Francisco, Huntley as well as Brinkley laughed," Douglas Brinkley writes. "Cronkite, by contrast, reported which something droll had happened."
Cronkite's coverage of a 1964 Republican gathering was judged so verbose as well as lackluster which a CBS chairman William Paley yanked him. The veteran Robert Trout as well as a young Roger Mudd were brought in to co-anchor a Democratic convention.
By a 1968 Chicago conventions, however, Cronkite was roving tall again. "The Evening News" was tops in a ratings, a anchorman certain of his position as well as his material. His "Report From Vietnam" had won him drawn out respect, as well as he was during his best as he hold a assent as a gathering devolved in to violence. we recollect Cronkite finale a single late-night session behest viewers to "get some sleep," telling us he'd "see us in a morning." It was gavel-to-gavel coverage, as well as he knew we were staying with him.
But Brinkley additionally reveals Cronkite's darker, rival side. He was churlish to colleagues as well as hated sharing a spotlight. He was so angry to be co-anchoring a 1960 gathering with Edward R. Murrow which h! e sealed himself in a anchor counter as well as refused to come out for photos. When Barbara Walters was paired with Harry Reasoner to anchor during ABC, Cronkite was publicly polite, though according to Brinkley, he "privately hoped she'd fail." This was not headlines to her. "Let's only say Uncle Walter wasn't Uncle Walter to me," she said.
Tom Brokaw agreed: "He was very protective of his seat of power. This nicest-guy-in-the-world was some-more Darwinian than we could suppose when it came to being tip dog." Cronkite's ruthlessness was never some-more in justification than during a 1952 Chicago conventions. Competition for coverage was fierce, as well as Cronkite (with a approval of CBS) had a Republican credentials committee room bugged.
Cronkite didn't want to lose. Nor did he similar to a idea of giving up a anchor desk, even to Dan Rather (left), his preferred successor. His last night anchoring "The CBS Evening News" was Mar 6, 1981, though he was not prepared for retirement. "He had quit as well soon," Brinkley writes. "He had never felt some-more hopeless. He had a partial interest in everything, without a sharp clarity of goal about any a single thing."
It's time for a elephant in a room. Was Cronkite a liberal? The left-leaning was right there, Brinkley notes, for all to listen to if not see: Cronkite was always some-more outspoken off camera. "I thought which some day a roof tiles was starting to tumble in," Cronkite said. "Somebody was starting to write a large piece in a journal or something. we don't know why to this day we got divided with it."
At a dinner honoring a Texas representative Barbara Jordan, he pronounced of a Democratic losses in a 1988 election:
"Liberalism isn't passed in this country. It isn't even comatose. It simply is suffering a severe case of stride! nt laryn gitis. It simply has during a moment we goal mislaid a voice. . . . But God Almighty, God Almighty, we've got to scream these truths in which we hold from a rooftops, similar to which stage in a movie 'Network.' We've got to chuck open a windows as well as scream these truths to a streets as well as to a heavens."
It was "Cronkite's domestic coming-out party," Brinkley writes. "The sham of being Mr. Center was over." Curiously Cronkite's magnanimous bent didn't detract from his credit or popularity. It seemed to me which conservatives watched him with great respect, distilling out whatever leftish view they competence detect.
But "Cronkite" will continue not for what it tells us about promote media though for what it reveals about a male his paradoxes, his penchant for pranks as well as dirty jokes, his long as well as happy marriage.
"The greatest old master in a art of vital which we know is Walter Cronkite," Andy Rooney wrote in The Washington Post. "If life were fattening, Walter Cronkite would weigh 500 pounds." We, his viewers, never got to go drinking with a guy. We knew him in a some-more formal setting, though a memories feel only as intimate.
I recollect as a young child watching "You Are There" in wonderment as he 
grilled a violators of King Tut's tomb. we recollect rushing to my college dormitory to watch him deliver a lethal headlines from Dallas. we recollect as a graduate tyro walking in tumble as well as winter evenings to a tyro kinship to catch him as well as Eric Sevareid (right) evoke a fad of a elections.
In 1980, Cronkite, a college dropout, received an honorary doctorate from Harvard as well as with it a standing ovation. Fred Friendly, a former trainer of CBS News, told him which he wasn't being respected merely for his work upon television.
" At a time when everybody was fibbing fathers, mothers, teachers, presidents, governors, senators we seemed to be telling a law night after night. They didn't similar to a truth, though they believed we during a time when they indispensable somebody to believe."
"Cronkite" is justification which a pursuit can be finished only about perfectly. That goes for a male as well as this exceptional biography.
Chris Matthews is a horde of "Hardball" upon MSNBC as well as "The Chris Matthews Show" upon NBC. His most recent book is "Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero."
A version of this examination appeared in imitation upon July 8, 2012, upon page BR12 of a Sunday Book Review with a headline: And That's a Way It Was.
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