The Old Guard has now truly come to an end. As Bismo said tonight, it’s perhaps fitting that Walter Cronkite passed away during the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s flight to the Moon. This video clip is from a 2007 CBS special celebrating Cronkite’s 90th birthday. The program was produced by Nancy Kramer, who Carol and I helped last year with some background material for an installment of 48 Hours|Mystery.
I also agreed with Bismo when he said that he never warmed up to Huntley and Brinkley as TV news anchormen. Many adults apparently preferred the team, but they were much too severe to appeal to kids. Cronkite was The Man. He narrated the audio book of his autobiography, “A Reporter’s Life”, and I listened to it twice, all the way through. It was abridged from his book, but I trusted Walter to leave in all the good stuff.
Cronkite is indelibly associated with not only NASA in the 60’s, but his live coverage of the assasination of JFK, and his landmark editorial asserting that the Vietnam War, in his opinion, could not be won. Cronkite’s credibility and judgment were held in such high esteem that LBJ realized his Presidency was doomed and he declined to seek re-election.
Another noteworthy accomplishment of Cronkite’s was that he helped introduce The Beatles to America. Here is a video clip from Nancy Kramer’s TV special that I first posted over a year ago.
© 2007 CBS Worldwide Inc.
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Lastly, I would like to point out that Walter Cronkite was a big fan of the comic strip Peanuts, and he wrote the introduction to volume 2 of The Complete Peanuts. Walter cried on air when John Kennedy died, he cried on camera again when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, he denounced the Vietnam War, he has a Beatles connection, and he loved Charlie Brown and Snoopy. I loved the man and everything he stood for.
