Biography

In 1969 when Apollo XI was going to the Moon, Cronkite was on the air 27 of the 30 hours that it took for the flight, which many in the profession called "Walter to Walter" coverage. At the moment that Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder of the Lunar Module onto the Moon surface, Cronkite was speechless for the first time in his career. All he could say was "Wow!" and "Oh Boy!". Famous words that will live in history.

According to Cronkite's autobiography, his mother Helen Fitzche dated Douglas MacArthur as a teenager. The future general asked her to marry him but her father would not allow it because he felt MacArthur was too old for her. Cronkite asked the General about it one night at a party and his only response was "Ah, yes. Helen Fitzche." and walked away.

On the day of the Kennedy assassination, he said the he had just come back from lunch and was standing at the teletype machine when rang a rare five bells - a bulletin. He shouted "Let's get on the air!" but getting on the air wasn't possible because the cameras had to be placed and then warmed up (after this, the networks always had a camera ready in the newsroom). He went to an audio booth just off the newsroom floor and, interrupting As the World Turns (1956), made an audio announcement over a CBS logo. It took another 20 minutes to get on camera.

He is outspoken in his distaste for Oliver Stone's film JFK (1991). Calling the film "Oliver Stone junk" and "A dangerous work of fiction that seriously misleads a whole generation of Americans who were not alive at that time".

CBS asked Cronkite to come up with a signature closing line for the evening news. When he came up with "And that's the way it is", CBS was concerned that it would suggest a certain infallability. But Cronkite explained that it would fit any type of story whether it was funny or sad or ironic.

It is increasingly clear that the only rational way out will be to negotiate, not as victors but as an honorable people who lived up to the pledge to defend democracy." (Cronkite's famous quote after the disastrous North Vietnamese Tet Offensive, which many say was the turning point in the Vietnam Conflict. President Lyndon Johnson, upon hearing Cronkite pull his support for further military involvement, is quoted as saying, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America.

The great sadness of my life is that I never achieved the hour newscast, which would not have been twice as good as the half-hour newscast, but many times as good.

And that's the way it is, March 6, 1981. [Sign-off line on his last night as anchor]

Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough. [on the superficiality of television news]

[About George H.W. Bush] I like George Bush, he seemed to be a straight arrow, the sort you'd like to have as your lawyer or your banker or as a friend. And of course, he had Barbara.