Cronkite (105 page)

575 “It was quite sad how CBS under Rather treated him”:
Author interview with Bob Schieffer, August 31, 2011.

575 “that all I’ll have is a room with a monitor”:
Peter W. Kaplan, “A Sequestered Cronkite Is on Call at Convention,”
New York Times
, July 18, 1984.

576 wondered why CBS had been cruel to his old rival and friend:
Author interview with Roger Mudd, May 25, 2011.

576 “Being on the air five times a week from 1962 to 1982 created egocentrism”:
Author interview with Dan Rather, May 29, 2011.

576 “I would often come up with a cold”:
Peter W. Kaplan, “The Longest Night for Television,”
New York Times
, November 7, 1984.

577 “Robert Redford. Maybe Walter Cronkite”:
Bernard Weinraub, “Mondale, Assessing Defeat, Says He’ll Leave Politics,”
New York Times
, November 8, 1984.

577 The first special was “Honor, Duty, and a War Called Vietnam”:
Margaret Scherf, “Ex POW, Now Congressman to Visit Own Monument,” AP, January 12, 1985.

577 “Not all of us can emulate John Wayne”:
Michael E. Hill, “Walter Cronkite,”
Washington Post
, April 21, 1985.

278 But to Cronkite, CBS News president treated him:
For the conflict with CBS, see Box: 2M632, Folders: BBC–PBS Space Shuttle Program (11/84–85/86) and Truman Library (4/86), WCP-UTA.

578 “he had an appetite for both history and political bullshit”:
Author interview with Ben Barnes, April 7, 2011.

579 Cronkite was once challenged to a name-dropping contest:
Amory, “What Walter Cronkite Misses Most.”

579 “For Walter and me it’s like the Dr. Seuss story”:
Author interview with Brian Williams, September 2, 2011.

579 “A big part of his lovability”:
Author interview with Deborah Rush, February 21, 2012.

579 Cronkite was a fan of painter Thomas Hart Benton’s:
Author interview with Porter Bibb, January 30, 2011.

579 A publisher had accepted my paintings:
Author interview with Ray Ellis, December 15, 2011.

580 “He has the rapscallion look of a Welsh pirate”:
Ibid.

580 “Boating in the Pacific Northwest, in season”:
Ray Ellis and Walter Cronkite,
Westwind
(Birmingham: Oxmoor House, 1990), p. 12.

580 to give “the folks who live there hope to stave off”:
Walter Cronkite to Robin Ann Chlupach, October 1, 1998, Box: 2M613, WPC-UTA.

580 “I’ve been broadcasting for years”:
Author interview with Ray Ellis, December 15, 2011.

580 In the mid-1970s she married Gifford Whitney in New York:
“Nancy Cronkite Is Married to Gifford Whitney,”
New York Times
, October 3, 1975.

581 “Now we can just send the boat”:
Morten Lund, “Look Who’s Back at the Helm,”
USA Today
, July 25, 1986.

581 “Mom loved Dad
so
much”:
Author interview with Kathy Cronkite, March 22, 2011.

581 “I know a woman perfect for you”:
Author interview with Mike Ashford, June 3, 2011.

582 “I’d get up to Martha’s Vineyard to sail and check up on Walter’s view”:
Author interview with Jimmy Buffett, September 18, 2011.

582 “The greatest Old Master in the art of living”:
Andy Rooney, “It Takes Effort to Savor Life,” syndicated, Tribune Media Services, January 28, 1986.

582 “With a population of only 220 million to choose from”:
Buchwald, “Anchor’s Away.”

582 Cronkite raised over $300,000 for the Walter Cronkite Regents Chair:
Guy D. Garcia, “People: May 19, 1986,”
Time
, May 19, 1986.

583 “I’m going to use all the jokes I used”:
“Roast for Good-Guy Cronkite Turns to Toast,” AP, May 8, 1986.

583 The Cronkite family started visiting Arizona:
Author interview with Kathy Cronkite, March 22, 2011.

583 “We started answering the telephone the next day”:
Christopher Callahan, “Remembering Walter and His School,”
The Cronkite Journal
(2010–2011), Arizona State University, p. 2.

584 “Walter came to visit the construction site”:
Author interview with Stephen Erlich, April 4, 2011.

585 “I tried to buy all of the networks”:
Author interview with Ted Turner, April 20, 2011.

585 “Ted, how about letting me steer”:
Jim Flannery, “Cronkite: A Sailor, in a News Anchor’s Chair,”
Sounding
, August 31, 2009.

585 “moral fitness”:
Ken Auletta,
Media Man: Ted Turner’s Improbable Empire
(New York: Norton, 2004), p. 47.

585 After a short time, in 1986, Larry Tisch was named chairman:
Ibid.

585 Tisch went further, however:
Edward Rapetti, “A Look at TV News with Walter Cronkite,”
Editor & Publisher,
October 14, 1967, p. 72.

586 “There was talk”:
Author interview with Bob Schieffer, August 31, 2011.

586 “There was a feeling that Walter was a man without a counter”:
Author interview with Andy Rooney, March 15, 2011.

587 “I remember us going to dinner with Walter and Betsy”:
Author interview with Ruth Friendly, November 8, 2011.

587 Old Guy Network:
Roger Mudd to Douglas Brinkley, March 3, 2012.

588 “When he saved himself, there was a thrill”:
Sally Bedell Smith,
In All His Glory: The Life and Times of William S. Paley
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), pp. 602–3.

Thirty-Three
: Defiant Liberal

590 there was “reasonably no age limit for the flight”:
People
, January 13, 1986.

590 “the last lingering suspicion”:
“Applications Are Flooding Space Journalist Program,” AP, January 16, 1986.

590 “I sure want that first guy to be checked out by the FBI”:
David Friend notes.

590 Cronkite’s campaign to become a NASA citizen astronaut intensified:
Author interview with David Friend, February 6, 2011.

591 “So I got the space suit and flew up”:
Author interview with David Friend, December 7, 2010.

591 proud to be a NASA astronaut for an afternoon:
Author interview with David Friend, May 11, 2011.

591 “We have come a long way in Space”:
“Don’t Forget Our Successes: Cronkite,” AP, January 29, 1986.

591 “People are always calling up with things”:
Morten Lund, “Look Who’s Back at the Helm,”
USA Today
, July 25–27, 1986.

592 “When the new morality hit in the late 60s, early 70s”:
Washington Post
Q&A, Cronkite-Katz, 1983.

592 “four major dangers to civilization”:
Timothy White, “Walter, We Hardly Knew You: A Candid Conversation with America’s Most Comforting Stranger,”
Rolling Stone
, February 5, 1971, p. 76.

593 “What a wonderful time we all had”:
Author interview with Jann Wenner, February 28, 2011.

593 He collaborated with pianist Dave Brubeck:
Author interview with Chris Brubeck, September 18, 2011.

593 When composer Irving Berlin turned one hundred :
“Irving Berlin’s 100th Birthday Celebration,” CBS-TV, 2100–2300 EST, Friday March 27, 1988.

593 he “didn’t have a good singing voice”:
Author interview with Kathy Cronkite, March 22, 2011.

593 Cronkite volunteered to be emcee and promo man for the opera:
Michael Broson to Walter Cronkite, February 22, 1988, Box: 2M632, Folder: Nixon in China, WCP-UTA.

593 Walter Cronkite thought it was a setup:
Andy Warhol,
Diaries
, ed. Pat Hackett (New York: Warner Books, 1989).

593 “While in the studio, I bumped into Cronkite”:
Author interview with Mickey Hart, February 17, 2011.

594 “Walter walked the walk as well as talking the talk”:
Ibid.

594 “We played drums together a lot”:
Ibid.

595 “ ‘Walter would never have done that’ ”:
Author interview with Jeff Fager, January 10, 2012.

595 Rather was widely criticized for the lapse:
“Cronkite Criticizes Rather over Walkout,” AP, October 14, 1987.

595 “Walter, I long knew, was competitive”:
Author interview with Dan Rather, May 28, 2011.

596 acknowledged that Cronkite had been purposely “shut out”:
Peter J. Boyer, “Cronkite Idea for Special Is Rejected by CBS,”
New York Times
, June 8, 1988.

596 “But to me, I guess, Dan just reeks of insincerity”:
Cronkite and Carleton,
Conversations with Cronkite
, p. 338.

596 “He was pushing this Kennedy anniversary special”:
Author interview with Dan Rather, May 28, 2011.

596 Cronkite was nixed from the entire enterprise:
Ann Hodges, “CBS Offers Viewers the Moon with
Apollo 11
Salute,”
Houston Chronicle
, July 12, 1989.

597 “Walter and I met for two or three days, sometimes longer”:
Carleton, “Cronkite’s Texas.”

598 “Kill them all”:
Author interview with Joe Klein, April 11, 2011.

598 Cronkite would be in breach of his million-a-year contract:
Robert Gillette, “Politics ’88,”
Los Angeles Times
, February 29, 1988.

599 “Cronkite watched”:
Ann Hodges, “Cronkite Would Rather Not Comment About Colleague,”
Houston Chronicle
, March 1, 1988.

599 “It’s the glamour of the business that attracts them”:
Eleanor Randolph, “Cronkite and Reston on the News Biz,”
Washington Post
, April 16, 1988.

599 On September 20, Benjamin died:
Jay Sharbutt, “Burton Benjamin, CBS News President,”
Los Angeles Times
, September 20, 1988.

600 “Benjamin had been Walter’s backstop”:
Author interview with Andy Rooney, March 15, 2011.

600 It proved to be a watershed moment in the campaign:
Author interview with Bernard Shaw, June 9, 2011.

600 “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered”:
Tom Wicker,
George Herbert Walker Bush
(New York: Penguin, 2004), p. 95.

601 “The temptation is rather great at his point to digress into the defense”:
“Walter Cronkite Speech in Defense of Liberalism, Just Days After ’88 Election,” People for the American Way, http://www.pfaw.org/video/c3/walter-cronkite-speech-defense-of-liberalism-just-days-after-88-election (accessed October 3, 2011).

602 “On television, I tried to absolutely hew to the middle”:
Jeremy Gerard, “Walter Cronkite Speaks His Mind Instead of Just News,”
New York Times
, January 8, 1989.

603 “Nowadays, you see more people, more houses”:
Walter Cronkite speech to Natural Resources Defense Council in North Carolina, March 11, 1989, File: NRDC, Box: 2M615, WCP-UTA.

603 “I could drown in the nostalgia tonight”:
Mark Carreau, “Memories Key Gala That Flies Crowd to Moon,”
Houston Chronicle
, July 22, 1989.

603 to Cronkite it was worth every damn penny:
Ibid.

603 going to Mars would remain a pipe dream:
Ibid.

604 “
The New York Times
was reporting the build-up on the border”:
Cronkite,
A Reporter’s Life
, p. 357.

604 Cronkite, a war skeptic:
Robert Wiener,
Live from Baghdad: Gathering News at Ground Zero
(New York: Doubleday, 1992), p. 3.

605 “The telegraph at the other networks went dead”:
Author interview with Tom Johnson, May 24, 2011.

605 “The skies over Baghdad have been illuminated”:
Bernard Shaw, “Baghdad Report,” January 16, 1991, CNN Archives, Atlanta, GA.

605 “why don’t you tell the president yourself on CNN”:
Author interview with Tom Johnson, May 24, 2011.

606 no U.S. planes had been “lost in the first wave of attacks”:
James A. Baker III,
The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989
–
1992
(New York: Putnam, 1995), p. 384.

606 “There are Americans dying”:
Tom Shales, “Television, Eyewitness on the Front Line,”
Washington Post
, January 17, 1991.

606 “there comes a point where it becomes foolhardy”:
Wiener,
Live from Baghdad
, p. 13.

606 “The historical irony of Walter and me covering a war together”:
Author interview with Bernard Shaw, June 10, 2011.

606 “Bush said we were fighting the Iraqi leadership”:
Herb Caen, “Manhattan Merry-Go-Round,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, March 6, 1991.

606 was among the finest TV reporters since Murrow:
Author interview with Andy Rooney, March 15, 2011.

607 “I’m so very proud of you”:
Author interview with Bob Simon, January 12, 2012.

608 Victory in the Gulf War translated into President Bush garnering:
Tom Wicker,
George Herbert Walker Bush
(New York: Viking Press, 2004), p. 166.

608 “Sometimes we would go visit Tom Watson”:
Author interview with Mike Ashford, June 5, 2011.

608 “President Bush went to take the call”:
Cronkite,
A Reporter’s Life
, p. 355.

609 “We all ceremoniously hoisted our glasses”:
Author interview with Mike Ashford, June 3, 2011.

609 “nothing of any significance is going to be said in 9.8 seconds”:
John Tierney, “Furor Grows over Shrinkage of Sound Bites on TV News,”
New York Times
, January 28, 1992.

610 “I struggled for funding”:
Author interview with John Hendricks, November 12, 2011.

610 Hendricks paid Cronkite to do long-form interviews:
Author interview with Dale Minor, August 18, 2011.

610 there wouldn’t today be a Discovery Channel”:
Author interview with John Hendricks, November 13, 2011.

610 Cronkite continued circulating as the éminence grise:
“Newsmakers,”
Houston Chronicle
, February 4, 1992; Neil Morgan, “Cronkite Turns Border Reporter,”
San Diego Union-Tribune
, March 3, 1992.