Cronkite (29 page)

President Harry Truman with Cronkite during a televised tour of the newly renovated White House on May 3, 1952, that all three major networks cooperated to broadcast.
(Whitehurst Photos)

An advertisement for the CBS television series
You Are There
, hosted by Cronkite. The show staged re-creations of major events in world history, allowing Cronkite’s correspondents to step into the action and “interview” famous personalities from Galileo to Benedict Arnold. It originally ran from 1953 to 1957.
(Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin)

Walter Cronkite standing in front of a weather map while holding the
Farmers’ Almanac
during a
Morning Show
broadcast on June 1, 1954.
(CBS Photo Archive)

Walter Cronkite on CBS’s
The Morning Show
with the puppet Charlemane, circa 1954. The lion puppet, created by Bill and Cora Baird, introduced musical numbers on the show and also discussed current events with Cronkite.
(Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin)

Walter Cronkite at Washington’s WTOP television studio in 1954. After trying to establish himself in radio during the late 1940s, Cronkite joined the staff of WTOP-TV, a CBS affiliate, in 1950. He would stay until 1954.
(Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin)

CBS composite photo, highlighting Cronkite’s coverage of the space program. He is shown with six members of
Mercury 7
(undated).
(Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin)

Doris Duke, heiress to a tobacco fortune, with Walter and Betsy Cronkite at a party. The Cronkites were active members of New York’s social life (undated).
(Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin)

Cronkite explaining the
Explorer 1
mission to CBS viewers in 1958.
Explorer 1
was a hastily constructed response to
Sputnik
, the Soviets’ 1957 earth-orbiting satellite. Because nearly every concept surrounding
Explorer 1
was new to American viewers, Cronkite used models to clarify the principles of aerospace.
(CBS Photo Archive)

From the left
: Eric Sevareid, Walter Cronkite, and Edward R. Murrow at the news desk during CBS’s election-night coverage on November 8, 1960.
(CBS Photo Archive)

On May 4, 1961, Cronkite rehearsed in his station wagon for CBS’s coverage of
Freedom 7
, which would be launched at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on May 5.
Freedom 7
would take Alan Shepard on America’s first manned space flight: a fifteen-minute orbit of the earth.
(Whitehurst Photos)

Cronkite covering the
Freedom 7
manned space flight on May 5, 1961. Viewers worried along with him that Shepard might not survive the return to earth. Ultimately, the flight was a success, giving America—and Cronkite—a future in space exploration.
(CBS Photo Archive)