Cronkite (30 page)

Cronkite’s longhand notes on astronaut Gordon Cooper’s space flight on the thirty-four-hour
Faith 7
mission, May 22–23, 1963.
(Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin)

Cronkite interviewed President John F. Kennedy for the first thirty-minute broadcast of the
CBS Evening News
on September 3, 1963. Previously, the program had been fifteen minutes in length.
(Whitehurst Photos)

Cronkite, in a moment of undisguised emotion, having just announced the death of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Cronkite was dubbed “healer of the nation” in the wake of his exemplary coverage.
(CBS Photo Archive)

Cronkite met former president Dwight D. Eisenhower in France in 1963 to film “D-Day Plus 20 Years: Eisenhower Returns to Normandy.” The program aired on CBS in 1964 and was repeated on national television many times afterward to commemorate the D-day landings. Cronkite’s softball interviewing style suited the occasion, turning the program into a special conversation with the former supreme Allied commander.
(Whitehurst Photos)

Cronkite interviewing Barry Goldwater in 1964. A longtime Arizona senator, Goldwater was the Republican nominee for president; he ultimately lost by a wide margin to Lyndon Johnson. CBS News management warned Cronkite not to let his anti-Goldwater feelings seep into the
CBS Evening News
.
(Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin)

Cronkite in a reduced-gravity environment in 1964. Cronkite was often regarded as a staid character, sitting behind an anchor desk, but in fact throughout his career he was an enthusiastic, participatory journalist.
(Whitehurst Photos)

The Cronkite family: Betsy, Nancy, Chip, Walter, and Kathy, circa 1966.
(Whitehurst Photos)

Cronkite
(right)
interviewing John Glenn for CBS News on February 8, 1967. He spoke with Cronkite in the aftermath of a fire at Cape Kennedy on January 27 that had claimed the lives of three astronauts.
(Whitehurst Photos)

Walter Cronkite speaking with Robert F. Kennedy before a public event, circa 1967. Kennedy (D-NY) was considering a run for the presidency, a prospect about which Cronkite would voice an encouraging opinion in a private setting.
(Whitehurst Photos)

To better inform his space coverage in the late 1960s, Cronkite tried out a lunar reduced-gravity simulator at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia.
(Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin)

A war correspondent again, Cronkite traveled through Vietnam in February 1968, at the end of the Vietcong’s Tet Offensive. Back home, Americans were being told by commanders, as well as President Johnson, that the United States was drawing steadily nearer to victory. Cronkite went to Vietnam to see for himself.
(Whitehurst Photos)

February 1968: Cronkite at Hué in South Vietnam, the scene of grim, street-to-street fighting as U.S. forces, led by the Marines, sought to retake the city, which had been seized by the Vietcong during the first phase of the Tet Offensive. Such heroism impressed Cronkite, but the overall strategies of the war did not.
(Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin)