Walter Cronkite

Walter Cronkite recounted his career in broadcast journalism in a pair of two-hour interviews with Don Carleton of the Archive of American Television on April 28, 1998 and October 18, 1999. He spoke of covering such topics as political conventions, the moon landing, the Vietnam War, Watergate and Middle East conflicts, and of interviewing Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy.

He discussed his famed report on the Tet Offensive, which he had been sent to cover by CBS president Richard Salant because “It was so confusing to the American people that maybe, since there did seem to be a lot of trust in my broadcasting, maybe I could be helpful in saying what it looked like to me on the scene. And probably a very egotistical idea that we thought that that could be important.”

After delivering a “straight report” on the situation, Cronkite recalled, “I very clearly said I will have a personal view of this after this commercial. … I came back and said this is an unusual departure. I’m going to deliver an editorial in effect; I’m going to give you my personal view of what it is. And with that, I said that I thought we should get out of Vietnam.”

He also spoke of how news coverage had changed for the worse. “The management is not responsible, as the old managements were, in understanding that they had a basic responsibility to the democracy in doing news and doing it well,” he said. “And today they only see it as a tale on their entertainment dog. So what they’re demanding is that these network news shows hold up their ratings by being perhaps more entertaining. So they’ve gone to all these features: your bank account and my bank account, your backyard and my backyard, all that kind of stuff. That doesn’t belong in that 24 minutes or 23 minutes of evening news. They have a responsibility to deliver news in that time. … They’re not discharging their responsibility.”

To learn more about Walter Cronkite, read his profile on findingDulcinea.