Walter Cronkite met some of the most important people of his time. This was the time of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. In one interview, though, he asked President John F. Kennedy about another conflict that was growing then.
WALTER CRONKITE: "Mister President, the only hot war we've got running at the moment is of course the one in Vietnam."
Legendary newscaster Walter Cronkite gives his wife Betsy a kiss as they pose for photographers at the 55th annual Primetime Emmy Awards
JOHN KENNEDY: "I don't think that, uh, unless a greater effort is made by the government to win popular support, that the war can be won out there."
STEVE EMBER: Americans would come to find truth in Kennedy's words. But, just two months after that interview, shots were fired at his open-top car. As we will hear later, Walter Cronkite had the sad duty of reporting that the young president was dead.
Happier moments came as he reported on the American space program. In July of nineteen sixty-nine he was almost speechless when Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon.
WALTER CRONKITE: "Oh, boy! Whew! Boy!"
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Walter Cronkite rarely expressed his own opinions. That was not a reporter's job. But in the late sixties he went to report on the war to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam.
President Lyndon Johnson and his advisers kept telling Americans that the United States was making progress. Walter Cronkite went to see for himself. Then, in a commentary in February of nineteen sixty-eight, he said the war seemed unwinnable.
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2013-11-25
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