Description
November 4, 1916 - July 17, 2009
Broadcast Journalist
Television news anchor and pioneer presenter Walter Cronkite was the face of the CBS Evening News from 1962 until 1981. His avuncular presence was welcomed into American homes every evening for twenty years as he helped the American public process national triumphs and tragedies alike. Cronkite described wars, natural disasters, nuclear explosions, social upheavals, and space flights with clarity and equanimity. In rare moments, Cronkite dramatically lost his equanimity, displaying boyish delight as the Eagle landed on July 20, 1969 and emotional disbelief when President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. In 1968 he advocated a negotiated peace in a special program on Vietnam following his tour there. After that program, Lyndon B. Johnson said to Bill Moyers, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.” Cronkite’s interviews with Anwar el-Sadat and Menachem Begin were both deemed instrumental to the historic Israel-Egypt peace treaty of 1977. In 1981, Cronkite was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was also featured as the voice of Benjamin Franklin on the PBS cartoon series Liberty’s Kids, and he was the subject of an American Masters special on PBS in 2006.
Walter Cronkite was awarded an honorary degree from Georgetown University in 1978.