Posted on 02/26/2018 2:25:40 PM PST by Nextrush
Was he a reporter in WW2?
Cronkite was. He worked for United Press and was given credit for “exclusives” like during the Battle of the Bulge when Cronkite was first to report that Germans in American uniforms were operating behind the front lines.
But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people, who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.
Ah, Walter. Did YOU do the best you could to defend
democracy? I think not. It just wasn’t worth the effort
in your view.
I can hear Tom Moorer growling:
“Seems like they turned all our victories into defeats.”
We were outsmarted and outmaneuvered on the college campuses. See Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber: The American Challenge.
On Walter Cronkites 1968 “revelation” that we had to “get out of Vietnam,” from a speech given in October 2000 by General Fredrick Weyand;
“After Tet, General Westmoreland sent Walter Cronkite out to interview me. I was in Command of the Forces in the South around Saigon and below and I was proud of what we’d done. We had done a good job there. So, Walter came down and he spent about an hour and a half interviewing me. And when we got done, he said, ‘well you’ve got a fine story. But I’m not going to use any of it because I’ve been up to Hue. I’ve seen the thousands of bodies up there in mass graves and I’m determined to do all in my power to bring this war to an end as soon as possible’.”
“It didn’t seem to matter that those thousands of bodies were of South Vietnamese citizens who had been killed by the Hanoi soldiers and Walter wasn’t alone in this because I think many in the media mirrored his view…”
“When I was in Paris at the Peace Talks, it was the most frustrating assignment I think I ever had. Sitting in that conference, week after week listening to the Hanoi negotiators, Le Duc Tho and his friends lecture us. Reading from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Herald Tribune, the Atlanta Constitution, NBC, CBS, you name it. Their message was always the same. ‘Hey, read your newspapers, listen to your TV. The American people want you out of Vietnam. Now, why don’t you just go ahead and get out’?”
Full speech transcript: http://www.i-served.com/weyandspeech.htm
Honorable people don't allow a genicide of 2 million people by Pol Pot and the Khmir Rogue. Unkie Walter didn't bother to report on that!
When I was over there I wasn`t political,just
saw photogs as we called them with their 4 or 5
Nikons taking pics of us and thought we were the good guys.
Only after I got back realized how we were portrayed.
My blood pressure probaly went up from that post of yours.
Returning from Nam on emergency leave I was spit on by Hippie Bastards in S.F airport and damn near arrested for attempting retaliation. All inspired by America’s most trusted journalist, “Uncle Walter”. I’d piss on his grave, given the opportunity.Our hands were tied to comply with political opportunist,—victory was impossible.
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