Posted on 07/18/2009 10:52:47 PM PDT by RobinMasters
WASHINGTON – Walter Cronkite is dead at 92 – but most Americans, many of whom considered him "the most trusted man" in the country during his reign as CBS News anchor – still don't know what motivated him and how he secured such an influential and lofty position.
He was like a grandfatherly institution in the early days of TV. People believed him. Uncle Walter wouldn't lie, America believed.
Thus, when he gave his opinions, they had impact. One example was his report on the Tet offensive in Vietnam, which is credited with swinging the tide of opinion against the war.
Even in his death, however, nobody has addressed how and why an otherwise obscure figure at the time was elevated to become the most prominent anchorman on television.
The story was told publicly in the July 10, 2000, edition of the Nation, a Marxist-oriented journal, in a report on death of Blair Clark, who served as editor of the Nation from 1976 through 1978: "Whether it was calling on Philip Roth to recommend a Nation literary editor or persuading CBS News president Richard Salant to make Walter Cronkite anchor of CBS Evening News, Blair had a gift for the recognition and recruitment of excellence."
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
Cronkite? Feh!
He was a fifth columnist's fifth columnist.
The Tet Offensive was an overwhelming defeat for the Viet Cong.
An advocate for a socialist one-world government in the media? No, never!
“...and how he secured such an influential and lofty position.”
Casting-couch.
Cronkite’s deliberate lie on Tet of ‘68 was revealed by General Fredrick Weyand in an October 2000 speech he gave.
http://www.i-served.com/Reference/GeneralFredWeyand_speech.htm
In part he said, “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?” So finally a Peace Agreement was signed that everyone knew would be violated and with no recourse or hope of enforcement on our part.”
RIH ‘uncle’ Walt.
History has been written over centuries in the fine-lined script of the contemporary craftsman with diligent care only to fall victim to a single swoop of the broad-brushed stroke of the wretched revanchist with ink stained hands sharing space with blood soaking stains that seep sullenly down, down through the pages.
One and then another, until at the end someone clears the table, and it starts — all over again.
I shall maintain my tagline until my opus pass by, sans comment, sans redoubt, sans even sun’s care; til cumbent my corpus crumble grow sere in wind’s last whisper, I’ll find fair comfort in folly’s fey fear.
I dare not foretell fate’s morrow no more, if this be skin of the future, what nature the core?
Be thankful that we live in better times now, with media power failing.
That said, I hope you pay for your sins, Cronkite, you commie bastard.
Excuse me, but credited by whom? And don't tell me LBJ! A lot of people overlook the most obvious reasons why Americans gave up on Vietnam.
First, the draft still existed. Yes indeed folks: your brothers, sons, and cousins actually got notices in the mail from the government and, if unlucky, got shipped over to that godforsaken swamp. Over 2.5 million US servicemen passed through Vietnam, and those guys weren't on vacation.
Second, the war was going on and on and on, and nothing ever changed except the body counts for each side.
Third, the US dropped a gazillion metric tons of explosives and some really nasty sh*t called napalm and nothing ever changed, except the total number of dollars spent.
Call them traitors or cowards if you want to, but a lot of Americans, including my parents, eventually realized that the US had bought a lousy second-hand war from the French and wondered, WTF?
To say that Cronkite turned the tide of opinion is an insult to the grown-ups of the era who came to the conclusion that the Vietnam War was too deadly, too expensive, and too stupid to continue.
Does it escape you that after the North Vietnamese were decimated in the failed Tet of 68 offensive, they might have been more prone to negotiate a surrender or cease fire?
In the October 2005 issue of Vietnam Magazine, an interview with North Vietnamese General Nguyen Duc Huy was published. He was asked, “After the war, Giap told a group of Western reporters that Communist losses in the Tet Offensive were so devastating that if the Americans had kept up that level of military pressure much longer North Vietnam would have been forced to negotiate a peace on American terms. Do you agree?”
He replied, “If the American army had fought some more, had continued, I don't know. Maybe. I can't say what would have happened.”
Please note, he did not deny that General Giap was considering such a negotiated surrender, as many have claimed he never did.
In an earlier interview with former North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin, that appeared in the August 3, 1995 Wall Street Journal, he said of the outcome of the Tet of 68 offensive, “Our losses were staggering and a complete surprise;. Giap later told me that Tet had been a military defeat, though we had gained the planned political advantages when Johnson agreed to negotiate and did not run for re-election. The second and third waves in May and September were, in retrospect, mistakes. Our forces in the South were nearly wiped out by all the fighting in 1968. It took us until 1971 to re-establish our presence, but we had to use North Vietnamese troops as local guerrillas. If the American forces had not begun to withdraw under Nixon in 1969, they could have punished us severely. We suffered badly in 1969 and 1970 as it was.”
If not for leftists such as Walter Cronkite, Jane Fonda, John Kerry, Ramsey Clark, Eugene McCarthy and so many more, Westmoreland’s “light at the end of the tunnel” would most likely have been proved true.
The Battle of the Bulge in World War Two was an act of desperation. So was the Tet of 68 Offensive and like the Battle of the Bulge, it failed on the Battleground.
Yet, it succeeded in the streets and media of America and those of us who ignored the enlightened view of it was “was too deadly, too expensive, and too stupid to continue” have been paying the price from many ever since, who for some reason, hold it against us because it was lost, when it was lost due to their lack of support, reflected in the media and at the cost of an additional 40,000 American lives.
But what do we know? No one has ever been interested in hearing from those of us who actually served there.
Seems like viet nam vets take Walter Cronkites accidental/malicious misreporting of Tet a little personal!
Screw Kronkite. Burn baby, burn.
Sorry to break the news to you, but history has shown that your parents, good and decent people I’m sure, were just wrong.
Thank God for some reason to this insanity on Vietnam. We should never have been there in the first place. Walter Cronkite didn’t lose this war (I am not a fan of his), it was lost the minute we got involved.
It will always be the last of the wars of its kind and that was part of the problem. Drafts are not the way to approach a war in a democracy and it killed a lot of men who would have otherwise been productive elsewhere. Drafts are like Obama’s ‘spread the wealth’ : everyone is equal. A physics’ genius is the same as a farm hand. Well, BS. The United States was not at risk and we decided to extend a losing French war of imperialism in a backwater swamp.
The 2nd and 3rd points are valid but I think the biggest issue was a blanket government decree to go fight, in a country no one gives a damn about, regardless of your possible impact on society elsewhere.
But I'm thinking it really loud.
Think it all you like. But try, as hard as it is, to come up with something outside of an ad hominem attack. It will really show a bit more class.
Ya’ll sound just like those COMMIE BASTURDS I/WE
fought in the 60’s!!!
For that matter, ask a lot of Australians.
We tend to see this war differently from Americans (although there are quite of Australians, unfortunately, who have uncritically swallowed the left wing propaganda).
We were the domino on the end of the row of dominos. We saw what was coming if it wasn't stopped. And we did what we could to stop it, and were bloody glad of our allies who did the same - especially when they were strong enough to do more than we could do, like the US.
Vietnam itself may have been lost depending on how you want to define a loss or a victory, but it was, it was a classic case of losing a battle and winning a war. Because Vietnam proved to the communist world, it couldn't just walk on down through south east Asia and take whatever it wanted. The west would fight. It would pay a high price. It wouldn't just let free nations fall without doing anything.
In World War II, we couldn't stop aggression through Asia until it was in New Guinea and just off Australia's coast. With Vietnam, we proved we weren't going to let it get that close again. We were ready.
The British Commonwealth proved it in Malaya. America proved it in Vietnam - communists learned that we'd fight. And though some places fell to them, the majority of South East Asia stayed free of communist control.
AMEN BROTHER.
Let’s go with informed. You don’t know squat about me so try and use a bit more reasoned argument than ‘you’re just a commie’ traitor.
Wars where men are the driving factor for victory have been petering out for a long time. When you force free men to serve for a cause that isn’t worth fighting for, Vietnam is what you get. Eisenhower warned against involvement in Vietnam so is he a ‘Commie’.
Vietnam was a disaster for this country. For the men who fought there, the scars it caused, and the multiple DEMOCRATIC presidents who perpetuated it.
Good points FRiend.
What amazes me is that we’ve actually seen not one, but TWO likely John Kerry voters pop up in this thread to demonstrate their effin ignorance.
The fact is, LBJ and that asshat McNamara screwed up the war effort from top to bottom. Nixon ended up having to make the best of a bad situation, and after the Communists violated the so-called ‘Paris Peace Accord’, it was a DEMOCRAT Congress that shut off all assistance to our allies in South Vietnam and brought about the human massacres that followed.
You new to the internet? Do a little homework. Start here.
__________________________________________________________
In August of 1995 Stephen Young interviewed Bui Tin for the Wall Street Journal. Here are a few excerpts from that interview:
Question: How did Hanoi intend to defeat the Americans?
Answer: By fighting a long war which would break their will to help South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh said, “We don’t need to win military victories, we only need to hit them until they give up and get out.”
Q: Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi’s victory?
A: It was essential to our strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us.
Q: What was the purpose of the 1968 Tet Offensive?
A: To relieve the pressure Gen. Westmoreland was putting on us in late 1966 and 1967 and to weaken American resolve during a presidential election year.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/04/goodbye_saigon_goodbye_baghdad.html
Prayers for the families of Marines, sailors, and soldiers who were needlessly killed in Vietnam after Cronkite helped Hanoi by feeding the anti-war frenzy that helped create the very “quagmire” he “reported” about. Feeding the anti-war frenzy in America was Hanoi’s strategy from the beginning.
You wrap yourself in the flag as an argument. It seems you served so I am grateful. However, this country was founded on free men volunteering to fight for a cause. The current military is volunteer so obviously it is the way that the world was moving or do you believe we need a draft today?
Many good men volunteered for Vietnam. As soon as you compel people to fight, however, they have a huge reason to question why. In the case of Vietnam, the reasoning was lacking and the end shows. It matters not whether Tet was a success for the US 9it was) but we were in a war that had no compelling interest for the US.
Your photos are merely an indication that you don’t have an argument to counter this.
So your default position is that America should have allowed Vietnam to go Communist after the French headed for the exit?
seeing him entertain the clintons on his sailboat is all I need to know about his leanings
Damn right because it cost us far more than the alternative. Would it have been a setback? Sure. But it left us with a rift in society that has repurcussions to this day.
In the 1950s and 60s, America became far more imperialist: it was a wrong turn. Our desire to fight communism, a defunct system, overwhelmed our understanding of the foundations of this country. We set in play an erosion of principle to fight a menace that could have been fought in other means.
For someone to call me a commie is a freaking joke considering my kids were quoting the Constitution today because i want them to understand liberty and what it means to be an American.
The government should have the right to compel service but not for a backwater swamp like Vietnam. There was simply no basis. if the government feels like they have a case, make it and take your volunteers. Plenty of men volunteered to fight in Vietnam but compelling someone does not engender support. Bayonets against the citizens gives us Iran.
CM68......I doubt ‘wireplay’ knows the significance of what you posted....probably never seen anything like that at all....you have to have smelled it to know.
Another ad-hominem comment.
So, serving in the military is a mandatory requirement for commenting. I suppose you cannot comment on Obama since you have never been President?
So your point is that you served (micro environment) and therefore you know more about the macro environment for war, drafts, politics, etc.?
You are not only dead wrong, you are brazenly wrong, and you know it. Communisim is based on spreading across countries, and that is exactly what was happening in Viet Nam. Your braying against the draft is a side issue, separate from the purpose of the war. In addition, all of the supposed failures you cite are (as has been pointed out on this thread) due to media lies about actual successes, which turned public opinion in a way which was counted on by the enemy. In short, we didn't lose, we were betrayed. And the reason we fought was to stem the expansion of a known, viable enemy which stil seeks our destruction to this day.
You're completely full of it, and you violate the memories of those who died fighting for your right to spew your lies. But I will not let your spin go without stark rebuttal - you are utterly, completely wrong.
No one questioned his experience or demeaned the service but I believe the original point was about the draft and Cronkite. How does a pamphlet change any of that?
So, I can expect no comment from any of you on a subject you have never directly (in the trenches) been involved in? That is the standard you want to be judged by? No gay marriage position until you have had a relationship and stood in front of a judge? No debate on cap-and-trade until you have owned an oil company and been impacted at their level? No commenting on Somali pirates unless you have held an AK-47 and fired on a ship?
Brilliant, simply brilliant.
probably never seen anything like that at all....you have to have smelled it to know.
~~~
Ain’t that the damned truth,,,
I guess we’re on the
“Shot at and Missed,Shit at and hit”list!,,,
Welcome Home,Brother!...
Sorry, but I am behind the people who died fighting this war. Don’t confuse an argument not to be involved with concern for the people who had to implement it.
There is a difference between articulating your argument about the advances of Communism, halting it, and asking for volunteers vs compelling people to serve. Did the media skew the debate? Sure, look at Dan Rather as a prime example. Debate that separately from saying that ours was a noble cause. It wasn’t. It was political and a perpetuation of a bad idea.
It was a noble cause. We won every battle but lost the war because of lilly livered dumb ass followers of Kronkite back home. Still we stopped them; Indonesia was the turning point, and this led ultimately to the collapse of the Soviet block. Were it not for the sons of bitches you seem to admire we would also have saved Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and the Soviet block would have collapsed 10 years earlier.
So go ahead toot your communist sympathizing pacifist horn. It’s doubtful any amount of freedom loving logic will have much effect on you.
I never met any of the Aussie Troops in Viet Nam, but always appreciated your presence, as well as the Koreans (who I did serve near with).
I was lucky enough to take my R&R in your wonderful country in 1970 and still hold very fond memories of my week there.
So, serving in the military is a mandatory requirement for commenting. I suppose you cannot comment on Obama since you have never been President?
So your point is that you served (micro environment) and therefore you know more about the macro environment for war, drafts, politics, etc.?
~~~
No,,,Make all the damn fool comments ya’ like,,,
My BC was shown by my Mom when I enlisted at 17,,,
Where is his !,,,
What wisdom I have comes from my age for the most part,,,
What were you doin’ in ‘68,Sonny ? ...
Do you realize that the policies implemented during this period of time may actually cost us the freedoms to this date? This is the era that led to Obama, the Clintons, etc. because of a lack of governmen control.
What is missing with this quote from Eisenhower:
we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
Is that the best you can come up with ' communist sympathizing pacifist horn'?
How pathetic. To call me a Communist and a pacifist is a joke but it is a taunt. Try and come off of the playground at some point and argue it like an adult.
BTW, you did start on a positive note (adjectives aside) and began a cohesive argument for SE Asia domino theory then decided to go into a tirade. Make a point and hold the line: no need to use invectives because they invalidate the argument.
You have zero proof that the USSR would have collapsed 10 years earlier. The collapse of the USSR seems to have been economic (thank you Reagan) and internal (Gulag Archipelago and others) so saying that our halt to expansion would have led to it is a stretch.
I was very young and really don't remember a lot about the Vietnam war. The only info given was from the 3 alphabet networks and what I have read as an adult, and I do remember the news was always being on the side of our defeat. This would seem to be the first war that the mass media and Hollywood types jumped onto to show the US as being weak and able to be defeated in war. Hollywood types in the WW era and even in the Korean conflict, promoted the US not help defeat it.
It's exactly what was being played out in Iraq. The media and Hollywood promoted defeat and the American voters bought it and the Dems have complete control because of this, even when we were on the winning side. Now that the Dems are in control the media doesn't even mention Iraq, no body counts nothing (It almost seems as if maybe we won).
In closing, even if you believe we shouldn't have been their, Americans do not turn tail and run when met with challenges, no matter how severe. The US took on other countries problems, we've always done it. Congress got in the way of victory and with the help of the weakened public view on the war, lost it.
Well, I was 4 years old and about to have my world upturned.
As of yet, you have nothing to stand on other than you served there which I recognize and commend. Nothing you have said invalidates anything of what I have said. Calling me a burning POS or having folks call me a Communist simply makes it a school yard. I would hope FR brings better out of people.
For the record, I did not call you a communist. I suggested you were tooting the horn, in other words, using the same propaganda as Kronkite (missspelling intentional). You’re right about Reagan, but it wasn’t just economic, and it was a follow on to what Reagan and other freedom loving conservatives had advocated during the Vietnam war.
You are mixing and reversing my point - I specifically separated the draft from the reason we fought. Our reason was, in fact, a noble cause. The draft was a separate issue, and largely hindered by the antiwar movement which taught draftees that the war was, as you say, "a perpetuation of a bad idea."
You are defending against aggression against communism. Fundamentally, you are wrong. Specifically, though arguments exist that communism in Viet Nam was non-threatening, many other indicators pointed to Viet Nam being a significant expansion point, and necessary to stop where it was. Certainly the Communists fought like hell to protect their advancement there - something they wouldn't have done if it was irrelevant.
I have heard many people claim to be "behind the people who died fighting this war" but "concerned for the people who had to implement it." They all claimed any perception of hypocrisy on their part was "confusion" or "ignorance" or "misunderstanding" as you do. Nonsense. You stand against the war, and thus against those who fought it. Your claims of caring for the fighters in a war against those you support are bogus.
Yours are fifth column efforts, implemented decades after the war, to continue to undermine clarity about the absolute evil of communism. In short, you defend evil with devious means, for destructive ends, against your own country.
Sorry, your parents simply were part of the blind lemmings that followed the commie cronkite and ultimately gave America a communist in the white house.
And that's the way it REALLY was...
We were precluded from winning the war but the media was only a part. We compelled people to fight: that was wrong.
No one argued that a government couldn’t say: we are holding the line against communism. Hell, people volunteered for it over the issue: I know for a fact.
That said, forcing people to fight and dragging them off to a faraway country that didn’t matter was wrong, IMO.
I supported the Iraq War and argued vociferously for it. But we are now a volunteer army: there is a big distinction. The government built a case and used its resources. in the 1960s, dragging college students out of classes and making them soldiers was wrong.
It was the end of the era for manpower based wars and it is illustrative of the issues with drafts in a modern age.
All you know about it is what you have read/heard,,,
We killed Giap’s whole friggin’ army and Walter Cronkite
lied his commie lovin’ ass off about it on the news > . <
Wally Lied,G.I.’s Died !...TRAITOR !...
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