Posted on 07/19/2009 5:59:39 AM PDT by kellynla
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."
Clark was not only the editor of the Nation, he was also heir to the Clark thread fortune, a Harvard classmate and friend of John F. Kennedy, a buddy of Washington Post Editor Ben Bradlee and the manager of Eugene McCarthy's 1968 campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
He veered back and forth between politics and journalism seamlessly as an associate publisher of the New York Post, a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, vice president and general manager of CBS News and yet remained a fixture in Democratic Party politics throughout his career.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
Thank you.
"...we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace," he said. "To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order."
In his acceptance speech, Cronkite added, "Pat Robertson has written in a book a few years ago that we should have a world government, but only when the Messiah arrives. He wrote, literally, any attempt to achieve world order before that time must be the work of the devil. Well, join me. I'm glad to sit here at the right hand of Satan."
This has been in the works a long time. We just never really believed it could happen.
First they make people stupid. Then they make them complacent. Finally they skewer them and consume them.
Thanks for the ping, Dr E.
I don’t open FReepmail.
If you have something to say to me;
you can post it here.
I'm sure you're right; I just couldn't remember, although one could look at the situation and hazard saying, "well, of course it was." Even without martial law, Gen. Loan was fully justified by the laws of war.
Cronkite, that old seditious liberal, must have nearly cheered when he read the 45 Communist goals published in the 1963 Congressional Record. He certainly did his part to take us there. And, he likely is sitting right where he wanted to be as a result of the darkness he loved.
Cronkite: Bush working with bin Laden
Says he thinks Rove set up videotape terror threat
Posted: October 31, 2004
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=27302
Walter Cronkite, the former CBS anchor once dubbed “the most trusted man in America,” speculated on CNN’s “Larry King Live” that President Bush’s re-election campaign is working with Osama bin Laden.
On Friday night, King showed Cronkite an excerpt from the al-Qaida videotape released earlier that day on the al-Jazeera satellite network in which bin Laden says: “Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al-Qaida. Your security is in your own hands. Any nation that does not attack us will not be attacked.”
Asked for his reaction, Cronkite said: “So now the question is basically right now, how will this affect the election? And I have a feeling that it could tilt the election a bit. In fact, I’m a little inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing. The advantage to the Republican side is to get rid of, as a principal subject of the campaigns right now, get rid of the whole problem of the al Qaqaa explosive dump. Right now, that, the last couple of days, has, I think, upset the Republican campaign.”
‘Globalist’ Walter Cronkite gets weekly column
Ex-CBS anchor inks deal to write syndicated news column
Cronkite: And that’s the way Bush is – arrogant
after having rejected previous offers to write commentaries.
Why the change of heart?
In a statement released by King, Cronkite says he’s troubled by “our bellicose military policy; our arrogant foreign policy; our domestic security policy that threatens our freedom of speech, press, and person; and our financial policy that many if not most economists believe threatens a national deficit deep into this century.”
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32975
Robert McNamara, now Uncle Walter. Wonder who will be next, as these things tend to come in threes. Teddy Kennedy????
I wasn’t really trying to be cute about the Red Cross Girls. I thought it was kinda neat to see them up with the guys in the APC’s. I did not get to see Bob Hope and the USO show because I was not a brown noser. The font lines for me were North West of Siagon around the Iron Triangle. We all experienced Viet Nam different. Sure I got shot at with an RPG and ran over a land mine and got a Purple Heart but I look for the brighter side of things to keep from being depressed and a grouch.
I distinctly remember as a child hearing Walter pronounce in a fearful baritone, how the world population would double by the year 2000, and that there would be standing room only.
Walter, I mourn your passing, but you could not have been more wrong on this account. Here we are in the year 2009, and the largest increase in population in the US is from illegal immigration, a cause which you and your liberal buddies champion. This fear of over-population was a seminal argument for the abortion advocates. To my knowledge, Walter Cronkite supported the abortion slaughter. Walter, the blood-guilt of 42 million innocent babies is upon your legacy.
Thank you-good post!
I was aware that he was one of the useful idiots, which makes the generation of our poor parents still left gasp in shock when you tell them you’re not sad they’re gone.
In prep school, the Headmaster tried to teach me how to drive stick...Epic Fail.
At Ft.Bragg, everyone had to get their “license” to drive a deuce and a half....I missed out on every class by coincidental commitments ( eg. KP :) )...
L U C K Y !
Cut to Quang Tri 1968.... just before I was detached to Dong Ha.
Master Sgt: “ Sgt. Jaybird..YOU are the driver . Join the convoy to Danang which leaves in one hour ..MOVE !
Sgt. Jaybird ( whining like a little girl )...”But Sgt. I can't drive stick “
Master Sgt: “As you were Jaybird.......Sp4 Knucklehead...drop what your doing
and take Jaybird's place....NOW !
Sp 4 Knucklehead: ( whispered like a little girl) “ yes sgt “.
Look at a map......Quang Tri to Danang......might as well been a convoy to California...talk about land mines...talk about snipers......the accelerator pedal was surrounded with so many sandbags , it had to have it's length extended in order to actually work.
I finally learned how to shift years later at the Harley Davidson plant in York, Pa....they had a course and I passed !!! There is a God in Heaven.
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