Walter Cronkite Has Blood on His Hands

American Thinker ^ | July 19, 2009 | Matt Patterson

[neverdem]

On February 27, 1968, Walter Cronkite delivered his verdict on the (ongoing) war in Vietnam. The most trusted man in America pronounced that it was "...more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam War is to end in a stalemate."

Stalemate....

The Tet Offensive, which battle prompted Cronkite's televised towel throwing, was a decisive American victory -- of the more than 80,000 Communist troops who poured south on the Vietnamese New Year, American and allied South Vietnamese soldiers would kill or capture more than 58,000, while suffering a combined, and comparatively light, 9,000 casualties.

Tet was in fact a disaster for the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. Not only was the invasion repulsed by American forces - who fought valiantly and fiercely in spite of being taken by surprise -- but the uprising in the south upon which the Communists had gambled never happened.

From this, Cronkite conjured his "stalemate." But he was not done with his shameful propaganda, continuing,

"...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."

Not as victors...thus Cronkite convinced America the war was already over and lost, while our men, our soldiers, our sons and fathers, were fighting and dying and triumphing on the field of battle.

Uncle Walter got his wish. America came home -- Saigon fell. The result?

The Viet Cong consolidated its power over the whole of Vietnam. Like all good Communists, they proceeded to enslave the population, herding hundreds of thousands into concentration camps to be tortured, starved, and killed. The people of South Vietnam, who had trusted America and fought alongside us as allies, put to the sea en masse in whatever rickety craft they could find. Hundreds of thousands drowned in this desperate attempt to escape; by 1980, these "Vietnamese Boat People" were recognized as one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of the modern age, as over 800,000 people fled their country in terror.

But that was a picnic compared to what happened next door in Cambodia, where the North Vietnamese-created Khmer Rouge seized power and implemented a policy of systematic extermination. Out of a population of perhaps 7 million, the Communists slaughtered between 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians. Millions more were forced into slave labor.

Walter Cronkite was called the most trusted man in America. He abused that trust, peddling his own opinion (hope?) - steeped in anti-American ideology - as fact. The Killing Fields were fertilized with this man's lies.

So speak to me not of this newsman's great legacy - it lays buried under a mountain of skulls in South East Asia.

Matt Patterson is a National Review Institute Washington Fellow and the author of "Union of Hearts: The Abraham Lincoln & Ann Rutledge Story."  His email is mpatterson.column@gmail.com.

[FlingWingFlyer]

If Cronkite and his boys had told the truth about Tet 68, the war in Vietnam would have had a very different ending.

[Finny]

So speak to me not of this newsman's great legacy - it lays buried under a mountain of skulls in South East Asia.

That was well said. Cronkite gets no professional respect from me. He was a guy who happened to be in the right place at the right time. What he did took about as much skill and discipline as the monkeys they sent up in the space capsules prior to the Apollo missions.

[BIGLOOK]

Thứ tư của Mỹ sản của chúng tôi là cột thứ năm.


(America's fourth estate is our fifth column.)

[tophat9000]

One wonders what reception Uncle Walty got in the other side judgment room by those he helped send earlier...you think he was surprised?

[Constantine XI Palaeologus]

Well, the Viet Cong never took over. The Tet Offensive eliminated them as an effective fighting force. I've even seen speculation that the North Vietnamese government deliberately back-stabbed the Viet Cong to remove them from the picture.

The South was conquered by the NVA in conventional set piece battles pitting the lavishly supplied NVA against the ill-supported (thanks to the Dems) ARVN. It's funny the MSM likes to conveniently neglect that particular factoid and portray the reds as underdogs.

[neverdem]

Thứ tư của Mỹ sản của chúng tôi là cột thứ năm.

I'm impressed. Where did you find all the diacritical marks? My Vietnamese is so rusty, I can only translate Mỹ.

[BIGLOOK]

You can download the VPS Keys program to your computer but it'll take a bit of time and trial to get a handle on typing script. (And a bit of dictionary work too.) It's safe.


(DLI '68, NVN)

[lentulusgracchus]

(America's fourth estate is our fifth column.)

<sigh> .... Concurring bump, unfortunately.

[lentulusgracchus]

One wonders what reception Uncle Walty got in the other side judgment room .....

This must be a season for harvesting Guys Who Lost/Threw the Vietnamese War.

First McNamara, now Cronkite. How about Bill Moyers, Henry the K, and any of the surviving "Best and Brightest" (the mandarins) next? Is Peter Arnett still around? Should be a real quiet elevator for the trip down.

[Mark]

I was there and we did lose some guys, but they went all out and lost a lot more. General Giap(spelling?) who controlled the North Vietnamese wrote in his recent book that they were considering a surrender or truce until they read the American press and they held out.

[truthguy]

So Cronkite was a lefty. No surprise to me on this. I remember Cronkite on the CBS News Evening. He had a kind looking face and a very folksy demeanor. It was easy to trust him. I was just a kid when he reported on the Tet Offensive. I wasn't political at all.

I do remember him from the space launches. He kept saying the Apollo program was a great Scientific Achievement. Many Engineers I know wrote to Cronkite trying to correct him. What the Apollo program was, was a great Engineering achievement. We didn't learn much scientifically from Apollo. Cronkite never corrected himself. I can only speculate he thought he was above it all.

[Entrepreneur]

Great column. History will eventually record this guy for the traitorous tool he was.

[Wooly]

Walter Cronkite was the first TV reporter to break from just reading the news to injecting his views and disguising them as news. He is the father of all the slimballs on MSNBC and CNN.
Good Riddance

[Big Giant Head]

bookmark

[Gurn]

Good riddance to a leftist piece of garbage.

[caver]

The media lovefest for Cronkite over the weekend was most nauseating.

[meandog]

Cha bah! Cronkite’s reporting of Vietnam was about as appealing as a bowl of noodles and nookmam! Our Vietnam memories would translate: “Crolnkite beau coup dinky dow...number 10!”

[TAdams8591]

I am proud to say our family never liked or trusted Walter Kronkite. He will pay the price for what he did and may be already. Thank you for printing the truth about him.

[mission9]

After the series “the Twentieth Century” was over in 1969, after a season’s pause, Walter narrated another new TV series “The Twenty First Century.” This series largely chronicled the promise of new technologies, but also advocated for a Malthuslian future, a world of overpopulation. The popular imagination was stoked with bestsellers like “the Population Bomb” which foretold of a future of dire overcrowding and dwindling resources.
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.

Add to this apocalyptic mentality, the threat of nuclear war.

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, even with this influx, there is still plenty of elbow room.

This fear of over-population was a seminal argument for the abortion advocates. The population bomb was a falsehood of negative thinking.

To my knowledge, Walter Cronkite supported the abortion slaughter. Walter, the blood-guilt of 42 million innocent babies is upon your legacy.