OBITUARY: Cronkite's coverage helped turn tide against Vietnam War

Jul 18, 2009, 20:03 GMT

A file picture dated 14 September 2001 shows former CBS newsman Walter Cronkite after he received Laura Honoris Causa in Communication Science at Sapienza University in Rome. Walter Cronkite, the former CBS news anchor whose steady baritone informed, reassured and guided the nation during the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s, died 17 July 2009, CBS News announced. He was 92. EPA/LUCIANO DEL CASTILLO

Washington - Walter Cronkite, the iconic journalist who reported from World War II battlefields and is credited with helping turn public opinion against the Vietnam War, died Friday in New York at the age of 92.

Cronkite's calm and kindly demeanour earned him the nicknames 'Uncle Walter' and 'the most trusted man in America' from viewers.

He served as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981 and usually ended each broadcast with a phrase that became his signature: 'And that's the way it is.'

The typically stoic and composed Cronkite is also remembered for times when he did let his feelings show.

Cronkite famously removed his glasses and shed a few tears on air when reporting the death of US president John F Kennedy in 1963. Six years later, viewers saw a near-speechless Cronkite smiling with delight as NASA astronauts landed on the moon.

'When Walter rejoiced over man landing on the moon, America rejoiced with him,' newsman Ted Koppel told CBS in 2007.

Walter Leland Cronkite Jr was born in St Joseph, Missouri in 1916. The son of a dentist, he attended the University of Texas at Austin, but dropped out to begin his career in journalism.

He worked as a news writer and editor, then a radio announcer, and joined the United Press in 1937.

As a World War II correspondent, Cronkite went ashore on D-Day and flew along on bombing missions over Germany. Cronkite was United Press' chief correspondent during the Nuremberg war crimes trials, and later served as Moscow bureau chief.

After returning from Europe, Cronkite joined the CBS Washington affiliate in 1950. The term 'anchorman' was first used to describe his central role in covering the first televised Democratic and Republican National Conventions in 1952.

In 1968, while serving as anchor of the CBS Evening News, Cronkite filed a series of reports from Vietnam and offered his personal commentary that 'the bloody experience of (the Vietnam War) is a stalemate.' Some historians say this helped turn public opinion against the war.

US president Lyndon Johnson, who would later step down from running for a second full term because of growing resistance to the war, reportedly told aides at the time: 'If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America.'

After his retirement from CBS Evening News, Cronkite occasionally reported as a special correspondent for CBS, CNN and National Public Radio into the 21st century. He wrote a syndicated column for King Features Syndicate and contributed several blog posts to Huffingtonpost.com in 2005 and 2006. His autobiography, A Reporter's Life, was published in 1996.

Cronkite also lent his voice to numerous documentaries, including several on space exploration - a topic that fascinated him for his entire life. In 2006, he became the first non-astronaut to receive US space agency NASA's Ambassador of Exploration Award.

Cronkite received every major TV journalism award, including the prestigious Peabody. In 1981, US president Jimmy Carter awarded Cronkite the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honour a US civilian can receive.

An avid sailor since 1947, Cronkite often spent time on Maryland's Chesapeake Bay.

Cronkite married journalist Mary Elizabeth 'Betsy' Maxwell in 1940, and they remained together until her death in 2005. His children, Nancy Cronkite, Cathy Cronkite and Walter Cronkite III, survive him.

On March 6, 1981, as he ended his final broadcast as anchorman, Cronkite said: 'Old anchormen, you see, don't fade away, they just keep coming back for more. And that's the way it is.'