Walter Cronkite, American icon and broadcast journalist died in his home in New York City on July 17, 2009 of complications with cerebrovascular disease, a dysfunction where the blood vessels restrict bloodflow to the brain. He was 92 years old. Walter Cronkite led a rich, full life. He entered our living rooms for over 40 years and when he retired, he treated us to special presentations for almost three decades. Here are five things that you may not have known about this legendary broadcaster.
Walter Cronkite was one of the top American reporters during World War 2. He was one of eight reporters to be able to fly in bombing missions over Germany and he landed in Holland with the 101st Airborne for Operation Market Garden. If you ever watched the Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg television mini-series, Band of Brothers, this battle is outlined in the series. He also reported during the famous Battle of the Bulge, Germany’s last push for victory during the war. Afterwards, he covered the Nuremberg Trials and served as the main press reporter in Moscow for two years.
He was recruited by Edward R. Murrow to work for CBS after the war and was the first to be given the term “anchor” when he was in charge of the Republican and Democratic conventions and then was in charge of reporting the first televised presidential election.
Cronkite met his wife, Betsy, while the two were working as news correspondents. They married in 1940, had three children and remained together until her death in 2005. He started dating Joanna Simon (Carly Simon’s older sister), an opera singer. In an interview, she stated “they are keeping company together, as the old saying goes.”
Cronkite reported on everything from the battles in WW2, to American politics, to the Kennedy assassination, to the Vietnam War. By the 1960s, he was considered “the most trusted man in America”. As a testament to his power in the media, Cronkite stated that the Vietnam War was “unwinnable” following the Tet Offensive in January, 1968, to which President Lyndon Johnson was said to comment, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”
He was forced into retirement from CBS in 1980 and replaced by Dan Rather. Cronkite didn’t want to retire, but CBS had a strict mandatory retirement policy of age 65. He would go on to do special reports till his death for CBS, CNN, NPR, and the Huffington Post.
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