Walter Cronkite, 1916-2009

I met Walter Cronkite at CBS headquarters in Manhatten in August, 1971. I had been invited by and provided air transportation to and a hotel room in Manhatten at the Holiday Inn for an interview by Mike Wallace for a Sixty Minutes segment.

Walter had made the following statement on October 1, 1969 on the CBS Evening News: ???CBS News has just learned that Special Forces Captain John McCarthy is serving a life sentence in the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, under similar charges of premeditated murder that were dismissed today by President Nixon against the eight ???Green Berets??? arrested in Vietnam for the alleged murder of a Vietnamese double agent.???

Five days later, the gates of Fort Leavenworth???s Military Penetentiary opened for me.

That is the power of the press and Walter Cronkite.

I heard nothing further from Mike Wallace. The story was spiked. Pauley was in charge of CBS at the time and was using CIA agents posing as reporters around the world.

Sometime after this, Mike Wallace attempted suicide but I don???t know that it was related to not airing the above information.

And all of a sudden, Congress is abluster that the CIA lied to them about the continuing use of assassination teams operating around the world!

What would Walter Cronkite say to this ???old news??? revelation?

vpocv@hotmail.com
http://johnmccarthy90066.tripod.com/id1.html
http://johnmccarthy90066.tripod.com/id48.html
http://www.geocities.com/larryjodaniel/21.html
http://www.geocities.com/larryjodaniel/22.html
??? John McCarthy

Cronkite is the journalistic standard that today's journalists fail to even get close to... what with the obvious biases in news media today and lack of just, fair, factual and even reporting today on all news media and internet, it is no wonder that people the world over are so confused and clueless!

Hopefully, Mr. Cronkite's passing will remind current journalists, and the rest of us, of just exactly where the standard is. His kind is sorely needed today.

Cronkite is a legend from the bygone days of honest journalism, and that's the way it is... --- found a cool site; Balkingpoints ; incredible satellite view of earth

The Onion on Cronkite's death: "Most Trusted, Last Trusted Man In America Dies". I just about laughed my ass off.

Out of all the supposed celebrities and famous people who have passed this year, to me this is the saddest. I grew up watching CBS evening news with Walter Cronkite. I agree with ranchkid. To bad the news and the people who " report/ deliver" the news do not live up to standards, integrity and objectivity of Walter Cronkite.

Today's television presentation of commercials takes precedence over news. The percentage of commercials is approaching fifty per cent of the time consumed in trying to find out if there really is any news. Cronkite probably wouldn't have survived in this environment because he was accustomed to being able to present a fuller picture without such frequent interruption. And the bias is sickening, both right and left. I have just about given up on trying to watch the "programs" which claim to be presenting news. All that is left is the internet and our gradually diminishing newspapers. Maybe a magazine or two.

I think what we should be saying is why doesn't tv news want to live up to the Walter Cronkite standards?

A simple indication of the trivial issues people focus on today: a website as to whether or not Cronkite's voice was annoying. Just how low can we sink as a society?

farewell to an amazingly decent person, don't know how the hell he ever made it in tv news

There is nobody like him today. He will be missed.

There is a funny poll running over at www.tinyurl.com/cronkitevote as to whether Walter Cronkite had an annoying voice or not. Go vote!

Somehow you knew that he was always trying to give it to you straight. It just showed.