Uncle Walter

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Although it wasn’t planned, three of the places I visited on my Texas trip had a strong connection to Uncle Walter, so I thought I’d spend a moment talking about him and those connections. When I was growing up Walter Cronkite was known as “the most trusted man in America.” I remember reading late in his life he said he was a liberal, but you never knew who he voted for or what his politics were from his newscasts. (Yes, kids, you may not believe this, but there was a time when people just reported the news, not gave their opinion disguised as news.) Cronkite was from Missouri, but news happens everywhere, which put him in three stories tied to places I went in Texas. The long photo on the left is the sixth floor of the old Texas School Book Depository building, which now houses the Sixth Floor Museum. If you’ve seen anything on JFK’s assassination you’ve seen Cronkite reading the bulletin: “From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1 PM central standard time.” As he said it, he removed his glasses. He paused to gather his emotions (his voice cracked a little) before continuing the news. The top right photo is from one of the display signs at the LBJ Ranch, showing President Johnson with Reverend Billy Graham. This is something I distinctly remembering happening, because I turned to my parents and said, “I always wondered why he had a phone on his desk.” On January 22, 1973, in the middle of the CBS Evening News, a taped report ended and the camera came back to Walter, who was on the phone. He motioned to the camera (and the audience), excused himself to the man he was talking to on the phone (Tom Johnston), and, with the phone still to his ear, announced the breaking news that President Johnson had suffered a fatal heart attack at his ranch a couple of hours earlier. He quizzed Johnston on the phone and relayed his answers to the viewers. The bottom right photo is a picture hanging in the New London School Museum. Yes, Walter Cronkite was there, too. He was a 20-year-old wet-behind-the-ears reporter for the Dallas bureau of United Press International on March 18, 1937. When news of the explosion in New London reached the news desk he was dispatched to New London to cover it. In his memoirs, A Reporter’s Life, Cronkite wrote, “I did nothing in my studies nor in my life to prepare me for a story of the magnitude of that New London tragedy, nor has any story since that awful day equaled it.” And that’s the way it was for us, and for Walter Cronkite. Here’s the video of Cronkite talking to Tom Johnston, receiving news of LBJ’s death on January 22, 1973: