Conversations with Cronkite Review

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(More customer reviews)Like many baby boomers, I grew up with Walter Cronkite on the telly. Night after night, for decades he and his incredibly talented crew of CBS correspondents brought the news into my home. Cronkite, projecting an air of professionalism, objectivity and unflappability, earned my family's trust and that of millions of Americans. While most Americans knew him solely as the CBS anchorman, previously he had a long and fruitful career in reporting, radio and television. That fascinating life and career is detailed IN CONVERSATIONS WITH CRONKITE.
In 1988, the UT-Austin Center for American History decided to create a media history archive and asked Cronkite, who had attended the University of Texas, to donate his papers as the archive's founding collection. Cronkite willingly accepted. The following year, he asked archive director Don Carleton's help in wiriting his autobiography. Carleton agreed. Every three to four months for the next three years, he and Cronkite met and discussed Cronkite's life and career, taping each session. From those sessions came Cronkite's autobiography A REPORTER'S LIFE, published in 1996. Following Cronkite's death in 2009, Carleton decided to edit and publish the transcripts of some 60 hours of conversations he had with "the most trusted man in America," the result: CONVERSATIONS WITH CRONKITE.
After short chapters on Cronkite's early life and schooling, Cronkite's life is laid out chronologically, relating his beginnings as a United Press reporter, his wartime service covering the 8th AF, postwar assignment to Moscow, joining CBS, his early TV series such as 'You are There' and 'Twentieth Century,' the creation of 'CBS Evening News' and all the momentous events they covered, his retirement and post-anchor years. Each chapter is composed of question-and-answer sessions on the various subjects or sub-topics.
It soon becomes evident that CONVERSATIONS WITH CRONKITE aren't just oral history transcripts but the recorded conversations of two friends. Carleton is a perceptive, insightful interviewer and he skillfully leads Cronkite through a fascinating life. Cronkite, in turn, comes across as a straight shooter, down-to-earth and honest and much concerned with doing the right thing. Morley Safer, in his foreword, talks about the reader discovering that Cronkite was "as ornery and petty and vain as most of us," but I disagree. Cronkite has his ornery moments but I think he revealed himself as a hard-working professional who created a tremendous career by seizing opportunities when they presented themselves rather than creating and following a master plan. Several times he tells tales on himself that show him to be eminently human. And it's hard not to like someone who peppers their conversations with "Oh, boy," "My, gosh" and "Oh, golly."
CONVERSATIONS WITH CRONKITE is filled with first-person reminiscenes of momentous events and historic figures - Ed Murrow, the Nuremburg trials, Ike, CBS figures like Salant, Paley, Sevareid and Rather, JFK, the space program, Vietnam, Nixon and Watergate, etc. Seeing all those events from Cronkite's perspective makes for a fascinating, informative and entertaining walk through the history of the 20th Century.
In short, I very much enjoyed CONVERSATIONS WITH CRONKITE. It was a great read and one final opportunity to share time with an exemplary newsman and a marvelous human being. Highly recommended.

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