Tom's Journal.
Bob "Bomber" Gibson
Australian Vietnam Veteran.
Rifleman D&E Platoon 1 ATF
1967 - Oct 1968 TET .
DUTY FIRST
MEDIA MATTERS
Meet the real Walter Cronkite
'Most trusted' newsman pushed radical agenda
Posted: July 18, 2009
11:40 pm Eastern
By Joseph Farah
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
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| Walter Cronkite |
WASHINGTON – Walter Cronkite is dead at 92 – but most Americans, many of whom considered him "the most trusted man" in the country during his reign as CBS News anchor – still don't know what motivated him and how he secured such an influential and lofty position.
He was like a grandfatherly institution in the early days of TV. People believed him. Uncle Walter wouldn't lie, America believed.
Thus, when he gave his opinions, they had impact. One example was his report on the Tet offensive in Vietnam, which is credited with swinging the tide of opinion against the war.
Even in his death, however, nobody has addressed how and why an otherwise obscure figure at the time was elevated to become the most prominent anchorman on television.
The story was told publicly in the July 10, 2000, edition of the Nation, a Marxist-oriented journal, in a report on death of Blair Clark, who served as editor of the Nation from 1976 through 1978: "Whether it was calling on Philip Roth to recommend a Nation literary editor or persuading CBS News president Richard Salant to make Walter Cronkite anchor of CBS Evening News, Blair had a gift for the recognition and recruitment of excellence."
Clark was not only the editor of the Nation, he was also heir to the Clark thread fortune, a Harvard classmate and friend of John F. Kennedy, a buddy of Washington Post Editor Ben Bradlee and the manager of Eugene McCarthy's 1968 campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
He veered back and forth between politics and journalism seamlessly as an associate publisher of the New York Post, a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, vice president and general manager of CBS News and yet remained a fixture in Democratic Party politics throughout his career.
Clark wasn't the kind of man who would promote Walter Cronkite for the most visible job in journalism because of his press accomplishments alone – and his press accomplishments were noticeably meager.
Cronkite never graduated from college. He had entered the University of Texas at Austin, but left to take a part-time job reporting for the Houston Post. In 1939, he got a job at United Press and covered World War II.
While working for UP, Cronkite was offered a job at CBS by Edward R. Murrow – and turned it down. He finally accepted a second offer in 1950, and stepped into the new medium of television.
He became the host of "You Are There" in which key moments of history were recreated by actors. Cronkite was depicted on camera interviewing "Joan of Arc" or "Sigmund Freud." But somehow, he managed to make it believable. From that entertainment series, he went on to be named host of "The Morning Show" on CBS, where he was paired with a partner: a puppet named Charlemagne. In 1961, CBS named him the anchor of the "CBS Evening News" – a 15-minute news summary anchored for several years by Douglas Edwards, thanks to prodding from a socialist activist who edited The Nation.
Just a few years later, his commentaries on the Vietnam War were credited with turning the tide of American opinion against that conflict.
"But Walter was always more than just an anchor," said Barack Obama upon his death. "He was someone we could trust to guide us through the most important issues of the day; a voice of certainty in an uncertain world. He was family. He invited us to believe in him, and he never let us down. This country has lost an icon and a dear friend, and he will be truly missed."
After leaving his position with CBS, Cronkite's political activism and offbeat ideas had no restraints.
In 1989, Cronkite spoke to a dinner organized by People for the American Way, a group founded by Norman Lear. His candid politics surprised even that audience.
- "I know liberalism isn't dead in this country," he said. "It simply has, temporarily we hope, lost its voice."
- "About the Democratic loss in this election ... it was not just a campaign strategy built on a defensive philosophy. It was not just an opposition that conducted one of the most sophisticated and cynical campaigns ever. ... It was the fault of too many who found their voices stilled by subtle ideological intimidation."
- "We know that unilateral action in Grenada and Tripoli was wrong. We know that Star Wars means uncontrollable escalation of the arms race. We know that the real threat to democracy is half a nation in poverty. ... We know that religious beliefs cannot define patriotism. ... God Almighty, we've got to shout these truths in which we believe from the housetops. Like that scene in the movie 'Network,' we've got to throw open our windows and shout these truths to the streets and the heavens. And I bet we'll find more windows are thrown open to join the chorus than we'd ever dreamed possible."
In 1999, he appeared at the United Nations to accept the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award from the World Federalists Association. He told those assembled, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, that the first step toward achieving a one-world government – his personal dream – is to strengthen the United Nations.
"It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace," he said. "To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order."
In his acceptance speech, Cronkite added, "Pat Robertson has written in a book a few years ago that we should have a world government, but only when the Messiah arrives. He wrote, literally, any attempt to achieve world order before that time must be the work of the devil. Well, join me. I'm glad to sit here at the right hand of Satan."
Later, in an interview with the BBC, Cronkite described this new order as something that sounded like a militaristic world dictatorship.
"I wouldn't give up on the U.N. yet," he said. "I think we are realizing that we are going to have to have an international rule of law. We need not only an executive to make international law, but we need the military forces to enforce that law and the judicial system to bring the criminals to justice before they have the opportunity to build military forces that use these horrid weapons that rogue nations and movements can get hold of – germs and atomic weapons."
He spoke openly about the need for America to give up its national sovereignty.
"American people are going to begin to realize they are going to have to yield some sovereignty to an international body to enforce world law, and I think that's going to come to other people as well," he said. "It's a fair distance to get there, but we are not ever going to get there unless we keep trying to push ourselves onto the road."
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His book "Taking America Back: A Radical Plan to Revive Freedom, Morality and Justice" has gained newfound popularity in the wake of November's election. Farah also edits the online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business.
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Readers posted comments
And Cronkite's claim that becuase we were losing during the Tet Offensive, the war was lost...nothing further from
the truth could have been said! In fact, for every Ameican lost during the Tet Offensive, 100 of the enemy were lost.
At the Battle of the Ardennes Salient (The Battle of the Bulge), the Allies were losing for the first few days. By Walter's logic, we should have withdrawn all American forces and left Europe to the Germans.
We were losing the first few months of the Pacific Campaign in World War Two - Pearl Harbor, Philippines, Java Sea.
The Battle of the Coral Sea was a tie. It wasn't until Midway that we started winning.
Would Walter have advised giving up in April of 1942 and abandoning the Pacific to the Japanese Empire?
In those days, our "exit strategy" was "unconditional surrender" by the enemy; as opposed to now when our "exit strategy" is "unconditional surrender" by us.
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I'm convinced that the only reason World War Two was considered a "good war" was because Hitler invaded the Left's hero-nation, the Soviet Union.... You're probably correct. In fact, the Hollywood commies, who got their marching orders from Stalin, were ordered to not write any scripts critical of Hitler during the Soviet/Nazi non-aggression pact. Much pressure was put on Lillian Hellman (big-time commie) to keep her play Watch on the Rhine from being filmed. When she wrote it, the Russians and Nazis were at each other throats. Once the two countries made nice, the play became an embarrassment.
After Hitler invaded Russia, it became cool again to dis the Nazis.
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The day that Cronkite stepped over the line and criticized the Viet Nam war was a watershed moment for which mainstream journalism has yet to recover.
His declaration that the Tet Offensive was a draw when it really was a decisive US victory is as egregious as Dan Rather’s trying to bring down a president with forged documents. The difference is, we didn’t have the conservative blogosphere back then.
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“Save the besieged troops at Khe Sanh !!!! “ Screamed the images from Life magazine on down...... ”Besieged” my butt.
The battle for Khe Sanh was your standard run of the mill mouse trap with the cheese being this little forward base seemingly cut off from support.
The NVA thought they had this in the bag and committed thousands of little guys to win world wide bragging rights.
While Cronkite and Life showed the base being rocketed , the bodies on the wire started to pile up.....and the pile kept growing as death fell from the skies and wiped out the attacking waves.
Think of the movie “Zulu”........now multiply the enemy kia by about a zillion and you get the idea what was really going on over there during that time period.
We had never been able to get enough of the little short guys together.....it was the “Khe Sanh cheese” that did it.
I read that rats feeding off the bodies on the wire were returning deeper into N. Vietnam and spreading diseases...I remember bubonic plague was a term mentioned.....
No mother, father, brother, sister or child wants their loved one to be used as bait to draw the enemy out in large numbers, better to present the Alamo image to the public.......now you know the truth.....in my opinion :)
Khe Sanh was one of the truly great military victories....screw Cronkite and Life magazine. If we could have tweetered to the American Public........you get the idea.”
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I can remember quite clearly the night that my father - a Democrat - watched Walter Cronkite and started to swear in anger over the clear anti-military agenda. After that evening, he'd still go to the local CBS affiliate for the local newscast, but went elsewhere for the national news, even though NBC was considered "second-string" at our house, and ABC was seen as almost hapless.
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My father couldn't believe the evening news when he got back from Vietnam. He said it was like listening to somebody that hadn't even been in the same places that he'd been. He hated Cronkite after Tet. I was young and couldn't really get worked up about a news reader. Since then I've seen the cr#p that Rather, Jennings and the rest of the MSM has pulled.
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I had 2 brothers, a sister and 2 BiL serve in WWII and was a proud American then I came home from a bad day at work sat down with my bottle of beer in hand when Cranktite panned the Vietnam war. I went into a rage and threw that nearly full bottle at the TV and missed but it went through 2 layers of sheetrock into the garage. I had a friend patch the inside hole and panel that wall but left the one in the garage as a reminder...
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I came home form Viet Nam in the spring of 1968. I went to listen to the news and was so infuriated that I seldom could stomach TV let alone the news for years. The country that I had departed was totally different than what was being said. I still do not trust the media. Tet was a surprise attack that was a total victory for the Army. I have totally no respect for lying liberals. John Kerry you are a liar. I did not kill any babies or rape and pillage the landslide.
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Lets not forget the allied forces of South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and South Viet Nam as well as the U.S.N., U.S.M.C. & U.S.A.F.
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He was selected by leading Marxists to spread their lies and did so for many generations and much to the detriment of America. People like Cronkite are dangerous because they have the center stage and his arrogance and “know-it-all” tone sounds very much like our new President. It has worked for decades and now Barry has picked up the baton.
It is time for America to wake up and stop putting their faith in these phoney patriots, their way leads to the end of America.
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Well said. I have noticed the left always talks about “exit strategies”. How about winning? They also always try to paint America and Americans in the worst possible light when we are at war. If I am fair, then I must truthfully admit America has made mistakes. Every nation has. But in the course of history, no nation has given as much of themselves for the benefit of all humankind as America. What kind of world would we now have if in 1941 our leaders asked about “exit strategy”?
But, take a good long look around the world. America is it’s last great hope. We have to fix ourselves - because as bad as things are in America, without a free America - the world looks pretty dark.
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