http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-cronkite-appreciation18-2009jul18,0,5128038.story
IN APPRECIATION
Walter Cronkite: And that's the way it was

By ROBERT LLOYD, Television Critic
5:30 PM PDT, July 17, 2009
For many who grew up in the 1960s and '70s, Walter Cronkite was the voice of unfolding history. On the " CBS Evening News" and on the spot, his eloquent mediation of the great events of an age almost pathologically overflowing with them was essential to the way those events were understood. Even when he was temporarily at a loss for words -- his tears at the death of John F. Kennedy, his inarticulate glee at the moon landing ("Whew, boy!") -- he somehow spoke for the nation he spoke to.

Cronkite was not just a newsman; he was -- like Edward R. Murrow, who brought him to CBS and television -- as close a thing to the idea of a newsman as his age imagined. Except perhaps for Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, his high-powered NBC competition, all TV news anchors, news readers and news reporters, even the most august of them, seemed like variations on his theme, shadows of his Platonic ideal. A decade after his retirement from the anchor's chair, he was still being named the most trusted man in network news.

How to account for this? It was more than just intelligence and talent. The news that Cronkite reported was barely distinct from the news his colleague-competitors reported. (And to the extent it was, it was not the source of his regard.) It must have been something more basic to his bearing and manner of being. He was serious, but good-humored; he had a common touch without being folksy; he was impartial but not amoral, disinterested but not detached, above the fray but not without a point of view, though he never made himself the story. He later expressed regret at his momentary breakdown reporting the Kennedy assassination as behavior not befitting an anchor, but it was exactly that mix of feeling and restraint that defined him.
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  Rest in peace Mr Cronkite.

I guess I am a little older than most, but I remember the day President John F Kennedy was killed in Dallas. The news broke into the regular programming, and Walter Cronkite sat in the newscaster's seat with no coat and tie as was alway protocol back then. He sat there is shirt sleeves and gave us what little was coming out about the shooting at Dealey Plaza and that the president was taken to Parkland Hospital emergency room.

Then he slipped his glasses off, and looked at the camera, and said in a choked voice that President Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1:00 pm CST. I can remember that day as vividly today as I did that day. The world spun off its axis for us. It just couldn't be!

But it was true, and Walter Cronkite led us through those awful days for the next few weeks, and went on to give us other terrible news from Viet Nam and beyond. But he had a firm way of telling us, and we believed him, and I think he told us the truth as he saw it. There were space shots, and other things that were sometimes wonderful and sometimes awful. But he helped us through it.

Some days, I think the world is off its axis again. Right now we are going through a really bad patch. I wonder what Walter would say, and if it would help.

Rest in peace, Walter Cronkite. You certainly made a mark on this world. 

Goodnight Dear Friend ......  Rest well ...

Vietnam. Walter Cronkite and a CBS Camera crew use a jeep for a dolly during an interview with the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, during the Battle of Hue City. 02/20/1968

http://vietnamwarstories.wordpress.com/survey/


http://www.coutant.org/rca74b/index.html


http://newsroom-magazine.com/