Owens: Two very different send-offs
I haven’t heard or read much about Walter Cronkite during the past week. Uncle Walter seems to have departed this life with the same dignity that characterized his departure from the CBS Evening News in 1981, when he concluded his final newscast with his trademark closer, “And that’s the way it is.”
Meanwhile, the rumor is awash that the “King of Pop,” who preceded Uncle Walter in death by three weeks and a day, fathered a “love child”; an investigation proceeds into whether he was murdered or simply died from a not-uncharacteristic intake of drugs; and they’re still arguing over whether the financially strapped city of Los Angeles squandered needless funds on his funeral.
My normal television viewing pattern wasn’t changed by tributes to Walter, and I didn’t have to navigate my TV remote around endless reminiscences, retrospectives and flashbacks of Walter and his career. Oh, there were some, but they were so inobtrusive that I don’t recall viewing a single one of them.
Didn’t need to. Walter was still vivid in my memory. After all, I remember him from the mornings in the early ’50s when I would view his CBS Morning News program as it was telecast from distant cities—Macon, Ga., Savannah, even Dallas—when the early-morning atmospheric conditions were favorable for pulling in TV signals from over the horizon. I had to reach out, because my local station, WJBF, Channel 6, in Augusta had not yet started signing on before noon.
I was not so familiar with the Moon Walker. His talent had slipped under my radar. But the Moon Talker—the man whose rumbling baritone conducted us through the space program—was something else. He was a heavyweight from the adult world of reality instead of a lightweight from a juvenile Neverland.
So forgive me if I grumble over the contrasting send-offs.
There were a handful of 20th-century figures who shaped our 21st-century world. FDR, Douglas MacArthur, Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein all slipped into history with less fanfare than the King of Pop.
Walter Cronkite doesn’t belong in the company of those giants of the age. He didn’t lead the victorious armies against the Third Reich, or avenge Pearl Harbor, or save Europe from communism, or preserve English civilization, or unlock the secrets of the atom. Like a good journalist, he was an observer, not a participant.
But he does belong in the journalistic pantheon that includes Edward R. Murrow, Eric Severeid, and the news team of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. Uncle Walter’s steadying presence reassured a nation that was negotiating the mine-strewn Cold War terrain, and in a couple of instances he played cameo roles in altering history.
In 1968, after going to Vietnam in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, he concluded his broadcast with these words:
“We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of American leaders, both in Vietnam and in Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. . . . We are mired in stalemate.”
President Lyndon Johnson heard and cringed.
“If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America,” he said. Weeks later, LBJ announced that he wouldn’t run for re-election, thus opening the way for the triumph and tragedy of Richard Nixon.
On another occasion, Cronkite brokered the arrangement through which Egyptian President Anwar Sadat met with Israeli Prime Minister Mehachem Begin at Camp David, with Jimmy Carter mediating.
Cronkite was the first television newscaster to be called an “anchor.” I don’t know how much CBS paid him, but I doubt that his income approached the $54 million annual figure for Rush Limbaugh. But if you count trust as a major component of your assets, Walter far surpassed Rush.
The difference between Uncle Walter and Jack-O was the difference between a trusted emissary and a pied piper. He held the nation’s hand during the Cuban missile crisis, shared its tears after the Kennedy assassination, led the cheers during the conquest of space.
His personal life never tainted his image as a level-headed leader of thought. His 65-year marriage to Mary Elizabeth “Betsy” Maxwell Cronkite ended with her death in 2005. They had three children. There has never been a question about who was their father—or their mother. Had the opportunity arisen, I would never have hesitated to leave my children or grandchildren overnight with Walter and Betsy.
Jack-O’s memorial service was held in the Staples Center in Los Angeles, a sports and entertainment arena. Some 17,000 free tickets were issued. The center can seat around 18,000 and there was an overflow crowd.
Walter Cronkite’s funeral was held before a capacity audience at St. Bartholomew’s Church in midtown Manhattan. A memorial service was scheduled for later at New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which has a seating capacity of 2,738.
For some reason, as I contemplated the send-offs for the sober journalistic giant and the pied piper of popdom, I was reminded of a line from a poem by New Englander Sam Walter Foss, who contrasted the epic feats of Napoleon Bonaparte with the earthy achievements of Sam Pasco, a farmer who transformed a worn-out farm into an oasis of greenery:
“And from some star, may each look down, each stretch his phantom arm, Napoleon toward Austerlitz, Sam Pasco toward his farm.”
Uncle Walter’s was a rich and verdant farm.
Readers may write Gene Owens at 315 Lakeforest Circle, Anderson SC 29625 or e-mail him at [email protected]
