On March 6, 1981, Walter Cronkite ended his career as the anchorman for the CBS Evening News with his trademark closing: “And that’s the way it is: March 6, 1981.”
Many younger people will not remember him. Older people certainly remember him. He was the anchorman on the CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981. During the 1960s and 1970s he was often cited in polls as the “most trusted man in America.” The CBS Evening News was usually the most watched news show in the 1960s and 1970s.
He started his career as a reporter in World War II. He was, before that word became current, “embedded” with the American forces. He flew bombing missions over Germany, landed on a glider in France and later covered the Nuremberg trials.
On February 27, 1968, he did not end his broadcast with his trademark verbal signature. Instead, just having returned from Vietnam, he ended an hour broadcast with these words: “We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds.… But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.”
These words, coming from Cronkite, may have been the beginning of the end to the Vietnam War which would take another four years and tens of thousands of American and Vietnamese lives. According to his Press Secretary George Christian, President Johnson is reported to have said: “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost the American people.”
In fact, Johnson had lost the American people well before the broadcast. As early as January 1967, critics of the Vietnam War outnumbered supporters. By August of that year, Johnson’s approval rating on Vietnam had fallen to just 32% in part because “doves” wanted no war “hawks” wanted more war.
On March 12, 1968, two weeks after Cronkite’s broadcast, anti-war candidate Senator Eugene McCarthy shocked the political establishment by winning almost 43% of the vote in the New Hampshire presidential primary. While President Johnson “won” by receiving 48%, it went down as a loss. The pre-election prognostication had placed McCarthy in the 10 to 20% range.
On March 31, just a month after the Cronkite broadcast, Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection.
There are some who will say that Cronkite’s influence was because America was then a simpler place without the tribal jealousies that now exist. But 1968 was not a simple year. In April 1968, Martin Luther King was murdered setting off riots, arson and looting in most of America’s inner cities. In June of 1968, Robert Kennedy was murdered after winning the California primary. In August of 1968, the Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago and the Chicago police waded in to beat thousands of anti-war protesters gathered in Grant Park. An independent Commission later called this a “police riot” and 17 minutes of it was broadcast on national TV with the protesters chanting “the whole world is watching.”
What is true, however, is that Cronkite had a number of advantages which are not currently present. He was the lead anchor on America’s most watched evening show when there were only three shows (CBS, NBC and ABC). There were no cable shows; Twitter did not exist; the poison on the Internet did not exist. Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram were not around. If one wanted to know the news, you tuned to one of the three networks or read your local paper which, in those years, had a following. There was a general consensus that “truth” could be found.
So where are we now? We have a lot of “news” being reported by regular and cable TV and designed to appeal to like-minded listeners. If you want to hear from the “right,” tune in to Fox; from the “left,” tune into MSNBC. If you want to know “the way it is,” good luck.
William Cullen Bryant said that “truth crushed to earth shall rise again.” Today, in many ways, truth has exited the stage. The best example of this is Donald Trump’s continued campaign to claim that the election was stolen from him. Many think that politicians always lie. But, as it turns out, that is not always true.
Former President Bush was giving a talk at his Presidential Library in Houston in the last few weeks. As Maureen Dowd reported in the New York Times he made the “mother of all Freudian slips.” He denounced “the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.” He quickly corrected himself to say that he was referring to Putin and the Ukraine. But, then, he shook his head and said “Iraq too.” Dowd wrote: “It was a display of conscience and a swerve into the truth in a time when truth seems lost in the mist.”
P. T. Barnum was the 19th Century showman who started what is now known as the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. The saying ‒ “a sucker is born every minute” ‒ is attributed to him although he may not have said it. Today’s showman is Donald Trump who clearly believes that “suckers” are everywhere and he has proven that he can make a great many of them believe in his fantastic lies.
So thinking about this probably accounts for my latest dream. Trump is the ringmaster of the Circus and he is in the center ring wearing a red, not a black, top hat with gold MAGA letters across the front. He is orchestrating all the acts in the Grand Finale when the clown car careens into the main ring and Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell, Dr. Oz and a gaggle of other sycophants spill out and are chanting that the election was stolen. Half asleep and restless, I worry that lies, not truth, will prevail until the dream ends perfectly.
Three hungry man eating tigers enter the tent.