Walter Cronkite is the former CBS Evening News anchorman whose commentary defined issues and events in the United States for almost two decades. Cronkite, whom a major poll once named the “most trusted figure” in American public life, often saw every nuance in his nightly newscasts scrutinized by politicians, intellectuals, and fellow journalists, looking for clues to the thinking of mainstream America. In contrast, Cronkite viewed himself as a working journalist, epitomized by his title of “managing editor” of the CBS Evening News. His credo, adopted from his days as a wire service reporter, was to get the story, “fast, accurate, and unbiased”; his trademark exit line was, “And that’s the way it is.”

After working at a public relations firm, for newspapers, and in small radio stations throughout the Midwest, in 1939 Cronkite joined United Press (UP) to cover World War II. There, as part of what some reporters fondly called the “Writing 69th,” he went ashore on D-Day, parachuted with the 101st Airborne, flew bombing missions over Germany, covered the Nuremberg trials, and opened the UP’s first postwar Moscow bureau.

Though he had earlier rejected an offer from Edward R. Murrow, Cronkite joined CBS in 1950. First at CBS’s Washington, D.C., affiliate and then over the national network, Cronkite paid his dues to the entertainment side of television, serving as host of the early CBS historical recreation series, You Are There. He even briefly cohosted the CBS Morning Show with the puppet Charlemagne. In a more serious vein, he narrated the CBS documentary series The Twentieth Century. Earlier, Cronkite had impressed many observers when he anchored CBS’s coverage of the 1952 presidential nominating conventions.

In April 1962, Cronkite took over from Douglas Edwards the anchorman’s position on the CBS Evening News. Less than a year later, the program was expanded from 15 to 30 minutes. Cronkite’s first 30-minute newscast included an exclusive interview with President John F. Kennedy. Barely two months later, Cronkite was first on the air reporting Kennedy’s assassination, and in one of the rare instances when his journalist objectivity deserted him, Cronkite shed tears.

Cronkite’s rise at CBS was briefly interrupted in 1964, when the network, disturbed by the ratings beating CBS Evening News was taking from NBC’s Huntley and Brinkley, decided to replace him as anchor at the 1964 presidential nominating conventions with the team of Robert Trout and Roger Mudd. Publicly accepting the change, but privately disturbed, Cronkite contemplated leaving CBS. However, more than 11,000 letters protesting the change undoubtedly helped convince both Cronkite and CBS executives that he should stay on. In 1966, Cronkite briefly overtook the Huntley-Brinkley Report in the ratings, and in 1967 his newscast took the lead. From that time until his retirement, the CBS Evening News was the ratings leader.

Initially, Cronkite was something of a “hawk” on the Vietnam War, although his program did broadcast controversial segments, such as Morley Safer’s famous “Zippo lighter” report. However, returning from Vietnam after the Tet offensive, Cronkite addressed his massive audience with a different perspective. “It seems now more certain than ever,” he said, “that the bloody experience of Vietnam is a stalemate.” He then urged the government to open negotiations with the North Vietnamese. Many observers, including presidential aide Bill Moyers speculated that Cronkite’s views were a major factor contributing to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision to offer to negotiate with the enemy and not to run for president in 1968.

A year later Cronkite was one of the foremost boosters of the United States’ technological prowess, anchoring coverage of the flight of Apollo XI. Again his vaunted objectivity momentarily left him as he shouted, “Go, Baby, Go,” when the mission rocketed into space. For some time Cronkite had seen the space story as one of the most important events of the future, and his coverage of the space shots was as long on information as it was on his famed endurance. In what critics referred to as “Walter to Walter coverage,” Cronkite was on the air for 27 of the 30 hours that Apollo XI took to complete its mission.

By the same token, Cronkite never stinted on coverage of the Watergate scandal and subsequent hearings. In 1972, following on the heels of the Washington Post’s Watergate revelations, the CBS Evening News presented a 22-minute, two-part overview of Watergate that is generally credited with keeping the issue alive and making it intelligible to most Americans.

Cronkite could also influence foreign diplomacy, as evidenced in a 1977 interview with Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, in which he asked Sadat if he would go to Jerusalem to confer with the Israelis. A day after Sadat agreed to such a visit, an invitation came from Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin. It was a step that would eventually pave the way for the Camp David accords and an Israeli-Eygptian peace treaty.

Many have criticized Cronkite for his refusal to take more risks in TV news coverage. Others have argued that his credibility and prestige had greater impact because of his judicious display of those qualities. Cronkite was also criticized for his preference for short “breaking stories,” many of them originating from CBS News’ Washington bureau, rather than longer “enterprisers,” which might deal with long-range and non-Washington stories. In addition, many have contended that Cronkite’s demand for center stage—an average of six minutes out of the 22 minutes on an evening newscast focused on him—took time away from in-depth coverage of the news. Some have referred to this time in the spotlight as “the magic.”

In 1981, in accord with CBS policy, Cronkite retired. Since then, however, he has hardly been inactive. His annual hosting of PBS’s broadcast of the Vienna Philharmonic has become a New Year’s Eve tradition. He has also hosted PBS documentaries on health, old age, and poor children. In 1993 he signed a contract with the Discovery Channel and the Learning Channel to do 36 documentaries in three years. He followed that deal with the publication in 1996 of his autobiography, A Reporter’s Life. This endeavor was succeeded by an eight-part series on the Discovery Channel titled Cronkite Remembers, which was dubbed “Walter’s Greatest Hits.” In 1998 Cronkite returned, albeit briefly, to the anchor’s chair to coanchor CNN’s coverage of the return to Earth from space of the then 70- year-old former astronaut turned U.S. senator, John Glenn.

Cronkite’s legacy of separating reporting from advocacy has become the norm in television news. His name has become virtually synonymous with the position of news anchor worldwide—Swedish anchors are known as Kronkiters, while in Holland they are Cronkiters.