>> breaking news. john scott in new york, the same city in which the longtime anchor of the cbs evening news, walter cronkite, passed away a little while ago. walter cronkite, dead at the age of 92. let's look back at the amazing life and career of the first television anchor. >> he was once considered the most trusted man in america, certainly television news. >> president nixon will announce his resignation tonight. >> his reassuring voice took the nation for some of the most important events of the 20th century. 30 years, americans like walter cronkite into their homes for his nightly newscast. cronkite was born on of number 4, 1916, st. joseph, missouri. his family later moved to

houston. in high school, the journalism bug bit. his reporting career began when he joined the school newspaper and your book staff. during college at the university of texas austin, he took a part- time job with the houston post that led to a full-time position. cronkite was given his first broadcasting job in austin. as a sportscaster, he faced a daunting challenge. the station had no sports wire. and nearby smoke shop did, so he ran their come summarize the scores, and ran back to broadcast them. when the season ended, he tried to stay on, but the station manager let him go saying he would never make a radio announcer. from there, he added job at the state capital for the international news service. this led to a full-time job at the houston press newspaper at the end of his two-year college career. his parents did not seem disappointed he never graduated. in the midst of the great depression, a job was considered more valuable.

during world war ii, he worked as a european war correspondent for upi, where he accompanied the troops on d-day. he stayed on as the chief correspondent during the nuremberg war crimes trial. in 1950, he was brought to cbs, where he covered politics and posted historical documentaries. in 1962, helped found the cbs evening news, which he anchored the next 19 years. he was seen as an impartial newsman. more news got their news from concord then -- from cronkite then nbc. >> the united states information agency. >> he also broke some of the country's biggest stories. >> president kennedy died at 1:00 p.m. central standard time. 2:00 eastern standard time. some 38 minutes ago. >> when president kennedy was assassinated, he showed a motion for the first time.

>> i am not very cold blood it. i can cry over wounded animals as well as people. that was the only time i think i ought actually cried on air. >> we had a public opinion, america go listen to. >> date came closer here than anywhere else. now, three weeks after the offensive began, the firing still goes on. >> when he opposed the war in vietnam, president lyndon johnson remarked, "i lost cronkite, i've lost middle america." >> i do not believe that was a deciding matter at all. i think it was another drop of water in the great torrent that was overwhelming lyndon johnson at that point. >> cronkite's focus on the watergate scandal during the nixon administration helped propel the story to the center of the nation's headlines. he retired from the evening news in 1981. >> this is walter cronkite. good night.

>> in the last 10 months of his tenure, he was given 11 award, including the presidential medal of freedom. the continue to host specials on cbs news and remained on the board of directors 10 years. in 1985, he was the first man to be inducted into the television hall of fame aside from edward r. murrow. even in retirement, he was active. during the 1996 presidential campaigns, he led the fight for free air time on tv networks for presidential candidates. he was a highly sought after public speaker, the host of many documentaries, and an avid sailor on his yacht. as television news group, walter cronkite helped mature. in short, walter cronkite was television news. >> and that is the way it is. >> walter cronkite, who died today in new york, at the age of 92. one of his parting lines from

the last cbs evening news broadcast that he did back in 1981, he told america, "old anchormen do not fade away. they just keep coming back for more." we are joined by a fox news contributor, chief diplomatic correspondent at cbs 30 years and nbc news. marvin, sometimes the people that you see on television are very different people in private than they are in public. tell us about walter cronkite. was he the same man on the air as off? >> i was about to say until you at that last phrase that will hurt was walter, whether he was on the air or off. he was a very straight guy, a newsman through and through. journalism to him represented the mother's milk of life. he was totally devoted to the pursuit of information.

as impartially as a human being could do, he wanted to impart that information to the american people. you have to remember that walter was at his heyday during the cold war. things were terribly important than. we were on edge with the cuban missile crisis, the nuclear exchange. he was the kind of man that the american people came to trust. i believe in the early 1970's if my memory is correct, he was the most trusted man in america by a percentage that was extraordinary. >> it really is the end of an era. so many people grow up watching him, so many generations really looked to him as the source for news, before the internet,

before some many of the outlets today. today. >> yes, and he did it in a very straight way. today, john, we're kind of caught up in worlds of polarized editorial content, if people are on the right or the left. i think walter would cringe at the very thought of being categorized as left or right. when he went to cover the vietnam war and you ran a piece of it a moment ago, and in february of 1968, after going to vietnam for the first time in many, many years, he came back and said not that he opposed the war, he came back and said the united states is a very proud country. we did what any proud country could do, and we did it as well as any proud country could do. now, it's up to the vietnamese

to do it themselves. that was not saying i, therefore, oppose the war or anything that you're apt to hear today. he was sort of giving it to you as best he understood it based upon his reporting from vietnam. and i can tell you also as somebody who worked with him on a day-to-day basis, he would trust certain reporters to come in with a bulleten, with an important news story, a couple of minutes before he started the evening news at 6:30. now, you couldn't overdo this. but if he trusted you, you could call him up sometimes as late as 6:20 when there's madness in the house before they actually go on the air, and you could say walter, i just learn this, and i think you ought to know it for the show. either he would say something like really thanks very much, marvin, and i'll get it, and we'll get it on, and then he would credit you with coming with the information or he

would say can you give me 45 seconds on that? i'll lead in with you, here we go, and he would turn the show completely on its head. he was the only anchor i know who had the courage because of his faith in the news to really throw the script out and tell me what's going on. he was a remarkable man, the best anchor in ever worked with. >> the breadth of the stories that he covered is absolutely amazing when you read about the scope of his career from the normandy invasion to watergate, the moon walks, the vietnam war obviously. walter cronkite covered it all. >> he sure did, and i remember once as moscow correspondent he came and visited because he had been the moscow correspondent for upi, so he was looking at his old beat, and it was a

pleasure to walk around with him and show him various things, and he'd say that you know that 15 years ago this used to be here and that. he was so excited about everything he saw. he was incredibly curious. he was not a great writer, but a very clear writer. he laid it out. and he always worked on the assumption that if you tell the american people the truth, they'll make up their own minds. you don't have to tell them how to think. >> i remember watching his coverage of so many of those early space shots. i was fascinated with the space program, and he really seemed enthusiastic and also knowledgeable about what was going on, which was technology so new to americans. >> absolutely, john. that's a wonderful observation because that was one of the stories where walter was a little less walter than he usually was. because he did get incredibly involved in the story. he loved space. and every now and then when the rocket would take off, he'd say go, baby go!

he'd get so excited about it, and at that time it was all brand-new. so he was sharing or in a sense he was personifying the excitement that the american people felt for the beginning of the space program. now, it's a little bit of deja vu, but in those days, it was a new adventure and walter was very excited about that. you're quite right. he was able to go from one story to another seamlessly because he was totally in every news story. he loved it. >> marvin kalb, it's so good to hear your recollections. >> thank you, john, it's a pleasure to be with you. >> thank you, we appreciate it. let's talk to barbara walters, "2020" anchor and coast host of "the view," another woman who knew walter cronkite very well. it must have hit you like a ton of bricks. >> i knew he was ill, so i

wasn't as surprised as i might have been. walter and i, although i was much newer at the whole business of anchoring than walter, but we competed with each other a great deal and had a kind of -- a competitive and affectionate relationship. i heard marvin talking about the space program. also when you watched it, walter cried. walter had tears. he was for so many of us, john, a member of the family. that's why people called him uncle walter. there was this wisdom about him and this great voice, and we felt that we knew him and that he knew us. now, we're in a different time, and there's nobody, although there are excellent anchors of course, there's nobody that had

the command that walter had. first of all, television is much more fractionalized, there's no one person that has that much power, and we're more cynical, maybe more sophisticated. i think the sad thing about walter was that he left broadcasting too soon, and i think he regretted it. >> i think a lot of people share that feeling. you mentioned power. i was reading that a great many people urged him to take his fame and turn it into high political office and he never would do that because he understood that you can't use the power of journalism and take advantage of it in that way to then move to a political position where you try to ram your point across. >> well, i think he was -- you know, i keep using the word trust or the word wisdom, but there was -- you know, walter

was aware of that kind of power and didn't abuse it. he happened to have been a very nice man. he was married, betsy, his wife, was very funny, and would put him down in a loving way. and so we have demagogues, and this man was not that. and he easily could have been. there will about no one else quite like walter. and people really did feel that we don't call anybody uncle this or aunt that or grandpa, but we really did feel that walter was part of the family, that he understood it, that he calmed us. we went through some very perilous times with walter, and he had a unique position that he did not abuse. >> mary cronkite, known as betsy, predeceased him, died from complications of cancer, back in 2005, she was 89 at the time, they had three children,

nancy, kathy, and chip cronkite. any funny stories about him that you recall that maybe we wouldn't have heard, maybe off the air or when you ran into him at a social event? >> i can only tell you -- first of all, by the way, if walter had his way now, he would be in martha's vineyard on his sailboat. nobody loves sailing more than walter. i'm going to tell you a story that's going to sound self- serving, but walter has talked about it and so have i. we were in the middle east when anwr sadat and begen had first met. he had flown from egypt to israel in a historic trip. walter cronkite was covering it, john chancellor for nbc, and i was sort of the upstart, the new kid on the block, and i was covering it for abc, and i got the first joint interview with

anwr sadat and begen, and when it was done, walter heard about it, and this was done by satellite, and said i've got to do it, i've got to do it, he did it on cbs, and he was wonderful, and i was very worried about it until at the end of it we heard him say because he didn't realize his microphone was on, "did barbara get anything i didn't get?" and i teased him for years. we remained always friends and when he was no longer on the air, i missed him very much. he has that wonderful voice, he had that twinkle, he was very beloved person, and there aren't too many people in the news business for whom people have that affection and trust. >> that's for sure, and just his -- not only his longevity in the business because he was in that cbs news -- cbs evening news chair for so long.

>> not long enough. he should have stayed longer. >> when he was covering a story like the moon launch, the moon landing 40 years ago, 24 hours, 24 hours of coverage. >> yep. that was, as you pointed out -- he really -- the space flights for him were a particular passion, but you know, walter also took us through the war and it wasn't all triumph, he was also there for us in the very difficult times. >> he certainly was. we've seen the clip of him removing his eyeglasses, and you can see him tearing up. >> he wasn't afraid to cry. >> this is not particularly that shot that's on our air right now, but the shot of him announcing the death of president kennedy, and he was the first anchor to do that.

>> he was preeminent. you think of walter, and there were other anchors, and if i strain myself i can think of him, but no one like walter. >> he was in second plate to huntley brinkley when he first took over as anchor of the cbs evening news, and over time he surpassed that. >> they broke up as a team, but without comparing them, i mean walter has a special place in broadcast history. >> he certainly does as do you, barbara walters, but we just want to continue to remember the passing of walter cronkite, he died today at the age of 92. interviewed i guess virtually every president during -- who came across -- who passed his way during his time on the air. one always got the feeling, barbara, that what you see with walter cronkite was what you got, that he wasn't particularly egotistical, just a genuine nice man. >> that's why people had a

special feeling. it wasn't just that he was giving us the news. they knew him as a person, and the times are different, but the qualities that walter has i think are the best in the business and make us all very proud, and i thank you for giving me a chance to salute him tonight. this was a special night. >> well, he certainly was, it is good of you to share your memories with us, barbara walters from "2020" and "the view," thanks for being with us tonight. >> thank you, good night. >> good night. also joining us now, connie chung who made her own bit of history as the first female co- anchor on the cbs evening news, she's joining us as well. your thoughts about the passing of walter cronkite. what can you tell us? what do you remember about his time in that position? >> john, he was my hero, my role model, just like everyone else. my family and i would sit down

and watch uncle walter every night because he shared with us the milestones that occurred in the world, in the country, and just like everyone else, we felt so secure that walter was giving us the news. he was such a nice man. i can't tell you. in a business that fosters incredible egos, he was the best, and we all knew it, and yet he was not full of himself, i can tell you, he was the nicest, most humble person i knew in our business, honestly. when he would come -- i was working in the washington bureau in the early days, in the late '60's and early '70's, and he was anchoring the news, and he would come down to see all of

us to do the news from washington occasionally, and people would bring in their family to say hello to him, and he was so gracious, one by one, he'd shake everyone's hand. also walter had a great sense of humor. he was not stuffy. you know, he did not think so much of himself that he couldn't make fun of himself and fun of the -- although he took the business very seriously, the news business, of course, he could make fun of the news business, as you can see when he would go on and do a walk-on on mary tyler moore or whatever, but walter was a very kind man, when i became co-anchor, he called me up right away and gave me some of his sage advice. >> what did he say? >> he said "connie, just be yourself." and i took that to heart

because i think he was. he wasn't trying to be someone else or trying to create an image that was false. he was walter cronkite, and he was passing along what he did, and i -- it couldn't have been better advice because i always was who i was too. so he thought that people who were on the air had many of them had created false images of themselves, and he highly disapproved of that. he also didn't -- i know that he didn't like the pendulum swinging in a different direction in the news business, and he was not happy with that. but he was always gracious. i think later on when he was maybe 80-something he said something that was quite blunt

and perhaps viewed by some as being unkind, and i said to my husband "oh, my god, i've never heard walter say something like that publicly before," and my husband said, "my gosh, he's 80-some years old, connie. he can say anything he wants." >> and it strikes me as so interesting when he first premiered as anchor, the news was 15 minutes, and it was delivered more or less as a public service. it was sort of a requirement i think in those days that the networks put on a show and that's what they did and why they did it. >> that's right. >> and then there came a time when the news was not only widely watched, but very profitable for cbs and the other networks, and he had millions and millions of people tuning in just to watch him and to hear how he saw the world. >> that's right. you are so right. you're a good student of the industry. that's exactly what happened. in the early days news was just

considered to be this little public service thing and just a little filler, and the networks tolerated it. but as news tried to grow, one of the ways that news succeeded in growing was actually covering the conventions, and the conventions in those early days were so exciting because it wasn't a coronation the way it is now. you really didn't know who was going to be the nominee, so once the news divisions of each network, and that was really primarily nbc and cbs, abc was just emerging, then they were able to take advantage of the excitement and the drama that would occur at the convention, and then as they began to capture audiences, then news

became a real viable programming tool for the networks, and then when "60 minutes" was created which preceded walter's -- i mean was followed i mean -- walter preceded all of this, he had person to person with edward r. murrow, then it really became a profitable center. one of the things, john, at cbs that was unique was that it was run by william payly, and he considered cbs to be such an autonomous part of the company. it didn't matter to him if it was profitable. he felt this incredible strong feeling that he was doing a public service, and even if he spent tons of money and that the company didn't make any money from the news division, it was something that he knelt was very close to his heart. so cbs was able to thrive actually for many years without

looking at the bottom line, and walter was all part of that. i mean he was -- he was really cbs news. he was the face of cbs news, the heart beat of cbs news, and we all idolized him. i would call him for advice all the time, and he always had a minute. and he was always happy to be there for all of us. he was not a -- and he was not a -- someone who just was friendly and nice. he was a tough editor. he was one of the first anchors who acquired the title of managing editor, and he was a serious editor. he looked at our reports when i was a correspondent, and he

would edit them, and when i had a report on the cbs evening news with walter cronkite, he'd call down and say look, i don't think you can say this. why don't you explain to me why you think you can say this. and i'd be shaking in my boots. >> i'll bet. >> yeah. >> also the first anchor to be called an anchor. >> yes, it was coined because of walter. i'm astounded when i think back about that. and even -- i'll tell you, as far as i was concerned, he was the only anchorman. we were all -- those of us who followed were pretenders to the throne compared to walter. even later years we'd see him at social gatherings and parties, cocktail parties and things, and he was still the same. i can tell you, he was still -- had that strong voice and that clipped way of speaking. he was always really quite sharp. i mean i was -- i was a bit

shocked because i hadn't seen him lately, hadn't been in touch with him lately, and i'm just -- i can't tell you how sad i am because it's really -- it's the end of an era that i -- i don't know -- i don't think news is the same without walter. it hasn't been the same since he left. it was very -- he was wonderful, wonderful man. >> so many of us neil the same >> so many of us neil the same way, connie chung who spent her (music plays) wellbeing. we're all striving for it. purina cat chow helps you nurture it in your cat with a full family of excellent nutrition and helpful resources.

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this is mercedes-benz. you.>> a "fox news alert," walter cronkite, the anchorman, the first person in television history to take that title, walter cronkite has died at the age of 92. to those of us of a certain age it seemed that walter cronkite was television news for so many generations. it's hard to believe it's been 28 years, more than 28 years since he signed off his last broadcast as anchor of the cbs evening news. of course he made a number of appearances on cbs and other public television and so forth, other outlets in the years since he last signed off on that broadcast. walter cronkite left the air in

1981 when he was the number one, the most popular anchor in television. let's continue our look back at his career with bret baier. brit hume, senior political analyst is also with us. again, bret, just the inspiration that this man gave to us. i was in my first television news reporting job whether walter cronkite signed off, and i remember watching and i thought wow, this is really the end of an era. bret: i met him once and made a point to walk over and introduce myself, and he was the father of television news. you see these quotes from the cbs folks, "60 minutes" correspondent morely safer saying the trust the viewers

placed in him was the recognition of his fairest in, honesty, and strict objectivity and his long experience as a shoe leather reporting covering local politics to world war ii and its aftermath in the soviet union, and he was a giant of journalism and privately one of the happiest, happiest men i've ever known. you talk to the folks at cbs who worked alongside of him, and that's the sense that you get about walter cronkite, that not only did he exude this objectivity and this fascination to go after the facts and a love of news, but also had this ability to come off as a friendly, happy person to work alongside. i've talked to a number of

folks at cbs who paint very similar picture, and for somebody who aspired to be in the anchor chair, i always thought he was the anchor, the first one, really, and quickly as we've talked about, this on the eve of the 40th anniversary of apollo 11 landing, we talked about how walter cronkite was so fascinated with the space program, he said in an interview in '96 that he was really speechless when the apollo 11 landed with that -- he said gosh, wow, gee on the air. and this is the quote. "i had as much time to prepare for that moon landing as nasa did, and i still was speechless when it happened. it was so awe inspiring to be able to see the thing through the television. that was a miracle in itself." and you heard connie chung say his advice to her was just be yourself, and i think that really was walter cronkite. >> that's for sure. brit hume, our senior political analyst, is here. brit, he was quite a science buff. do you have a asteroid named after you? there's an asteroid flying out in space, 6318 cronkite. brit: no, i don't, and i don't think i ever will. we're sensing the variety of

stories that he covered and people that he knew and things that he did, and you see the sweetness in his face, and that is one of the things we remember most about him, but he was called an anchorman, and he was the first anchor -- of the first evening newscast, but it was quite a while before he became number one. we've noted repeatedly that the huntley-brinkley report remained number one after several years after he took over the anchor, but finally what happened is cbs assembled a tremendous team of star correspondents, and you may recall john they would often tick off a list of imodium multi-symptom relief combines two powerful medicines for fast relief of your diarrhea symptoms,

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>> a "fox news alert," if you're just joining us, walter cronkite has passed away, the legendary newsman, the first anchor, the first person to earn that term in the television news business, walter cronkite has passed away at the age of 92. i want to get back to our conversation with our washington senior political analyst brit hume. brit, i hate to have interrupted the story you were telling for the commercial break, but that's the way thing

goes in this business. >> not at all. i've run into a hard break or two myself. we were just talking to the moment when cronkite ascended after some years of quite stiff competition with the huntley- brinkley report to first place in the evening news ratings, and cbs had put an amazing team together behind cronkite, and they would reel off the names at the top of the evening news, they'd come on and tell you who was going to be on, and it would be dan rather at the white house, roger mudd on capitol hill, marvin kalb at the state department and covering the war in vietnam morely safer, bernard kalb, bob schieffer, these were the names, very famous correspondents in their own right, and then eric sevareid's analysis, and then one of the reasons he was never attacked, sevareid was never attacked during the nixon administration was that the

people in the nixon white house thought sevareid looked a little like what god looked like, so it was quite a team they put behind cronkite, and cronkite was open to all of that, liked reporters, honored correspondents, treated them well, and you could sense the rapport on the air, and it made for a very powerful combination. >> he is such a part of the fabric of america's last half century or so. i want to read a statement from former president george w. bush. his office released this statement upon the death of walter cronkite. he was an icon of american journalism who shaped his profession while he was on the air. tonight his family is in our thoughts and prayers." this is a guy who left college even before graduation, dropped

out because he just had the bug, had the itch, and at age 19 dropped out of college which -- at which he was pursuing a journalism degree, but dropped out so he could get out in the field and start reporting. brit: i've always believed if you can get a job as a reporter, cronkite is an example of that. he was on the air 24 hours straight or whatever. he had a nickname. they called him iron pants because he do hold the air for hours on end, and he never seemed to get tired, and i remember so vividly, john, it was 19 -- july 4, 1976, the bicentennial of this country, and cronkite had been on the air -- i was in the abc news washington bureau, and we had all the network shows on, we were doing what we were doing, and cronkite had been on the air all day long. and they finally took a break at 11:00 at night for local news. and i thought well, that's

probably the last we're going to see of cronkite, and at 11:30 here he comes back again, and i'm thinking the poor guy must be exhausted, he comes on the air, an he's full of excitement, he said what a day this has been! and he starts this recap, and i was astonished that after all of those hours that the guy still had energy and enthusiasm, so they didn't call him iron pants for nothing. >> we understand there's a statement out now from president obama. let's go to bret baier in washington for that. bret: the white house has just released a statement. "for decades walter cronkite was the most trusted vice in america. his rich baritone reached millions of living rooms every night, and in an industry of icons, walter set the standard by which all others have been judged. he was there through wars and

riots, marches and milestones, calmly telling us what we needed to know, and through it all he never lost the integrity he gained growing up in the heartland. built walter was always more than just an anchor. 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." that's president obama's statement released by the white house just a few moments ago. >> bret baier, thank you. rita braver is cbs news national correspondent. rita, our condolences to you and everyone over at cbs news. what's the mood? it must be a very somber evening there? >> you know, i'm not actually in the bureau, but i've been talking to different friends

who as i did worked with walter, and i think that we just all are stopping a moment to mark the passing of this person who really was so influential in the making of cbs news and in the careers of so many people like me. i was working in those days when walter was anchoring the evening news behind the scenes as a producer. so i had a lot of interaction with him. he would wander into an edit booth and ask what you were working on, and he would -- if there was a big hearing and you were producing it, he would be watching it in his monitor and say "well, i really like that, and i really like that, and i really like that," but if you said i've got something even better, he would always tell you to go with what you thought you should do. he was somebody who -- a lot of people don't realize, and i think we've heard a little bit about this, he was always serious on the air, but i think never foreboding, and he was a really, really fun person to work with. modest to a fault. in 1976 when jimmy carter was

elected president, there was a concert at the kennedy center, and of course walter was covering in washington, and after the show he was going to go to the concert, and i was going, and our executive producer, one of walter's close associates named bud benjamin had a limo, and they invited me to ride with them. walter ran into the bathroom after he was on the air, changed into his tuxedo, and we all got into the car and off we went. all of the sudden walter started searching in his pockets and looking in every pocket, pulled out his wallet, and he said i forget my ticket, and we -- and i was sort of sitting there, the junior person, and his executive producer said walter, you don't need a ticket. walter, you don't need a ticket. you're walter cronkite, and he

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>> a "fox news alert," and a very sad passing to note tonight, walter cronkite, the legendary anchor of the cbs evening news has passed away at the age of 92. died today in new york. let's talk a little bit about his career with susan zorenski, the executive producer of 48 hours, but it's my understanding you worked as a researcher under walter cronkite -- we don't have susan at this moment. let's talk with linda mason, the senior vice president of cbs news, the first woman to be a producer for walter cronkite's program. there was a time, linda, when the news business was very male

dominated. how were you received in that position? >> walter greeted me with open arms, he couldn't have been nicer. if i could deliver, he didn't care what i was. some of my colleagues, however, gave me kind of a hazing in the beginning. >> i'm sure that's the case, but not from walter cronkite himself. >> not from walter cronkite himself. in fact, i found myself at the florida primaries, and that politics had always been a male bastion, women did cooking and things like that, being in florida, doing the primary with walter cronkite was an incredible honor, and he called me on the phone to -- so he could make plans when he was going to be there, and i said here's what i'm thinking of, and i'll kind of rough out a script, and he said don't rough it out, i've hurt my back, i want the script, just put it under my door, so i was up most of the night typing, and when he read it, it sounded like walter cronkite, i found out it was a real gift of his, he sounded like walter cronkite no matter

what he did. >> he was quite a writer himself, as i understand it. >> he was. >> but also very clear, it's not always easy to write for television or for radio. but he was just a master at it. >> he was a master at it, he had started with upi which i think partly helped him because as a wire service reporter he wrote in -- it was like twitter. you'd write in pieces as you got news, you'd write it down and write more, so you were constantly thinking of how to package this and go on to the next thing, and that was a great gift in television for him. >> what did he teach you when you took over as executive producer of that -- or as producer of the evening news? >> being a producer i was a field producer which means i went in the field with him and did stories, and he taught me to not be afraid to ask all the questions, but to be fair as you ask them. and to try to see why something might be wrong. might seem wrong. he taught me that you don't need a lot of flash and pizzazz to make a story work. you had to understand it and

tell it simply. stories were not simple. he knew that. but you in to bring able to take complicated concepts and make them understandable to the viewer. that was his main focus. he didn't want any tricks, and he was no trick. in person, he was the same as he was on the air. that's why people trusted him. >> i always like to ask people such as yourself who worked so closely with such an icon to tell us some of the funny stories or little known stories that might surprise people about someone like walter cronkite. can you think of any? >> he was very unassuming. of course he knew he was walter cronkite. on the other hand there was a time when i went with him to a restaurant, trader vic's in california, and i had made a reservation under my name because i didn't want to use his name, we were on assignment, and i didn't want to use his name, so we got to stand in line, and the maitre d moves us right in, i realized i should have used his name, but while we

were in trader vic's, everybody was looking at walter cronkite, and he was looking at some movie stars were there with his eyes boggled out. it was great. >> thank you for talking to us. >> thank you. >> let's bring in for our closing interview -- we do not have that, but, boy, what a career walter cronkite had, wading ashore with the american troop during the invasion of normandy, freeing france from the germans back in the middle of the 1940's all the way through the vietnam war, through the watergate hearings, through the space program, only to retire in 1981. let's talk about his legendary career with another legendary television journalist, hugh downs, former anchor of "2020" is with us tonight. hugh, it's such a pleasure to talk with you and wrap up this broadcast.

>> naturally i was quite saddened because even though i never worked with walter, we were frequently together on space shot coverage and then through asu, both of us had connections at arizona state university, and there were a number of ways we got together, and i got to know him very well and had always felt that he was retired a little too early. and even years after he had left regular anchoring of the news, he was voted the most trusted man in america. and i think i know why. there's several reasons, but i would give you one if you want to hear it. >> sure. >> at the height of the monica lewinsky scandal, the clinton family was trying to vacation on martha's vineyard, and the

paparazzi was all over them, and they couldn't get any privacy, and it was pretty miserable. walter offered them sanctuary on his yacht, and for a full day they were out on the yacht of him and free of the press pressure, and whether it was over, walter was under pressure to the press, they were all over him, i've heard offering obscene amounts of money if he would talk about what they talked about, all kinds of things, he never would say a word. and i thought being a really top journalist, he would have covered whatever needed to be covered on a public's need to know basis. but his honorable -- his honorable pledge was kept to keep them some say give them some sanctuary. i just thought that sort of explained why he's the most trusted man in america. >> hugh downs, a legendary journalist himself, hugh downs, it's so good to talk to you and hear your memories of walter cronkite who passed away this evening at the age of 92 here in new york city.

and how appropriate that on this, the weekend when the nation is marking the 40th anniversary of america's fine achievement putting men on the moon, this is the weekend that walter cronkite passes away. we are going to dedicate to the memory of walter cronkite our upcoming special that begins at 9:00 p.m. eastern time called "one small step to our future" with greta van susteren. walter cronkite loved the space program. i used to watch him covering it as a kid. i sat there in the living room with rapt attention watching walter cronkite describe what the astronauts were doing in the moments before launch, into launch, and all the way to the moon, and of course he covered the mercury and gemini programs before that, he covered the first manned space flight, the first american manned space flight of allen shepard, and his program was the first to be broadcast on satellite, a function made only possible by the space program.