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Walter Cronkite (New York, NY) has been special correspondent for CBS News since his retirement from the anchor position with CBS News in 1981. Some of his post-anchor work has included WALTER CRONKITE AT LARGE (1986-1988), a newsmagazine format program and WALTER CRONKITE’S UNIVERSE, a CBS News science magazine series broadcast from 1980-82. As special correspondent, Cronkite has covered the 40th anniversary of V.E. Day, the 40th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, the funeral of Anwar Sadat, and the 25th anniversary of the Hungarian revolution.
After attending The University of Texas at Austin during 1932-1933, he began his career in journalism as a news writer and editor for Scripps-Howard and United Press in Houston, Kansas City, Dallas, Austin, El Paso and New York City.
In 1942, Cronkite went overseas as a war correspondent for United Press, where he covered the Battle of the Atlantic in 1942, landed with the invading Allied troops in North Africa, and took part in Normandy beachhead assaults in 1944. He was among the first newsmen to participate in B-17 raids over Germany, dropped with the 101st Airborne Division in Holland, and was with the U.S. Third Army in the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. After the war, he reopened United Press’ Amsterdam and Brussels bureaus and served as chief correspondent during the Nuremburg war crimes trial. During 1946-1948, he served as Moscow bureau chief for United Press. Cronkite joined CBS News in Washington as a correspondent in July 1950. He assumed his duties on the CBS EVENING NEWS on April 16, 1962, when the broadcast was 15 minutes in length. On September 2, 1963, the CBS EVENING NEWS became network television’s first half-hour weeknight news broadcast; its debut featured Cronkite’s headline-making interview with President John F. Kennedy.
A sampling of Cronkite’s assignments for CBS News over three decades reads like a synopsis of American and world history -- exclusive interviews with most major heads of state, including all United States Presidents since Harry S. Truman; all aspects of the American political scene since 1952; the events surrounding the siege of the American embassy in Iran and the holding of the American hostages; this nation’s Bicentennial celebration; Watergate and the subsequent resignation of President Nixon; the assassinations and funerals of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and President John F. Kennedy; and the Vietnam War.
Cronkite came to be regarded as an authority on the U.S. space program, reporting on the first two decades of manned space flight, including Alan Shepard’s first flight in 1961, the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, the first experimental flights of the space shuttle, and the fall of Skylab in 1979.
A member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, he served as president of the Academy’s New York chapter in 1959 and received its Governor’s Award in 1979. He received the Peabody Award in 1962, the William A. White Award for Journalistic Merit in 1969 and the Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1971; the George Polk Journalism Award in 1971; a Gold Medal from the International Radio and Television Society in 1974; the Alfred I. DuPont- Columbia University Award in Broadcast Journalism in 1978, and several additional Emmy Awards. In 1981, President Jimmy Carter presented Cronkite with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
He has authored Challenges of Change (1971) and his best selling autobiography, A Reporter’s Life (1996). An avid sailor, he has published numerous books on sailing, including his most recent, Around America: A Tour of Our Magnificent Coastline (2001). In 2004 Cronkite wrote a weekly, syndicated newspaper column which appeared in more than 186 newspapers throughout the country.
Cronkite was the first recipient of two of the College of Communication’s highest awards—DeWitt Carter Reddick Award (1974) and the William Randolph Hearst Fellow Award (1999). He is also a Distinguished Alumnus of The University of Texas at Austin. Mr. Cronkite lives in New York City.