For decades, Walter Cronkite was known as "the most trusted
man in America." Millions across the nation welcomed him
into their homes, first as a print reporter for the United
Press on the front lines of World War II, and later, in the
emerging medium of television, as a host of numerous
documentary programs and as anchor of the CBS Evening
News, from 1962 until his retirement in 1981. Yet this
very public figure, undoubtedly the twentieth century's most
revered journalist, was a remarkably private man; few know
the full story of his life. Drawing on unprecedented access
to Cronkite's private papers as well as interviews with his
family and friends, Douglas Brinkley now brings this
American icon into focus as never before.
Brinkley
traces Cronkite's story from his roots in Missouri and Texas
through the Great Depression, during which he began his
career, to World War II, when he gained notice reporting
with Allied troops from North Africa, D-day, and the Battle
of the Bulge. In 1950, Edward R. Murrow recruited him to
work for CBS, where he covered presidential elections, the
space program, Vietnam, and the first televised broadcasts
of the Olympic Games, as both a reporter and later as an
anchor for the evening news. Cronkite was also witness
to—and the nation's voice for—many of the most profound
moments in modern American history, including the Kennedy
assassination, Apollos 11 and 13, Watergate, the Vietnam
War, and the Iran hostage crisis.
Epic, intimate, and
masterfully written, Cronkite is the much-anticipated
biography of an extraordinary American life, told by one of
our most brilliant and respected historians
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