RIP Walter Cronkite

[topher5150]

Walter died today age 92

 

[Calabrio]

I'm not going to miss him.

And my contempt isn't based because I didn't agree with him,
I hold him partially responsible for the needless deaths of thousands of Americans, and tens of thousands of Vietnamese people.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I'm not going to miss him.

And my contempt isn't based because I didn't agree with him,
I hold him partially responsible for the needless deaths of thousands of Americans, and tens of thousands of Vietnamese people.

Would you care to go into your statement a little further?
How and why do you think he was responsible for what you claim?
Bob.

 

[shagdrum]

Would you care to go into your statement a little further?
How and why do you think he was responsible for what you claim?
Bob.

I am not trying to speak for Cal, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that, in many ways, Cronkite lost the Vietnam War for us (specifically, the Tet Offensive).

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I am not trying to speak for Cal, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that, in many ways, Cronkite lost the Vietnam War for us (specifically, the Tet Offensive).

That is a pretty vague statement.
Just what did he do that makes you think he was responsible for losing the war?
Bob.

 

[MonsterMark]

Lots. The guy was first of many to follow biased media journalist. If anything, Cronkite definitely never told it the way it was, but the way he wanted YOU to see it.

I'm sorry he died but as Cal said, he was complicit in a lot of deaths of both sides of the war.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Three of you have accused him of helping too lose that war yet, not one has given a specefic action that he did to cause the loss.
I am asking about specefics.
It is one thing to accuse someone of something, but yet another to back up your accusation.
Just exactly what did he do?
Bob.

 

[shagdrum]

That is a pretty vague statement.
Just what did he do that makes you think he was responsible for losing the war?
Bob.

From here:

Cronkite was often viewed as the personification of objectivity, but his reports on the Vietnam War increasingly came to criticize the American military role. “From 1964 to 1967, he never took anything other than a deferential approach to the White House on Vietnam,” Gitlin said, but added, “He’s remembered for the one moment when he stepped out of character and decided, to his great credit, to go see [Vietnam] for himself.”

In 1968, following the surprise Tet Offensive of the communist North Vietnamese, Cronkite went to Southeast Asia for a firsthand look at the war. His reports on the “Evening News” and in a half-hour special were instrumental in turning the tide of American public opinion against U.S. policy.

“To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past,” he said, casting doubt in the minds of millions of Americans on official versions of the war. Cronkite’s viewers were certain that he would never lie to them, and the White House and the Defense Department did not command that level of credibility.

President Lyndon B. Johnson was widely quoted as having told aides, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”​

The Tet Offensive was a desperation move on the part of the Vietnamese that ended up turning into a major military defeat for them. But Cronkite's unethical and one-sided "reporting" on it turned public sentiment against the war and made it appear as if we had lost. When he declared the war "unwinnable", due to his massive amount of influence in America, he essentially handed the Vietcong a massive propaganda victory from the ashes of a major military defeat.

From here:

Cronkite’s editorial about the war represented a considerable departure from the previous journalistic ethic of reporting objective facts, and allowing the audience to make up their own minds about their meaning. It certainly wasn’t an ethic observed with unshakeable fidelity before him, but Cronkite’s stature made his reporting on Vietnam a significant moment in journalistic history. President Johnson famously declared, “if I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” The military found itself unable to sell its strategically correct assessment of Tet as a defeat for North Vietnam to the public. Consequently, their request for a troop surge, to finish the job in Vietnam, was denied by the President, who became despondent and largely stopped communicating with the media. In the wake of Cronkite’s declaration of inevitable defeat in Vietnam, public support for the war dropped fifteen to twenty points in public opinion polls… in a matter of months.​

Does that clear things up?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

In defense of Mr. Cronkite regarding the Vietnam war, and the Tet offensive in particular, he did not go to Vietnam (according to what I just read from the Washington post) until after the Tet offensive so, I don't see how anyone could blame him for that.
He, like many others, strongly oppossed the war, and the Whitehouse for continuing it.
Do any of you feel because he was a "public" person, he should not have been allowed to voice his opinion?
There were many people who felt the same, be it for what they heard on his nightly newscast, or what they read in the printed press.
I still fail to see the coralation between him, and the thousands of lives lost in that terrible war.
He stated the war was unwinable, and it proved to be exactly that.
How can you fault him for that?
Do any of you feel that had he been silent, we would have won that war?
I don't think so.
I applaud him for his opinions.
We all have a right to them, including the late Mr. Cronkite.
Bob.

 

[shagdrum]

Do any of you feel because he was a "public" person, he should not have been allowed to voice his opinion?

No one is saying that. Your question is a loaded one.

In editorializing in his role as "journalist", "objective" reporter and the most trusted man in america, he betrayed the trust instilled in him to effectively manipulate public opinion in a deceptive manner. That action flies in the face of journalistic ethics and ended up unnecessarily cost the lives of Americans and Vietcong.

He was a public person instilled with a lot of trust and, as such, he had a responsibility to NOT editorialize in what was assumed and expected to be objective reporting.

He stated the war was unwinable, and it proved to be exactly that.

Can you say "self-fullfilling prophecy"?

His unethical actions indirectly lead to us not getting a troop surge that would have very possibly ended the war.

I applaud him for his opinions.
We all have a right to them, including the late Mr. Cronkite.

You are mischaracterizing this as an issue of free speech when it is not.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I most emphatically feel it is an issue of free speech in the context that it has been presented.
Journalist, President, or Pope, have a right to speak what they feel.
Fault, if any could be directed at the point that he was expressing his own views, which could have been proceeded by a short disclaimer stating the views were his own personal feelings.
I am not of the opinion the government actions, or lack of, were based on the opinions of one journalist.
At the time of the Vietnam war, I was not nearly as concious of the news as I am presently.
I want to do a little research in the archives of CBS news and see what I can find in relation too Mr. Cronkite's reporting during that conflict.
I do remember it was a nightly occurance to see people demonstrating in the streets against the war.
These demonstrations were world wide.
Surely one can't put the blame world wide on this journalist.
Again, I don;t think that can be as a result of this journalist reporting.
Bob.

 

[shagdrum]

I most emphatically feel it is an issue of free speech in the context that it has been presented.
Journalist, President, or Pope, have a right to speak what they feel.

No one is saying he doesn't have a right to speak what he feels. But considering the level of public trust instilled in him though, he had an ethical responsibility to NOT express his opinion in that role as trusted, objective reporter.

It seems though that you are hell bent on viewing this as a matter of free speech regardless of the facts and of the actual argument being made. So there is no point is wasting time trying to explain something you refuse to understand.

I am not of the opinion the government actions, or lack of, were based on the opinions of one journalist.

No, but they are based on public opinion and public opinion is influenced by the news and how it is reported.

Just because you refuse to acknowledge the indirect consequences of Cronkite's unethical editorializing doesn't mean those consequences don't exist.

You are only looking at some parts of the argument and ignoring other parts; thus mischaracterizing it.

 

[Calabrio]

the nadir of Cronkite’s career was his reporting in the wake of the Tet Offensive. For the younger reader who might not be familiar with this event, the Tet Offensive was a massive, coordinated attack on all the major cities of South Vietnam, during the normally quiet Vietnamese New Year celebrations, in January and February of 1968. The U.S. Military had been making public statements of Communist weakness, so the large-scale attacks seriously undermined the military’s credibility with the American public. From a military standpoint, Tet was a disaster for the Communists, who were estimated to have suffered over 8000 casualties, severely damaging the Vietcong insurgency in South Vietnam. The operation produced no strategic gains for the North Vietnamese, who had to compensate for the decimation of the Vietcong by committing more regular army troops to subsequent combat operations. It was a huge propaganda victory, however, as Cronkite – a newsman with respect and influence far beyond any single figure in journalism today – declared the Vietnam War to be unwinnable. “We are mired in a stalemate that could only be ended by negotiation, not victory,” America’s Anchorman declared.

Cronkite’s editorial about the war represented a considerable departure from the previous journalistic ethic of reporting objective facts, and allowing the audience to make up their own minds about their meaning. It certainly wasn’t an ethic observed with unshakeable fidelity before him, but Cronkite’s stature made his reporting on Vietnam a significant moment in journalistic history. President Johnson famously declared, “if I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” The military found itself unable to sell its strategically correct assessment of Tet as a defeat for North Vietnam to the public. Consequently, their request for a troop surge, to finish the job in Vietnam, was denied by the President, who became despondent and largely stopped communicating with the media. In the wake of Cronkite’s declaration of inevitable defeat in Vietnam, public support for the war dropped fifteen to twenty points in public opinion polls… in a matter of months.....

....Cronkite’s reporting on the Tet Offensive was a signature moment in the evolution of asymmetrical warfare. The Vietcong resembled modern terrorists in many ways – they even had suicide bombers. North Vietnam realized, by the spring of 1968, that they could never defeat the American military in battle. The NVA field commander, General Giap, was said to be despondent over the failure of the Tet offensive, and felt his situation was likely to deteriorate even further. Then, as now, American soldiers were proving highly adaptable, and were developing increasing skill at countering enemy tactics, along with a naturally improved knowledge of Vietnamese terrain. The gallantry and skill of Vietnam’s soldiers paved the way for America’s astonishing battlefield victories in Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, much as tomorrow’s soldiers will study the long and painful story of the Iraqi occupation, to perfect their counterinsurgency tactics. The soldiers and commanders of 1968 were learning, too.

I will leave it to military historians to debate whether a full-scale surge of troops in the wake of Tet would have secured the defeat of North Vietnam. For myself, I think it highly likely. We’ll never know, because the age of modern terrorism – tactics designed to sap civilian will and destroy political support for a powerful military – began when Walter Cronkite took to the air on February 27, 1968, and informed the American public it should not “have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds.”

Walter Cronkite was not an active agent of the North Vietnamese, in the sense Jane Fonda was. He spend the rest of his life steadfastly insisting his editorial judgment on Vietnam represented his honest and heartfelt opinion. When measuring an event of such enormous importance, it hardly matters what his deeply felt personal reasons were. What he did not do was simply and clearly report on the outcome of the Tet offensive, and allow his viewers to decide what they made of it. The Communists came to understand the value of their propaganda victory, with General Giap later saying “The most important result of the Ted offensive was it made you de-escalate the bombing, and it brought you to the negotiation table. It was, therefore, a victory… The war was fought on many fronts. At that time the most important one was American public opinion.” (Contrary to Internet rumors that will probably start floating around again this weekend, Giap did not specifically credit Walter Cronkite with making this “victory” possible.)

Cronkite’s career saw the rise of advocacy journalism in the modern sense, along with the birth of terror warfare. The two developments are not unrelated. Terrorism benefits from access to a media that sees itself as international and “open-minded,” rather than aligned with the patriotic interests of its mother country. Journalists of Edward R. Murrow’s day would have named al-Qaeda killers as vermin, without hesitation, and applauded American soldiers for exterminating them. Cronkite decided the vermin were invincible. His descendants give interviews where they proudly state they would not warn American troops of an impending terror attack, pass along terrorist propaganda and doctored photographs as news, and dispatch reporters to search for signs of defeat when victory is imminent… provided a President of the wrong party sits in the White House, of course. Say this much for Cronkite: he didn’t care that Johnson had a (D) after his name. To Keith Olbermann, nothing else would matter.

After Cronkite came the deluge. Consider the trajectory of his successor, Dan Rather, who began his career lying about schoolchildren applauding the assassination of JFK, and ended it by trying to pass off falsified documents in a partisan hit job on President Bush during the 2004 elections. Cronkite was a powerful and accomplished newsman who made a fateful decision to become the news, instead of reporting it. His replacement was a ridiculous hack. Whatever you think of Walter Cronkite, it seems clear that his profession became smaller, and less trustworthy, after he passed through it. We would be wise to remember the lesson he taught us about the limits of American will in the Age of Terror. It’s better for us to win our battles fast and hard, and let the media weep for the enemy, than give the media time to dictate our strategy, and declare victory impossible.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/07/18/walter-cronkite-and-the-national-will/

 

[JDS353]

as an ex navy 62-68 the last sentence in Calabrio post is dead on hit and hit hard. jd

 

[MonsterMark]

How can you fault him for that?

Ask yourself, is he an opinion-maker or a journalist?

Do any of you feel that had he been silent, we would have won that war?
I don't think so.

Only war we lost. Why do you think that is?

People were slaughtered because of Cronkite's "opinions". So we should celebrate the guy? Not me.