We may or may not be wearing a parachute, it will be up to you.
I personally don't wear one.
Well, there's no sense of my going out in that jungle if your not gonna be down there with me.
Know as the most trusted man in America Walter Cronkite was the country's original anchor man.
This is Walter Cronkite speaking to you from CBS
His rise to the anchor chair began when CBS newsman Edward R Murrow hired Cronkite in 1950.
He was assigned to the Washington [UNKNOWN].
The Department of Labor- In 1962 he took over the CBS evening news.
Good evening from our CBS News Room in New York.
The anchor that broadcast right here, taking the show out of a studio and into a real working newsroom.
A year later, he shared the nation's grief when he delivered the news of President Kennedy's assassination.
Here is a bulletin from CBS news.
From Dallas Texas the flash apparently official.
President Kennedy died at one PM central standard time, two o'clock Eastern standard Time.
I'm Walter Cronkite.
He was the night the fixture in american homes for nearly two decades.
He cemented his legacy during the Vietnam War.
We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders.
In an editorial, he called on the government to negotiate an end to the war, which he described as a stalemate.
It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors.
But as an honorable people, who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy.
President Johnson reportedly said, if I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America.
And I will not accept-
And announced he would not seek reelection shortly afterward.
This is my last broadcast as the anchorman of the CBS evening news
Cronkite handed over the anchor chair to Dan Rather in 1981 with his final signature sign off.
And that's the way it is, Friday, March 6, 1981.
He continued reporting as a special correspondent for CBS.
Where his colleagues described him as the spine of the network and a giant or journalism.
To the public, he was simply Uncle Walter.
Kenneth Greg, CBS News, New York.
[SOUND]
