Was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981. This is the highest honor a U.S. civilian can receive.

Was the lead anchor on the CBS Evening News from 16 April 1962 until 6 March 1981.

Is the 1966 recipient of the prestigious Connor Award given by the brothers of the Phi Alpha Tau fraternity based out of Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. He is also an honorary brother of the fraternity.

Reported on the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals in 1945.

CBS asked Cronkite to come up with a signature closing line for the evening news. When he came up with "And that's the way it is", CBS was concerned that it would suggest a certain infallability. But Cronkite explained that it would fit any type of story whether it was funny or sad or ironic.

The very day he was born, his father immediately left the hospital and went out and voted for President Woodrow Wilson.

His first job as a journalist was as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Times.

In 1964 he was fired from his anchorman duties at the Democratic National Convention. CBS had gotten a new president who had never worked on a presidential campaign and had definate ideas about how CBS would be covering it. It turned out to be a mess and as a result Cronkite got some of the blame so the network executives removed him from the coverage but kept him as the anchorman of the evening news. Jokingly Cronkite became buddies with the president of NBC and the people at CBS were horrified that he was being offered a job in the rival network. So when the Republican Convention rolled around Cronkite got to cover it without using the new president's tactics.

At the birth of television, he and his team at CBS practically invented the institution of the evening news program. In 1951, one of the stage managers at CBS told him to sit at the desk and do the news. Cronkite asked what he meant and the managers simply said "I don't know just do it". His idea was to first just talk to the camera like another person and organize the news stories in the same vein as the newspaper beginning with the top story and working his way down to human interest stories.

He met his wife Betsy when he was working at a radio station in Kansas City. The two were paired up to do a cosmetics commercial and married a year later.

He is outspoken in his distaste for Oliver Stone's film JFK (1991). Calling the film "Oliver Stone junk" and "A dangerous work of fiction that seriously misleads a whole generation of Americans who were not alive at that time".

While attending The University of Texas, one of his pastimes was acting in student plays. In one of them, he co-starred with Eli Wallach. He dropped out of UT to become a journalist.

On the day of the Kennedy assassination, he said the he had just come back from lunch and was standing at the teletype machine when rang a rare five bells - a bulletin. He shouted "Let's get on the air!" but getting on the air wasn't possible because the cameras had to be placed and then warmed up (after this, the networks always had a camera ready in the newsroom). He went to an audio booth just off the newsroom floor and, interrupting "As the World Turns" (1956), made an audio announcement over a CBS logo. It took another 20 minutes to get on camera.

In 1969 when Apollo XI was going to the Moon, Cronkite was on the air 27 of the 30 hours that it took for the flight, which many in the profession called "Walter to Walter" coverage. At the moment that Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder of the Lunar Module onto the Moon surface, Cronkite was speechless for the first time in his career. All he could say was "Wow!" and "Oh Boy!". Famous words that will live in history.

Provided the voice over introduction "This is the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric".

QUOTES:

"It is increasingly clear that the only rational way out will be to negotiate, not as victors but as an honorable people who lived up to the pledge to defend democracy." (Cronkite's famous quote after the disastrous North Vietnamese Tet Offensive, which many say was the turning point in the Vietnam Conflict. President Lyndon Johnson, upon hearing Cronkite pull his support for further military involvement, is quoted as saying, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."

[About George Bush, Sr.] "I like George Bush, he seemed to be a straight arrow, the sort you'd like to have as your lawyer or your banker or as a friend. And of course, he had Barbara."

About President Clinton] "Clinton, I've not come to know that well, but in my one sit-down interview with him, I found him forthcoming and humorous."
 

About President Johnson] "It has been said, and truthfully so, that Lyndon Johnson was larger than life. You felt in his presence that here was raw power capable of lifting great weights and crushing enemies."
 

[About President Nixon] "Nixon, to me, never seemed comfortable in the Presidency. He always seemed to be acting out a rehearsed role. I thought I could see his knees knocking with stage fright"

I got along pretty well with Nixon. Whenever he promised me an interview he delivered and I didn't make his famed "Enemies List". I'm still sort of ambivalent about that.

[About President Ford] "Ford was the genuine good fellow well met. He was the guy you wish you had known in college."

[About President Carter] "Carter, I think, was the brainiest President of my time, not in political ability but intelligence that could store and recall an incredible amount of complicated material."

[About President Reagan] "In Reagan, what you saw was what you got. Without surrendering the dignity of the office he maintained that hail-fellow comradeship of the locker room. He was fun to be with, shady stories and all."

About President Hoover] "Herbert Hoover seemed to me about as stiff in person as he was in public. A highly intelligent man, dedicated to public service who just couldn't connect with the average man"
 

[About FDR] "With his radio talks and his fireside chats he brought all Americans into the White House. At the times I saw him, at his informal news conferences, he could be tough with questioning reporters but he usually ended the exchange with a wide grin or with a hearty laugh. He seemed to say, in the manner of a sporting man, 'Well tried, sir'"

[About President Truman] "Truman never shucked the image of a country boy in the big city. But in his self-confident righteousness, he impressed you with the courage of a lion"

About President Eisenhower] "Eisenhower made political enemies of course but he never lost the aura of the war hero. In doing his memoirs for television with me, he revealed a great deal more detailed knowledge of the arcane decisions of his administration than the press generally gave him credit for."

[About President Kennedy] "Kennedy could be as charming in public as he had been in private. But he had another side, a certain attitude of superiority, an arrogance that I found disturbing."