Walter Cronkite Remembers His Tet Offensive Editorial

On Feb. 27, 1968, CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite broadcast an editorial criticizing the escalation of U.S. forces in Vietnam. In the aftermath of the Tet offensive, Cronkite had traveled to Vietnam to interview soldiers and civilians. Returning to the United States, Cronkite shared his observations with the American public. In favor of diplomatic negotiations, Cronkite rejected President Lyndon B. Johnson's optimism for further military deployment to end the standoff between U.S. and Viet Cong forces. In a 1996 interview, Cronkite remembers the effect his editorial had on President Johnson, who was reported to have said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Vietnam
• war
• soldier
• Walter
• Cronkite
• Tet
• offensive
• editorial
• president
• Lyndon
• Johnson
• news
• broadcast
• Viet
• Cong

[10Dec1971]

My dad was in the Army. He was a door gunner in Vietnam from December 1969-November 1970. He died of Agent Orange related lung/brain cancer on March 20, 2008. Vietnam was a WASTE!!!

[andrelebaron]

that war was basically won after 72 and the failure of hte Easter Offensive. all the US had to do was supply the ARVNs and they'd have evolved like South Korea. But the US didn't need to support them after Nixon went to China and the Chinese aligned themselves with the Americans against soviet expansion in the region. It was still a dirty trick to just abandon millions of vietnamese to slave camps though.

[TheHistoryCloud]

So, joeereed, the dictators are...Johnson? Nixon? McNamara? Not that I am fond of Fonda and the others mentioned, but they didn't create Vietnam, did they?

[mihappy]

Asking cronkite about what he thought of an editorial he read is like asking harrison ford how what he thought of the lines he said playing han solo. totally irrelevant.

[Wilks228]

@jy768 soz for the comment revival but so you seriously remember a time when the world was not gray?

[jerzy862]

@jy768 lol if anything its the conservatives who started the who "RealPolitik" mantra of relative power, rather than right and wrong. That was under Nixon

[johnnycaps1]

Cronkite is a blowhard. When I was growing up he was proclaimed as "fair and reasonable". What we didn't understand that the groups who were parroting this falsehood were the same leftist, Anit-American progressives that Uncle Walter Cronkite identified with. It's unfortunate that he didn't pass away in 1967, he would have done less damage to the United States. Good riddance to this P.O.S.

[DANNYBARE2]

@FREAKNIZZLE100 Your point being? America may have won every conventional battle against the PAVN, but it didn't matter. The Vietnamise had an entirely different mentality about death to the US, to quote Ho Chi Mihn "You will kill 10 of our men, and we will kill 1 of yours, and in the end it will be you who tire of it". Also every conventional battle was on PAVN terms they always chose were it was and when it was.

[ftsjr]

RIP, Walter Cronkite.

[hounddog183]

type in youtube search, Walter Cronkite Satan, and watch it. He says that he is glad to sit at the right hand of Satan. I hope that he is burning in Hell with his God.