Walter Cronkite and the Middle East

No doubt, you will be inundated with news about the death of Walter Cronkite. My advice is to watch it all, listen to it all. "Uncle Walter" held a rare place in the history of news. For my generation, he was the news. He was the one who told us President Kennedy had died. When he took off his dark glasses to wipe away tears, we knew how tragic this really was. As a kid, I could not imagine Walter Cronkite crying. He was so calm, so in charge, so authoritative. The other time he removed those famous glasses was when Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon. He took them off, rubbed his hands together and just said, "the moon." That was enough to convey the awe and wonder of it. You'll hear and see these stories and more, especially his famous coverage of the Vietnam War when he criticized U.S. policy there after a visit. LBJ is reported to have said, "If we've lost Walter Cronkite, we've lost middle America." The stories could go on and on. But, I think it is important for the purposes of this blog to mention the impact he had on the Middle East, not on reporting it but actually on the peace process.

In 1977, he was interviewing President Sadat of Egypt live and asked him if he would go to Israel (no Arab state recognized Israel at this point) to negotiate a settlement after the Yom Kippur War. Sadat said yes on live television - if he received and invitation. CBS news then got in touch with Prime Minister Begin of Israel and, once again on live television, asked if he would invite Sadat. Begin agreed that he would. It was remarkable. Evntually, it led to peace talks, Egypt's recogntion of Israel, the Camp David Accords and a Nobel Peace Prize for Sadat and Begin. I'm not saying Walter Cronkite brought this about, but certainly his prestige as a jounalist and the respect with which he was held helped facilitate the beginning of it. He describes it this way:

"But the openness of television offered a powerful incentive that secret diplomacy did not. The political consequences of a public failure improved the ultimate chances of diplomatic success, and statesmen willing to fail publicly are a courageous lot."

For Cronkite's version of how this all happened, check out the video or transcript on NPR.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6861044