February 27, 2018: Most Trusted Man, Losing Middle America, Truth to Power

This year marks a half century since that time so long ago when the conservative movement rose the ascendancy of American politics. The fateful year that began with so much promise and ended with the ultimate booby prize, marked the beginning of the emergence of a toxic, vitriolic, and insidious cancer upon the body politic. From time to time, in the ensuing posts, I will take moments to remember that fateful year and mark the milestones. Today is one such occasion.

On this date, 50 years ago, CBS Evening News anchorman Walter Cronkite did something that, at the time, was extraordinary. It is difficult to imagine a time when those who report the news do not editorialize but simply report what they see; but that was the norm 'back in the day'. Consequently, in poll after poll, Cronkite was reputed to be the most trusted man in America, finishing a close second behind god himself. Such was his stature that n the 1971 movie “Cold Turkey”, a story about a clergyman who leads his community to accept a challenge by a tobacco company to quit smoking for thirty days, the effort reaches truly national indeed mythical stature when Cronkite, played by Ray Goulding of the comedy team Bob and Ray, appears amid angelic choir with a florescent light forming an overhead halo.

Cronkite stepped 'down' from his pinnacle to voice, for him, a singular editorial opinion. He had gone to Vietnam in the waning days of the Tet Offensive to see for himself. Tet is the Vietnamese New Year celebration and the communists had launched, in late January of 1968, a massive offensive to coincide with the country's national celebration, hoping to catch the South Vietnamese forces unawares. Visions of the U.S. Embassy under attack put lie to the administration narrative that the end of the war was nearly at hand, with only some mopping up operations left to be done. Cronkite went to Saigon and was lectured by General William Westmoreland who instructed the veteran reporter to 'do his homework'. Cronkite did. He left the headquarters and went out into the field touring, among other places, Hue where bitter block by block and house to house fighting had been going on for weeks reducing the once grand colonial capital. It reminded him of the ruins of towns and villages he had seen while reporting from the field in World War II.

He returned home convinced, as he reported on this night 50 years ago, that it was clear 'to this reporter' that victory cannot be won. It was also clear that it was not possible for the other side to win. What the country faced, he told his fellow Americans, was a stalemate demanding a political settlement. Negotiations.

President Johnson, watching the telecast, turned to one of his aides and said “If we've lost Cronkite we have lost middle America”. Johnson realized at that moment that—to paraphrase Richard Nixon—the war will no longer play in Peoria. Accordingly he began to talk to First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, about retiring from office.

Cronkite was, through his position in the press, speaking to the nation. But in a very real sense he was addressing an audience of one: the President of the United States. Johnson got the message. Barely 6 weeks later, in an address from the Oval Office to the nation, Johnson confirmed Cronkite's assessment, declaring a willingness to meet our adversaries at the peace table while suspending certain military actions, the need to devote full time to any upcoming negotiations, that he would not seek nor accept the nomination of his party for President of the United States.

The myth, pilloried so well in the film, was that Cronkite's shift into open skepticism if not opposition, turned the country against the war. It is central to the conservative narrative that the press had sold out the country and gave credence to the paranoia concerning the press that had fueled what, until that time, was nearly a singular grievance on the part of Richard Nixon. Cronkite's influence was wide, but not nearly so deep. The conservative critique makes too much of such influence. It would be another three years before polls began to show a palpable majority questioning the wisdom of the war, another five years before the United States had withdrawn nearly all its forces, and seven years before the South Vietnamese government, a tin-horn dictatorship rife with corruption, would fall. In sum the country didn't turn on a dime, the war dragged on for nearly three quarters of a decade. But the corner had been turned.

Then, of course, there were the upcoming returns from the New Hampshire Primary where Senator Gene McCarthy would perform beyond all expectations denying the once invincible Johnson a clear majority finishing with 42 per cent behind Johnson's 49. Not only had McCarthy, due to the arcane rules governing how delegates were awarded, shown how vulnerable was the president on the war issue, but had actually won a majority of the delegates. The outlook for the president, electorally speaking was grim. Polls had him well behind in upcoming Wisconsin and, in the wings, awaited Bobby Kennedy.

Coming as it did just before Johnson had replaced Robert McNamara with Clark Clifford at Defense Secretary, and as his council of 'wise men'--Johnson's Kitchen Cabinet—itself began to change its tune and echo Cronkite's chilling assessment, those closest to the President had begun to change their minds and speak newly discovered truth to power. The president had ears and responded accordingly.

Contrast now with our present situation where ensconced upon the throne sits a man who neither understands, nor reads, nor listens. Imagine if you will, our very own Caesar Disgustus caught in the currents of such national torment.

“an' Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh.”

Impeach and Imprison.

See. Bowden, Mark. “Cronkite's 'Stalemate”' The New York Times Tuesday, February 27^th 2018.

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