ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 20, 1996 TAG: 9612200052
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: DAVID BAUDER ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cronkite's uncomfortable relationship with the only network he's called home and disappointment with the state of television news lend a bittersweet tone to the release of his memoirs, mostly a collection of anecdotes about - as the title says - ``A Reporter's Life.''
Cronkite, now 80, was a fixture in America's living rooms during the 1960s and '70s, an avuncular figure who so regularly won polls about his trustworthiness that Robert F. Kennedy once asked if he'd consider running for office.
His presence was so formidable that President Lyndon Johnson despaired of losing the battle for public opinion when Cronkite questioned America's involvement in Vietnam.
Yet Cronkite said he became such a pariah at CBS in the years after he gave way to Dan Rather as anchor of ``CBS Evening News'' that old friends thought twice about talking to him at parties.
His anger is mainly directed at two people: Van Gordon Sauter, the former CBS News president who Cronkite said tried to keep him off the air as a way of building Rather's audience, and former CBS Chairman Laurence Tisch, whose cost-cutting moves Cronkite publicly questioned.
Both men are now gone from CBS, but the network still seems to have little interest in him, Cronkite said.
``That's understandable,'' he said. ``I'm old hat. They're not going to hand me any major assignments at my advanced age, and I probably wouldn't want them.''
But Cronkite considers it a major disappointment - and a violation of his contract - that he wasn't used more during the past 15 years. He began regretting his retirement as anchorman almost immediately.
``Every breaking story, it practically breaks my heart that I'm not involved in doing it,'' he said.
For that, Cronkite has himself to blame. He wasn't forced out and, in fact, said CBS executives initially laughed it off when he told TV Guide a year in advance he planned to retire when he reached 65 in 1981.
The news executives came to Cronkite to ask if he was serious when they wanted to offer the anchor's job as an enticement to keep Rather at CBS. Cronkite then agreed to step down a few months early.
``If I were on the outside and I saw someone voluntarily leave a top position like that, I would have said there's more to it than meets the eye,'' he said. ``And there's not.''
Despite his sadness at the turn of events, there's still affection for him at CBS. When Andy Rooney did a ``60 Minutes'' commentary on books early this month, it seemed simply an elaborate set-up to flashing a picture of Cronkite's memoirs on the air in the middle of the holiday shopping season.
``My respect for Walter knows no bounds,'' Rather said. ``I don't know anybody at CBS who feels otherwise and I never have.''
With plenty of time to indulge his love for sailing and socializing, Cronkite keeps busy. He formed a production company a few years back, and its eight-part documentary series of his reminiscences of big stories begins Jan. 2 on the Discovery Channel.
Cronkite - his hair and trademark mustache almost completely white now - said it was a bum knee that enabled him to finally write ``A Reporter's Life.''
His contract with publisher Alfred A. Knopf was more than a quarter-century old. Nagged by a friend who was an editor at the publishing house to write about his life, Cronkite agreed he would, provided no one at Knopf would bug him about it.
They didn't, and he didn't write. Being laid up after knee surgery, however, gave him the time and motivation to tackle the project.
``It would be a great Guiness entry, if they had such a category, of long-delayed books,'' he said.
Cronkite recounts hundreds of stories, from his days re-creating football broadcasts from Western Union wires at a Kansas City radio station, to covering World War II for United Press, to brokering a summit between Egypt and Israel at CBS.
His last chapter begins with this rather startling admission: ``A career can be called a success if one can look back and say: `I made a difference.' I don't feel I can do that.''
In retrospect, Cronkite said that was a rather muddled way of drawing attention to some of what he considers disturbing trends in the news business.
He's upset with a bottom-line mentality that has forced cuts in news divisions, the cynicism television has brought to the political process and the proliferation of tabloid TV. Feature stories about health and personal finance have no place on the evening news, he said.
``What I was trying to say, and obviously badly did it, was that I had thought we had set some standards in the early days of television news that would live and exist for considerable time to come,'' he said.
``I was scarcely out of the game and it's all changed. The standards that we set I think have been rather grossly violated.''
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Last month, former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite,by CNBnow 80, was honored at the CableACE awards in Los Angeles (right).
color. 2. In 1980, as he approached retirement (above) he announced
that Dan Rather would be his successor as "CBS Evening News"
anchorman and managing editor.