Walter Cronkite

[séamuis]

In the grand scheme, I don't think we should have been in Vietnam. We may should have helped Ho Chi Minh (our former ally) negotiate with the French early and explained to the French that WWII is over and so is French Indo China.

agreed. its too bad more people don't know about this aspect. so many lives could have been spared. I don't recall ever even being taught this fact in school.

There is one thing for sure. There is no anchor or field journalist at any of the networks or cable news channels that are in the same league with him or the same integrity at the present time.

wholeheartedly agreed.


Rest in Peace, Walter.

[woof]

Originally Posted by Blue

I was only 4. I have 2 points that often get overlooked in context of his speech:

Saigon fell in '75.

The second point is that the NVA let the VC take the brunt of the Tet offensive and they lost the key part of their leadership and the VC were nothing more than puppets from Hanoi after that.

Interesting analysis... he was wrong. It did not end in stalemate or peace.

The piece about killing two birds... again interesting. Perhaps three birds. Everyone won except the VC. Without a doubt the U.S. and ARVN won the battles involved in the 1968 Tet Offensives; every attack except Lang Vei and Kham Duc were repelled. 32,204 NVA/VC confirmed killed, and 5,803 captured. US losses were 1,015 KIA, while ARVN losses were 2,819 KIA.

Yet media following Tet helped open a very real credibility gap for the US government at home and it sapped the will of President Johnson to continue fighting in Vietnam.

I am not going to go so far as to say that had Cronkite not said these things, the war might have ended in a stalemate. Yet still, one might posit the notion that had he not, he'd have been right, and that by saying it he at least contributed to an alternate reality. One in which he was essentially wrong.

Originally Posted by Blue

Edit Edit: I still think Cronkite was one of the 3 greatest TV anchors from the 20th Century and probably the greatest. I would have liked to see him re-visit the Tet after the North Vietnamese documents were declassified a few years ago.

You asked for it...

YouTube - Walter Cronkite Remembers His Tet Offensive Editorial

woof!

[Blue]

Thanks for that link Woof. I had not seen that before.