My Introduction to Walter Cronkite: The 21st Century

[Cirque du So-What]

I was 12 years old in 1967, and I had already developed an interest in watching the evening news. In my household, however, the network of choice was NBC. Chet Huntley and David Brinkley were the messengers who brought the day's events into our living room in 30-minute segments.

Show selection was a continual bone of contention, so I schlepped the old black-and-white TV up to my room so I could watch shows that didn't conform to family consensus. Having grown weary of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color on Sunday evenings, I began searching for less sickly-sweet content.

That's when I discovered 60 Minutes on CBS. As fascinating as I found that show, another one followed that completely fired my imagination like nothing I had ever seen before: The 21st Century. I didn't know greasy kid stuff from gravitas when I started watching the show, but I knew this guy had it! The host, Walter Cronkite, had been hosting the show's predecessor, The 20th Century, since I was a baby, but I didn't know about that production. I just knew that the one that now aired on Sunday evenings had become my new 'must-see' show.

In the years before the name Union Carbide became vilified as a result of the tragedy in Bhopal, India, they sponsored The 21st Century and ran commercials that were like miniature documentaries within the main program. I have to give credit to those commercials for sparking an interest in science and leading me onto the path that determined my career.

Walter Cronkite became my network news anchor of choice - an important choice for a pubescent lad growing up watching a war in Southeast Asia spill into his room every afternoon. I heard what was probably the most important commentary of his career a short time after the Tet Offensive, in which he declared the Vietnam War virtually unwinnable. It became an article of faith that I internalized until that conflict was thoroughly resolved.

But it wasn't on the evening news that I first encountered that commentator with the rock-steady voice; it was a documentary series about the future and what humanity could reasonably expect to find. I've never given up my love of technology, nor have I ever abandoned my hope and optimism for the future. I owe The 21st Century - and the man who brought it alive for me - a debt of gratitude. Rest well, Mr. Cronkite.

[Rick Myers]

1. I was 10 in 1967...

Walter Cronkite WAS the NEWS!

[Vidar]

2. Thanks for sharing that recollection. I was 12 in '67.