When asked decades later whether he had flown over Utah or Omaha Beach, Cronkite shrugged. “I think it was Omaha,” he said. “We didn’t know about those names then, of course. All I knew was the beach. I didn’t even know how extensive the landings were.”
Such self-deprecating responses regarding his own WWII experiences became de rigueur for Cronkite.
He gained credibility by dialing back his valor. Considered the “Dean of the Allied Air War,” for going on U.S. bombing missions over Nazi Germany, Cronkite, a reporter for the United Press, insisted he was nothing more than a nervous-nelly fly-on-the-wall.
Although Cronkite had once crash landed in a Dutch potato field under enemy fire, he chose instead to focus on celebrating the liberation of the Netherlands at the hands of the Free Dutch.
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Maybe Williams needed to be reminded of which role — newsman or showman — was most important, which ball to favor in his juggling act. It is a fact that Cronkite knew all too well: sometimes a little tuliping in a war zone goes farther than a tale of looking down the tube of an RPG.
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