Walter
Cronkite was
born in St. Joseph, Missouri in 1916. After studying
political science and economics at Texas University (1933-35) he joined
the Houston Post. He later worked
as a news and sports reporter at KCMO radio in Kansas City.
During
the Second World War he worked for the United
Press. Cronkite was one of the eight war correspondents selected to
fly with the United States Air Force on
bombing missions over Germany. After a week's
high-altitude aircrew training in England
he flew his first mission in a B-17 Flying Fortress
on 26th February 1943. One of the aircraft, carrying the journalist
Robert
Post,
was shot down and the USAF scheme was abandoned.
Cronkite
covered the Nuremberg
War Trials
and
in 1946 moved to the Soviet Union where he
worked as the United Press bureau chief in Moscow.
In
1950 Cronkite returned to the United States
and joined CBS. He worked on several shows programmes including
You Are There (1953-56) and CBS
Evening News (1962-81). Other programmes included Sabotage
in South Africa (1962), D-Day
Plus 20 Years (1964), Vietnam:
A War That Is Finished (1975), Walter
Cronkite's Universe (1980-82) and Cronkite
Remembers (1996-97).
In
1981 Cronkite was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom
and four years later was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts
and Sciences Hall of Fame.
Cronkite
has written several books including Eve of
the World (1971), South by Southeast
(1993), North by Northeast (1986),
Westwind (1990) and his autobiography,
Cronkite Remembers (1996).
(1)
The German newspaper, Voelkischer Beobachter, reported on the
Allied mission on 26th February 1943 when Robert
Post was killed.
An air battle of exceptional ferocity took place on the 26th of February
in which fighters and marine flak artillery emerged victorious with
seventeen enemy airplanes shot down.
Wilhelmshaven was the target
of the attacking formation of U.S. bombers. The city on the Jade Bay,
which has had to withstand several night attacks in the past two weeks,
was now targeted for a daylight bombing attack in good visibility.
But fighters and marine flak artillery destroyed the enemy's plan,
knocked the opponent back, and gave the Americans an idea of the striking
power of our aerial defense. The air battle that was fought here ranks
as one of the biggest days in the German bay, where once thirty-six
enemy bombers were shot down by the Schumacher squadron. This time
it was seventeen "four-motors" that found their end in the
course of less than an hour. Outside in the Watt Sea, in the swamps,
in the meadows, and in the marshes - everywhere lay the rubble of
destroyed enemy machines. Already they are covered by the incoming
tide or buried deep in the swamp. A flyer reported that the sky at
the time was so speckled with white parachutes that one might have
assumed that the enemy was dropping paratroopers if it had not been
for the firebrand of crashing machines which left no doubt as to their
origin. Trucks with prisoners drove quickly through the streets. Out
of all regions, captured Americans were rounded up by the police,
civil authorities, and military installations.
While enemy planes were
hunted and shot down outside the approach to the city, on the coast,
and above the Watt Sea and the Ems River, a few of them managed to
reach the city of Wilhelmshaven. Encircled by the exploding shells
of the marine flak artillery, the bombers indiscriminately unloaded
their bombs. Again apartment houses here collapsed, again people were
left homeless, and again, almost without exception, civil and public
establishments were hit. Above the residential areas bombers were
again severely attacked by the marine flak artillery.
As the last enemy bombers
reached the wide sea and our fighters flew back to their air bases,
we drove to the city of Wilhelmshaven. The population has gone through
a lot in recent days. Many times they have been named in armed forces
reports as a target of British bombers. But the people have held "their
front." They are standing firm on ground made dear by battle
and pain. Most of all, they are happy about the success of our fighter
pilots and flak artillery gunners and are grateful to them for the
battering of the enemy air forces.
(2)
Walter
Cronkite,
The Warren Report:
Part 1, CBS Television (25th June, 1967)
It seemed evident that we should try to establish the
ease or difficulty of that rapid-fire performance. Hence, our next
question: How fast could that rifle be fired? Oswald's rifle was test-fired
for the Warren Commission by FBI and military marksmen. The rate of
fire for this bolt-action rifle and its accuracy against a moving
target were critical to the Commission's case against Oswald. And
yet, incredibly, all tests for the Commission were fired at stationary
targets. The FBI won't comment on why.
Based more on testimony
than on firing tests, the Commission concluded it was an easy shot
for Oswald to hit the President at that range. From its tests the
main conclusion drawn was that this Mannlicher-Carcano could not be
fired three times in a span of less than 4.6 seconds, because it took
about 2.3 seconds to operate the bolt mechanism between shots...
Did Oswald own a rifle?
He did.
Did Oswald take a rifle
to the Book Depository building? He did.
Where was Oswald when
the shots were fired? In the building, on the sixth floor.
Was Oswald's rifle fired
from the building? It was.
How many shots were fired?
Three.
How fast could Oswald's
rifle be fired? Fast enough.
What was the time span
of the shots? Seven or eight seconds.
Did Lee Harvey Oswald
shoot President Kennedy? CBS News concludes that he did.
(3)
Walter
Cronkite,
The Warren
Report: Part 2, CBS Television
(26th June, 1967)
In answer to our
major question as to whether shots came from a direction other than
the Book Depository Building, indicating other gunmen and a conspiracy,
we have eye - or ear witnesses inside the building saying the shots
came from there. Now, Mr. Holland who was on the railroad overpass,
here, insists that he heard a shot from here. And in Mark Lane's book.
Rush to Judgment, he writes that fifty-eight out of ninety
people who were asked about the shots thought they came from the grassy
knoll.
Now, expert opinions differ.
All the experts agree that the shots could have come from the rear.
But where some experts, such as Dr. Humes, say bluntly that they did,
others - such as Dr. Wecht - find it highly unlikely.
CBS News concludes that
the most reasonable answer is that the shots came from the Book Depository
building, behind the President and Governor Connally. But if the shots
came from the rear, and if there were only three of them, can all
the wounds be accounted for? The President was struck at least twice.
Governor Connally was wounded in the chest, the wrist, and the thigh.
One bullet was recovered intact, as well as two large fragments. The
Warren Commission concluded that of the three bullets fired, one missed
entirely, one struck the President's skull and fragmented, and the
third - this one - passed through the President's neck and went on
to inflict all the governor's wounds. This is the single-bullet theory.
And so we must ask: Could a single bullet have wounded both President
Kennedy and Governor Connally?
We asked Arlen Specter,
assistant counsel to the Commission, and now district attorney of
Philadelphia, and the author of the single-bullet theory.
Arlen Specter: The possibility
of one bullet having inflicted the wounds on both the President's
neck and the Governor's body came in a very gradual way. For example,
the first insight was given when Dr. Humes testified, based on his
autopsy findings. And at that time it was made clear for the first
time that the bullet that went through the President's neck hit no
bone, hit no solid muscle. And, according to Dr. Humes, came out with
great velocity.
Now, it was at that juncture
that we wondered for the first time what happened to the bullet. Where
did the bullet go? The probability is that it went into Governor Connally,
because it struck nothing else in the car. That is the single most
convincing piece of evidence that the one bullet hit both men, because
looking down the trajectory, as I did through Oswald's own rifle,
and others did too, the trajectory was such that it was almost certain
that the bullet which came out of the President's neck with great
velocity would have had to have hit either the car or someone in the
car.
(4)
Walter
Cronkite,
The Warren
Report: Part 2, CBS Television
(26th June, 1967)
It is claimed that
the bullet was planted on the governor's stretcher as part of a plot
to link Oswald to the assassination. And that claim can never be disproved.
The bullet is almost intact, only slightly flattened, with a little
cone of lead missing from the rear end. Could such a bullet have penetrated
successively, a human neck, a human torso, a wrist, and a thigh, and
emerged in this condition? The Commission used
animal carcasses and blocks of gelatin to test the bullet's penetrating
power, firing repeated shots from Oswald's rifle. Now,
this is standard technique. But, because of the difficulty of
lining up such a shot, the Commission experts fired their bullets
separately through the various simulators. Each time they measured
how much speed the bullet had lost from its initial two
thousand feet per second, and in the end, concluded that the
bullet would have retained enough velocity to penetrate the Governor's
thigh.
(5)
Walter
Cronkite,
The Warren
Report: Part 2, CBS Television
(26th June, 1967)
The Warren Report's
contention that there was only one assassin rests on the conviction
that all the wounds suffered by both men were inflicted by no more
than three shots, fired from behind and above them. We have heard
Captain Humes, as well as other doctors and experts. We have looked
hard at the single-bullet theory. The case is a strong one.
There is not a single item
of hard evidence for a second assassin. No wound that can be attributed
to him. No one who saw him, although he would have been in full view
of a crowded plaza. No bullets. No cartridge cases. Nothing tangible.
(6)
Walter
Cronkite,
The Warren
Report: Part 3, CBS Television
(27th June, 1967)
Jack Ruby was convicted
of the murder of Oswald, but the conviction was reversed by an Appeals
Court which held that an alleged confession should not have been admitted.
Ruby died six months ago
of cancer, maintaining to the last that he was no conspirator, that
he had killed Oswald out of anger and a desire to shield Jacqueline
Kennedy from the ordeal of a trial at which she would have had to
appear as a witness.
(7)
Walter
Cronkite,
The Warren
Report: Part 3, CBS Television
(27th June, 1967)
Tonight we've asked
if there was a conspiracy involving perhaps Officer Tippit, Jack Ruby,
or others... On the basis of the evidence now at hand at least, we
still can find no convincing indication of such a conspiracy. If we
put those three conclusion together, they seem to CBS News to tell
Just one story - Lee Harvey Oswald, alone, and for reasons all his
own, shot and killed President Kennedy. It is too much to expect that
the critics of the Warren Report will be satisfied with the conclusions
CBS News has reached, any more than they were satisfied with the conclusions
the Commission reached.
Concerning the events of
November 22nd, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, the report of the Warren Commission
is probably as close as we can ever come now to the truth.
(8)
Walter
Cronkite,
The Warren Report:
Part 4, CBS Television (28th June, 1967)
Almost from the day
the Warren Commission published its report, its decision to omit those
vital X-rays and photographs has been under attack. Only that physical
evidence, say the critics, can finally resolve the debate over how
many bullets struck the President, where they came from, and where
they went - the central questions in the argument over how many assassins
opened fire in Dealey Plaza.
More than one critic has
charged that the autopsy record in the Warren Report is not the original
autopsy, but has been changed to conform with the Commission's theories...
It seems to CBS News that
one of the most serious errors made by the Warren Commission was its
decision not to
look at those photographs and X-rays, an error now compounded. For
the Kennedy family, which had possession of the autopsy pictures,
agreed last year to donate them to the National Archives, but only
with the stipulation that the pictures be locked away for five years
- with only certain authorized government personnel allowed to see
them.
Now, no one would propose
that those grim and tragic relics be made generally available, to
be flashed across television screens and newspaper pages. But in view
of their crucial bearing on the entire assassination we believe that
those films should now be made available for independent examination
by expert pathologists, with the high qualifications of Captain Humes
- but without his
status as a principal in the case.
There is one further piece
of evidence which we feel must now be made available to the entire
public: Abraham's Zapruder's film of the actual assassination. The
original is now the private property of Life magazine. A Life executive
refused CBS News permission to show you that film at any price, on
the grounds that it is "an invaluable asset of Time, Inc."
although these broadcasts have demonstrated that the film may contain
vital undiscovered clues to the assassination.
Life's decision means
you cannot see the Zapruder film in its proper form, as motion picture
film. We believe that the Zapruder film is an invaluable asset, not
of Time, Inc. - but of the people of the United States.
Available from Amazon Books
