The Coffee House Philosopher

During World War II, Walter Cronkite became a preeminent war correspondent and covered many major military engagements up close and personal. However, he did not always content himself just to be an observer and reporter of the conflicts. At times he would take over the firing of a fifty caliber anti-aircraft machine gun to repel German fighters while on board a B-17 on bombing raids over Germany.

After the cessation of hostilities, Cronkite was chosen to cover the trials of top Nazis for war crimes at Nuremberg. For more that a month he sat just a few feet from such infamous personalities as Rudolph Hess and Hermann Goering. Goering’s memorable observation about war crimes trials was, “the losers become the accused while the victors become the accusers.” After being convicted and sentenced to death, Goering avoided being hanged by a matter of hours by taking a hidden cyanide capsule.

Following the war, Cronkite tried his hand at several other professions and avocations. One activity that he chose to dabble seriously in, was sports car racing. He cut his teeth in racing while campaigning in an Austin Healey. (In the late 1960s, I was the proud owner of a 1959 white Austin Healey Mk III convertible. It had a four speed transmission with electric overdrive in third and fourth gears, and wire wheels with knock off hubs. Yeah man!)

Cronkite later graduated to racing in Lotus Club Eleven cars which were designed and built by Colin Chapman, who at the time was the owner of the Lotus car company. Chapman’s reputed construction strategy was to design and build the lightest car possible, and then pare off even more weight until it was ready to break under racing stress. It even became necessary at times to add ballast to his Formula One cars in order for them to achieve the category’s minimum weight requirement. Then the added ballast would be placed in the car in places where it would provide the best weight distribution for a specific racetrack.

The result was a F-1 race car, which could in its day, run off and hide from all but the fastest of the other cars. And when Chaplin hired Jim Clark to be his top driver, determining the winner was only a matter of finding out if Clark’s car would break down. (During the 1965 Indianapolis 500 race, I was seated trackside, directly opposite the pit area, when Jim Clark won the race driving a modified Lotus F-1 car powered by a Ford engine.)

Getting back to Cronkite’s racing career, he would at times drive his super light Lotus Club Eleven so hard in corners, that the inside rear wheel would lift off the ground. When Cronkite’s unique racing technique became widely known among racing families, Betsy Cronkite (as would any concerned wife) managed to put the quietus on Walter’s passion for fast cars, and he began to look elsewhere for a livelihood.

As time passed, Cronkite returned to mass communications, eventually becoming the anchor of CBS’s top rated television news show for almost two decades. He conducted numerous interviews of heads of state and other notables. Although the list would include a dozen or more presidents, perhaps one of his favorites involved a dinner interview (one of many) with President Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird.

Having a serious heart condition, President Johnson would sometimes do his interviews while clad in a white robe and little else. Further, he was occasionally known to get excited, gesticulate wildly with his arms, and reveal considerably more than just his political opinion. It then up to the first lady to get his attention, calm him down, and make sure that only his political positions were bared. Not only that, she had to try to keep him from sneaking a forkfull of food (that Johnson’s diet didn’t allow) from a guest’s plate when Lady Bird wasn’t looking.

The following is a reasonably accurate account of the memorable interview. At the time, Cronkite and a woman news person had been discussing various matters with the president. At about eight o’clock the President’s phone in his living room rang, and Johnson’s end of the conversation went something like this.

“Yes, Bird. Yes, Bird. I’m talking with some folks here, and I’ll be up in just a minute.” At eight-thirty, the phone rang again, and something similar was again exchanged over the phone. Roughly, the same thing was repeated at nine o’clock.

At nine-thirty, the phone rang again, but this time Johnson said, “ Bird, Walter Cronkite and Liz (her only name given) are here. I’m going to bring them up for dinner.”

Cronkite and Lady Bird had known and liked each other for decades, going all the way back to their days of working on the student newspaper at the University of Texas. But Lady Bird’s patience, as would soon be made abundantly clear, was just about exhausted.

When she “greeted” Cronkite and Liz, Lady Bird was clad in a robe, curlers under a net, and house slippers. The newsmens’ less than sumptuous repast had been sitting out on a hastily set-up table for what appeared to be a considerable time. The parts of the meal that were supposed to be hot, were cold. And the parts of the meal that were supposed to be cold, had become tepid.

An embarrassed waiter offered to warm or cool the parts of the meals that needed it, but Lady Bird sternly advised him that such action was entirely un-necessary. Although President Johnson had just moments before been easy going, and vocally jovial and entertaining, he obviously knew when it was best to keep his politically adept mouth shut. Thus it becomes obvious that at times, even a First Couple will have its testy moments.

To be continued