The power of the so-called “Cronkite Moment” knows few bounds.

A column in a Florida newspaper the other day claims that the “Cronkite Moment” was “seminal” because “many say” it “marked the end of the media’s reputation for credibility.”

The occasion was February 27, 1968, when CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite pronounced that the U.S. war effort in Vietnam had become mired in stalemate. Cronkite suggested that negotiations with the communist North Vietnamese should be considered, as a way to end the conflict.

Cronkite’s analysis was supposedly so powerful and insightful that President Lyndon Johnson purportedly told an aide or aides:

“If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” Or words to that effect.

Johnson in 1968

The column in the Hernando Today newspaper, a publication of the Tampa Tribune, doesn’t invoke Johnson’s purported remarks — which, as MediaMythAlert has noted several times, Johnson almost certainly did not say.

The column does, though, say that Cronkite’s remarks “turned the tide of American public opinion and influenced Lyndon Johnson not to seek reelection.”

Nope. Not so.

As I discuss in my forthcoming book, Getting It Wrong,  “there is scant evidence that the Cronkite program had much influence at all on American popular opinion about the war.” As I further write in the book, which is to be published in the summer by University of California Press:

“Polling data clearly show that American sentiment had begun shifting months before the Cronkite program.”

Indeed, those data indicate that Americans’ views about the war had begun to shift months before the Cronkite program.

Journalists at the time also detected a softening in support of the war.

In December 1967, for example, Don Oberdorfer, then a national correspondent for the Knight newspapers, noted that “summer and fall of 1967 [had] been a time of switching, when millions of American voters—along with many religious leaders, editorial writers and elected officials—appeared to be changing their views about the war.”

As for Johnson’s decision not to seek reelection, the Cronkite program had little or no effect.

Critical to Johnson’s decision, which he announced at the end of March 1968, was the advice and counsel of his advisers, and the implications of Senator Eugene McCarthy’s insurgent bid for the Democratic nomination for president.

The surprising potency of McCarthy’s antiwar campaign was demonstrated in the Democratic primary election in New Hampshire on March 12, 1968. McCarthy won 42 percent of the vote, a far greater portion than expected. Johnson won 49 percent.

Not only that, there is evidence that Johnson never intended to seek reelection in 1968.

In any event, Cronkite  used to scoff at the notion that his report of February 27, 1968, had a powerful influence on Johnson. Rather, he would say, the effect was like that of “a very small straw.”

Near the end of his life, however, Cronkite (who died in July 2009) came to embrace the supposed power of the broadcast.

“To be honest,” he told Esquire magazine in 2006: “I was rather amazed that my reporting from Vietnam had such an effect on history.”

But it didn’t, though. Not really.

WJC

I blogged not long ago about what may be the most famous words in American journalism, offering a couple of media myths as examples.

One was the enduring anecdote about William Randolph Hearst’s supposed vow to “furnish the war” with Spain. That one’s been retold many, many since it first appeared in print in 1901.

It is arguably American journalism’s most tenacious myth. Those words attributed to Hearst surely are some of the most famous in journalism. Even though it’s quite unlikely he ever made such a vow.

Another example I cited was the so-called “Cronkite Moment,” the occasion in 1968 when the views of CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite were supposedly so powerful and persuasive they swiftly altered U.S. policy in Vietnam.

That anecdote centers around Cronkite’s special program on the Vietnam War, a show that aired February 27, 1968. Near the end of the program, Cronkite declared the U.S. war effort was “mired in stalemate” and suggested negotiations with the communist North Vietnamese to end the conflict.

At the White House, President Lyndon Johnson supposedly watched the Cronkite program and snapped off the television set when he heard the anchorman’s dire assessment, telling an aide, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” Or something to that effect.

The point is that Cronkite was such a trusted figure that his views could sway the opinions of countless thousands of Americans. With Cronkite gone wobbly on Vietnam, the Johnson White House supposedly reeled. At the end of March 1968, Johnson announced he would not seek reelection.

The “Cronkite Moment” made yet another appearance the other day in a blog of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The blog comment, posted by an editorial writer for the newspaper, stated:

“One of the standard views of why America turned on the Vietnam War focuses on CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite’s increasingly obvious pessimism about President Lyndon Johnson’s statements about and management of the war. LBJ reportedly told an aide, ‘That’s it. If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.'”

As I’ve noted several time at Media Myth Alert, and as I write in my forthcoming book, Getting It Wrong, Johnson did not see the Cronkite program on Vietnam when it aired. The president that night was in Austin, Texas, at the 51st birthday of a political ally, Governor John Connally.

When Cronkite was intoning his downbeat assessment of the war, Johnson was offering light-hearted banter about Connally’s age, saying:

“Today you are 51, John. That is the magic number that every man of politics prays for—a simple majority. Throughout the years we have worked long and hard—and I might say late—trying to maintain it, too.”

Earlier that day, Johnson delivered a rousing speech in Dallas, invoking Churchillian language at one point.

“There will be blood, sweat and tears shed,” he said, adding:  “I do not believe that America will ever buckle” in pursuit of its objectives in Vietnam.

Even if the president had seen the Cronkite program, it is exceedingly difficult to imagine how his mood could swing so abruptly, from vigorously defending the war effort to throwing up his hands in despair.

But if the “Cronkite Moment” is to be believed, that’s what happened: A swift, dramatic and decisive change of heart that occurred within hours of the hawkish speech in Dallas.

Not likely.

Even so, the frequency with which the quote attributed to Johnson is invoked certainly has made it among the most famous, if most dubious, turns of phrase in American journalism.

As I also write in Getting It Wrong, “Seldom, if ever, do the news media exert truly decisive influences in decisions to go to war or to seek negotiated peace. Such decisions typically are driven by forces and factors well beyond the news media’s ability to shape, alter, or significantly influence.

“So it was in Vietnam, where the war ground on for years after the ‘Cronkite moment.’”

WJC