CBS Evening News a one-evening test broadcast on August 19, 1965, before permanently switching to the format on January 31, 1966. Cronkite's prime time special report, "Who, What, When, Where, Why", broadcast on February 27, 1968, ended with his declaration that the United States could only hope for a stalemate in Vietnam. It is often credited with influencing Lyndon Johnson's decision to drop out of the race for President. "If I've lost Walter Cronkite ... [I]'ve lost Middle America", he stated. Under Cronkite, the newscast began what would eventually become an 18-year period of dominating the ratings among the network evening news programs.
Walter Cronkite Cronkite concluded that "The failure to give free airtime for our political campaigns endangers our democracy." During the elections held in 2000, the amount spent by candidates in the major TV markets approached $1 billion. "What our campaign asks is that the television industry yield just a tiny percentage of that windfall, less than 1 percent, to fund free airtime." He was a member of the Constitution Project's bipartisan Liberty and Security Committee. He also supported the nonprofit world hunger organization Heifer International. In 1998, he supported President Bill Clinton during Clinton's impeachment trial. He was also a proponent of