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 was the voice of Benjamin Franklin in the educational television cartoon "Liberty's Kids", which included a news segment ending with the same phrase he did back on the "CBS Evening News". His distinctive voice provided the narration for the television ads of the University of Texas, Austin, his alma mater, with its 'We're Texas' ad campaign. Cronkite voiced Tim's grandpa in the BrainPOP episode about aging. He held amateur radio operator license KB2GSD and narrated a 2003 American Radio Relay League documentary explaining amateur radio's role in disaster relief. the video tells Amateur Radio's public service story to non-hams,