Walter Cronkite Walter Cronkite Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the "CBS Evening News" for 19 years (1962–1981). During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll. He reported many events from 1937 to 1981, including bombings in World War II; the Nuremberg trials; combat in the Vietnam War; the Dawson's Field hijackings; Watergate; the Iran Hostage Crisis; and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy,
The Most Famous Man in America fact-studded and fast-paced portrait of one of America's most famous preachers from one of America's most famous 19th-century families is a remarkably authentic mirror of the times", criticizing only the "minor flaw" of a lack of nuance in her description of Calvinism. Heather Cox Richardson praised the book in "The Chicago Tribune", calling it "one of those rare books that delivers a great deal more than it promises"; though critical of what she saw as some factual errors and "unsubstantiated claims" by Applegate, such as Lyman Beecher's role in creating mass media, Richardson concluded that these flaws "do not cripple