Friends, public honor Cronkite

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Walter Cronkite 1916-2009

NEW YORK (AP) — Walter Cronkite was remembered as a great newsman, sailor, friend and father during Thursday’s funeral for the CBS anchor.

“I was often asked what he’s really like. And I would always answer, ‘He’s just the way you hope he is,’” said Mike Ashford, a Cronkite friend of more than 30 years and one of the speakers.

Another speaker, longtime CBS newsman and “60 Minutes” commentator Andy Rooney, recalled meeting Cronkite when they both were in England covering World War II.

“You get to know someone pretty well in a war,” said Rooney.

“I just feel so terrible about Walter’s death that I can hardly say anything,” he admitted, and excused himself.

The remarkably intimate, even homey ceremony was witnessed by a near-capacity crowd at the enormous St. Bartholomew’s Church in midtown Manhattan, where the Cronkite family has worshipped for years.

Broadcast journalists — co-workers, competitors, successors — were on hand, including Connie Chung, Bob Schieffer, Diane Sawyer, Brian Williams, Dan Rather, Barbara Walters, Charles Gibson, Matt Lauer, Tom Brokaw, Morley Safer and Meredith Vieira. Comedians-actors Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller also were in attendance.

But there also was room for members of the public to pay their respects.

James Huntsburg and his wife, Sylvia, visiting from Canada, had heard about the ceremony. Admitted to the sanctuary, they took their place in one of the pews.

Huntsburg said he grew up watching Cronkite, who, he said, “touched me.”

For his reporting, Cronkite came to be called “the most trusted man in America” and was widely considered the premier TV journalist of his time. He anchored “The CBS Evening News” from 1962 until 1981.

A separate memorial will take place within the next few weeks at New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Cronkite is to be cremated and his remains buried next to his wife, Betsy, in the family plot at a cemetery in Kansas City, Mo.