Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History Maurice Isserman and his former student Walter Cronkite IV ’11 discussed their new book Cronkite's War: His World War II Letters Home during an hour-long interview on public radio station WOSU’s All Sides with Ann Fisher on May 28. WOSU is based in Columbus, Ohio. The segment was titled “The Way It Is: Life and Times of Walter Cronkite.”
The co-authors talked about how they culled the trove of letters - personal correspondence from Cronkite to his wife, Betsy, between 1943 and 1945 - as well as selections from Cronkite's wartime dispatches to create the core of their book. They sought to present the personality of Walter Cronkite, the correspondent, while providing a whole other way of viewing him as a real person who was separated from his wife for nearly three years. The letters also offer readers a travelogue of wartime London, Paris and less glamorous venues.
A contextual narrative weaves the book’s letters and dispatches into a personal story blended with a chronicle of the war through Cronkite’s eyes. Journalist Tom Brokaw provided the book’s foreword. It is published by National Geographic Books.
