From the ARRL
This is on the League's website. I thought it was kinda cool.
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Steve Mendelsohn, W2ML, was Cronkite's radio engineer at CBS for many years. "I had many chances to discuss my favorite hobby, ham radio, with 'the world's most trusted anchor man,'" he told the ARRL. "Gradually, his interest increased, but on finding that he had to pass a Morse code test, he balked, saying it was too hard for him; however, he told me he had purchased a receiver and listened every night for a few minutes to the Novice bands.
"At the CBS Radio Network, Walter would arrive 10 minutes before we went on the air to read his script aloud, make corrections for his style of grammar and just 'get in the mood' to do the show. In those days Rich Moseson, W2VU, was the producer of a show called In the News, a 3 minute television show for children voiced by CBS Correspondent Christopher Glenn. On this day, Rich was at the Broadcast Center to record Chris' voice for his show and had dropped by my control room to discuss some upcoming ARRL issues [Mendelsohn was ARRL Hudson Division Director at the time -- Ed].
"When Walter walked into the studio, I started to set the show up at the behest of our director, Dick Muller, WA2DOS. In setting up the tape recorders, I had to send tone to them and make sure they were all at proper level. Having some time, I grabbed The New York Times and started sending code with the tone key on the audio console. For 10 minutes I sent code and noticed Walter had turned his script over and was copying it.
"We went to air, as we did every day, at 4:50 PM and after we were off, Walter brought his script into the control room. Neatly printed on the back was the text I had sent with the tone key. Rich and I looked at the copy, he nodded, and I told Walter that he had just passed the code test. He laughed and asked when the formal test was, but I reminded him that it took two general class licensees to validate the test and he had just passed the code. Several weeks later he passed the written test and the FCC issued KB2GSD to the 'most trusted anchorman in America.'
"Having passed the licensing test, Walter was now ready to get on the air. His first QSO was on 10 meters about 28.390 MHz. He was nervous and I called him on the phone to talk him through his first experience. As we talked on the air, a ham from the Midwest come on and called me. Acknowledging him, I asked the usual questions about where he was from, wanting to give Walter a bit of flavor of what the hobby was about. I turned it over to Walter, and following his introduction, the gentleman in the Midwest said, 'That's the worst Walter Cronkite imitation I've ever heard!'
"I suggested that maybe it was Walter and the man replied, 'Walter Cronkite is not even a ham, and if he was, he certainly wouldn't be here on 10 meters.' Walter and I laughed for weeks at that one."
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73, Mr. Cronkite.
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