Walter Cronkite was a hero of mine when I was a kid.  I used to love his show "You Are There."  I thought he was great when he announced President Kennedy's death in such a heartfelt way. I admired his courage when he came out for a negotiated settlement in Vietnam.

Looking back I see two flaws in an otherwise wonderful man.  He bought into the Cold War mentality for quite a long time.  I will always remember the sonorous way he would announce what the "Coommmunists" were up to in Vietnam

I also felt he had a real blind spot when it came to accepting the patent nonsense that is in the Warren Report.  Even the follow up specials he did on the single bullet theory were atrocious in my opinion.

However, the sum total of what he did journalistically and what he did as a human being make me feel sharply the loss of a fine human being.