He has been called the most trusted man in America. His 60-year journalistic career has spanned the Great Depression, several wars, and the extraordinary changes that have engulfed our nation over the last two-thirds of the 20th century. When Walter Cronkite advised his television audience in 1968 that the war in Vietnam could not be won, President Lyndon B. Johnson said: "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America."

Here is Cronkite's remarkable autobiography: his growing up in Kansas City and Houston; his service as a war correspondent for United Press; his plunge into television when it was still an infant industry; his rise to anchorman of The CBS Evening News and its eventual dominance of the airwaves. Here is Cronkite covering space shots, political conventions, a coronation, the assassinations of the Kennedys and King. Here are Cronkite's portraits of presidents, his behind-the-scenes tales of politics and broadcasting, his vigorous views on the future of television and the presentation of news.