Behind Cronkite's Coup

In 44 years as a journalist, Walter Cronkite has covered his share of wars, assassinations, summit conferences and space shots, but few scoops were as sweet as this one. "There was a lot of desk-slapping and hot-diggity-damns around here," the anchorman beamed, after Egyptian President Sadat and Israeli Premier Begin were shown agreeing, on Cronkite's CBS Evening News last Monday, to schedule their historic meeting in Jerusalem. Says Cronkite: "We knew we were on top of something big."

Newspapers around the country credited Cronkite with clearing the way for a meeting. Only television, print journalists conceded, could telescope time and distance to put the pair in contact so dramatically. In praising "Cronkite diplomacy," New York Times Columnist William Safire hyperbolically insisted that "it took Walter Cronkite of CBS, placing an electronic hand on the backs of Israel and Egypt, to bring them together." But did he? Examined closely, Cronkite's big score was largely a triumph of personality and packaging and partly a matter of luck.

The race to bring Sadat and Begin together began as a three-way scramble among the U.S. commercial networks on Nov. 12, when Begin was quoted in U.S. newspapers as welcoming a visit from Sadat. CBS then asked its bureaus in Cairo, Tunis and Washington to approach Egyptian officials about arranging a satellite interview between Sadat and Cronkite, who had met each other on several previous occasions. The pair taped an exchange the following Monday, Nov. 14. "Under my suggestive questioning," Cronkite recalled, "Sadat said he could go [to Israel] within a week, as soon as he had an official invitation. But we hadn't laid any lines to Begin for his response, so we had to scramble."

The network's Tel Aviv bureau manager, Joel Bernstein, caught up with Begin 6 1/2 hr. later at the city's Hilton hotel. Bernstein led Begin to a room that CBS had hastily rented and equipped with a satellite link to New York. Cronkite and Begin then taped a long-distance interview; 2 1/2 min. of highlights were fitted together with 3 1/2 min. of Cronkite's earlier Sadat interview and broadcast that night on the Evening News. "I don't see anything extraordinary about it," says Cronkite. "It was just a normal day's work in news gathering."

While CBS was preparing its interviews, NBC was also trying valiantly to collar Sadat. But the network's man in Cairo, John Palmer, was out of the country and could not get a plane back in time for the Monday newscast. "We were sunk by a goddam jet," grumbled a producer at NBC. (The network got to Sadat only in time for the following night's broadcast.) NBC did manage a satellite conversation on Monday between Begin and Anchorman John Chancellor, taped only minutes after the Israeli had finished with Cronkite. NBC had to borrow the same hotel room and satellite lines that CBS had arranged for. Sniffs a CBS spokeswoman: "We didn't even charge them for the room."

ABC executives insist that they were the first to think of a joint interview. Three days before Cronkite's coup, the network began seeking agreement from Begin and Sadat for an unprecedented televised dialogue, during which an invitation could be made and accepted directly. When ABC Correspondent Peter Jennings in Cairo broached the idea to Sadat during an untelevised discussion Monday, Sadat said he would go before the Knesset, if formally invited. That night ABC news showed Jennings paraphrasing his talk with Sadat, and then cut to a taped interview with Begin, who offered Sadat a verbal invitation. "Cronkite took credit for breaking the log jam," groused ABC News and Sports President Roone Arledge. "We talked to Sadat first, to Begin first--we were first all the way." Arledge may be technically correct, but the CBS juxtaposition of Begin and Sadat answering questions by satellite from an insistent Cronkite was vastly more dramatic. Moreover, only Cronkite got Sadat to say he was willing to make the Jerusalem trip within a week. Conceded an Arledge aide last week: "CBS ought to be congratulated. It was dynamite TV."

Cronkite has no plans to extend his brief but successful career in international mediation. "I don't think a journalist should become involved in high-level diplomacy," he says, "but it is a journalist's duty to pursue these diplomatic pronouncements. I wasn't trying to get this meeting started. My official attitude is I couldn't care less about it, though I can't help believing it will be important and helpful. Maybe we [at CBS] were catalysts. But then, maybe they would have gotten together without us."

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