Cronkite's time in Utah remarkable

It might sound trite and silly these days, but Walter Cronkite was a rock for Americans in his day.

It would not be overstating things much to say that Americans leaned on him in some ways. He was trusted like no one before him and certainly no one since. He was like the nation's favorite old uncle, the bearer of our news and history who somehow came to embody wisdom, patience, dignity and strength.

He was an anchor and an anchorman — reliable, steady, calm, optimistic — and if he ever wasn't, he kept it pretty much to himself.

Except on very rare occasions.

In 2002, Cronkite came to Salt Lake City to serve as narrator for the annual Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert. Like other guest performers, he was given an audience with the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — President Gordon B. Hinckley and his counselors, President Thomas S. Monson and President James E. Faust. In that room, there was the collected wisdom of the ages — 335 years in all that day.

"It was like sitting in a forest of giant oaks who had weathered many storms," says Craig Jessop, director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir at the time and witness to that meeting.

President Hinckley and Cronkite did most of the talking.

"How old are you?" Cronkite asked at one point.

"Older than you," President Hinckley said with a wink.

They continued to chat, and then Cronkite turned serious. Here it was, the moment when America's anchor — the rock of the country, the man who reported and saw us through the John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations and Vietnam and Civil Rights Movement and the tumultuous '70s — finally let down his guard and revealed his creeping fear and skepticism.

"I've always been a man of optimism," he began. "I have always thought that ultimately things would get better and better, but I must say I am beginning to have my doubts."

President Hinckley slammed his left hand on the giant walnut table in front of them and declared, "I have not! I have not lost my faith in goodness. I believe in the ultimate triumph of good over evil and that ultimately all will be well."

As Jessop recalls, "Mr. Cronkite kind of melted in assurance. It was like the weight of the world was taken off his shoulders. He looked at President Hinckley from under those bushy eyebrows as if he believed him, as if he were comforted. It was very moving."

It was indicative of the universal love and respect for Cronkite that the choir invited him to participate in its Christmas concert. Choir president Mac Christensen proposed the idea, and Jessop, who had worked with Cronkite in 1989 on another project while directing the Air Force Band in Europe, made the phone call.