From: jamesoberg@aol.com (JamesOberg)
Newsgroups: sci.space.history
Subject: Re: Cronkite to Anchor STS-95 for CNN
Date: 30 Jul 1998 13:25:14 GMT

<<You make it sound like senility.  Cronkite was also one of the more prominent
mouthpieces for the Kremlin line in the 70's that the Soviets never planned to
send men to the moon.>>

Cronkite's promulgation of this Soviet disinformation sparked my research into
the subject. I had been interviewed by CBS staff in preparation for the 5th
anniversary of Apollo-11 special that Cronkite was preparing in 1974. He asked
me if Russia had been serious about sending men to the moon. I told him that
the subject was controversial but that the most serious researchers --
specifically, Charles Sheldon of the Library of Congress -- believed the
Russians really did have man-to-the-moon programs they later denied (a view
later confirmed by history). But I have a long list of Western 'expert'
comments that the moon race (and Russia's threat in it) had been a NASA
fabrication for budget purposes. Cronkite disregarded the researcher input and
at the opening of the show intoned, "It turned out there never had been a race
to the Moon." I was so outraged I dove into writing my historical essay, "The
Moon Race Was Real", which later won the 1975 Robert Goddard Space History
Prize (although they insisted I add a question mark to the title -- just as
'Scientific American' did when they addressed the same subject 20 years later),
and became a chapter in 'Red Star in Orbit' in 1981.