Journalist Walter Cronkite receives Truman award

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Journalist Walter Cronkite said the world could benefit from former President Harry S. Truman's wisdom.

"Wouldn't it be a wonderful miracle if we could possibly bring Harry back to give us some advice?" Cronkite said. "What a guy he was."

The 87-year-old broadcaster received the Harry S. Truman Good Neighbor Award at the award foundation's 52nd annual birthday luncheon on Friday. The event commemorates the former president, whose birthday would have been Saturday.

"I don't know what my community service has been," Cronkhite said. "Except to be a good reporter."

The former CBS anchorman was born in St. Joseph and lived in Kansas City for 10 years.

As a United Press reporter during World War II, Cronkite covered the battle of the North Atlantic in 1942 and was one of the first journalists to fly in B-17 raids over Germany. He covered the Nuremberg war crime trials and later joined CBS in 1949. He left the network in 1981.

Past recipients of the Good Neighbor Award include former President Gerald Ford (1977), and Gens. Omar Bradley (1979) and Norman Schwarzkopf (2000).