Walter Cronkite and the "Towers of Truth"

Walter Cronkite 

In June 1957, Crusade for Freedom national leaders planned for 400 copies of a film Towers of Truth about the Crusade for Freedom and Radio Free Europe. The film was to be distributed to television stations and Crusade support groups around the United States for use in local campaigns.

Crusade for Freedom president Arthur Page wrote Dr. Frank Stanton, radio and television Columbia Broadcast System (CBS) president, a Free Europe Committee director and Crusade corporate member, and explained that the film was, “One of the most important elements of the Crusade’s public information activities, as the 400 prints of the new film are expected, as in the past, to be widely shown in all parts of the country – to various civic, luncheon clubs, schools volunteer Crusade groups and on local television stations.”

Famed television newscaster Walter Cronkite, once called "the most trusted man in America," expressed his willingness to narrate the film but needed the approval of Frank Stanton to do so.

Stanton gave his approval for Cronkite but only on his vacation time. Stanton wrote back to Page,  “We are very happy to give approval of Walter’s Cronkite’s participation as narrator of a film produced for general use in the 1958 Crusade for Freedom Campaign ... Walter has expressed great enthusiasm for the project and I am sure he will turn in a first-class job.”

There was no cost to the Crusade for Cronkite’s work, including his traveling to Munich. After a trade press premiere of Towers of Truth on November 21, 1957, Patterson wrote to Frank Stanton that

At the showing, the trade press, the Advertising Council people and the Radio Free Europe representatives agreed that the film was both highly professional, and highly effective. RFE likes is so much it is having it dubbed in German and several other languages for showing throughout Europe.

On November 22, 1957, John Patterson, Crusade executive vice-president, wrote to Stanton thanking him for allowing Walter Cronkite to narrate the 14-minute film and telling him that Cronkite did a “superb job.” 

1958 Ad

"Freedom is not Free" was the theme of the Advertising Council's 1958 Crusade campaign. One of the advertising appeals was "One dollar buys one minute of time on the 29 truth transmitters of Radio Free Europe." 

One example of how the film was later used at grass-roots Crusade campaigns and meetings in the United States took place in February 1958 in Mason City, Iowa, when 108 carriers of the newspaper Globe-Gazette (newspaperboys) watched Towers of Truth during the 1958 campaign kick off drive. Afterwards, they volunteered to take part in the drive to collect $1,000 for the Crusade. 

1958 Ad

Iowa state chairman W. Earl Hall said, “By joining the Crusade, carriers across the nation are reaffirming their faith in one of America’s most prized possessions: Freedom of the press, or the right to know. Their efforts make if possible for the enslaved millions behind the Iron Curtain to keep in contact with truth.”

Mrs. Camilla Mays Frank, chairman of the Women's Division of the City of New Orleans sent a fund solicitation letter, with a notice of the showing of Towers of Truth, to 500 women's clubs, including garden groups, in the New Orleans area. Another example of grass roots activities, was when the film was presented by Pennsylvania state chairman William K. Harrison at the “Oakmont-South–and-More” Women’s Club covered dish luncheon. 

The film was used in subsequent Crusade annual campaigns, for example, on Tuesday, March 10 1959, Towers of Truth was shown by the Idaho Falls, Idaho, television station KID-TV in cooperation with the East Idaho Crusade campaign. The film also was shown at 5:15 p.m., Wednesday, March 30, 1960, by television station WMAR (channel 2) seen in Hagerstown, Maryland and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Here is how the film Towers of Truth begins: