I am a certified NASA nerd, especially when it comes to the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. I just can’t read enough of the history of those missions.

Which brings me to Walter Cronkite. Cronkite was a great broadcaster, and he was huge in the sixties, serving as the voice that many would turn to for broadcasts during our space missions. Naturally he is quoted often in Apollo look-backs.

Today I read this quote on the website for the PBS show Race to the Moon:

Newsman Walter Cronkite remembers the year of Apollo 8: “The whole 1960s really culminating in 1968 were the most terrible decade, undoubtedly, of the twentieth century and very possibly our entire history, even including the decade of the Civil War. America was divided as it never had been since the Civil War and by the Vietnam War, by the civil rights fight.

As a student of the histories of the twentieth century, and also as a Civil War enthusiast, my first though upon reading this was . . . well, it’s just a crazy statement he’s making here. It pains me to speak ill of the departed, but when he said this, was he out of his mind?

The 1960s . . . worse than the 1910s? Had he considered World War 1? Worse than the 1940s? The world had a bit of a scrum in that decade too, one that makes Vietnam look like a pillow fight. Then there was the dust-bowl and the Great Depression of the 1930s.

“The whole 1960s really culminating in 1968 were the most terrible decade, undoubtedly, of the twentieth century and very possibly our entire history . . .”

Worse than the 1860s?

This is, pardon the expression, nonsense on stilts. The decade of the 1960s had its challenges, but, my goodness, it was a cakewalk compared to many other decades in our history.

I think many people have a skewed perspective regarding the importance of the 1960s. I guess this is just another example. But . . . wow.