The man who interviewed every president from John F. Kennedy to Bill Clinton had the microphone turned around on him Monday night in Olscamp Hall.

Approximately 35 students from Melissa Spirek’s Introduction to Mass Communication class joined students from 45 universities across the United States in a satellite conference with Walter Cronkite.

Cronkite served as news anchor on CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981. He was on the news desk for numerous historical events of the 20th century, including the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the voyage to the moon.

“I love it that my students touched history,” Spirek said. “I have two students that can say they interviewed Walter Cronkite.” The technology that made this conference possible almost ruined the evening for Spirek’s class. The first time a University student got through to Cronkite the line went dead before the student could ask his question.

However, luck would change a few minutes later as Dana Halsey was able to get on the air and ask Cronkite what he would have done differently if he would have been the one to interview Saddam Hussein last month. Cronkite had a little bit of fun with Halsey when her call first came through, asking her “where were you minute ago?”

Cronkite explained to Halsey that there are a number of different ways to approach an interview and that it depended on the person doing the interview and the person being interviewed. He went on to say that he felt that Dan Rather choose to take the conservative approach in order to keep Saddam from walking out of the interview.

“It was very cool. He was so important to our society. It was important to get his insight into something that is currently going on,” Halsey said.

The second student to get through to Cronkite was Greg Kohlrieser. Kohlrieser asked Cronkite what his initial reaction was when he found out about the plan to put a man on the moon.

Cronkite told Kohlrieser that initially he thought the idea was crazy. However, he went on to say that the moon landing was the most significant event that he covered during his career.

“It was a really neat experience to be able to speak with someone who has made such an impact on the lives of so many people,” Kohlrieser said. “I thought it was neat that he could specifically answer my question.”

“Walter Cronkite thought about what they had to say…that blows me away,” Spirek said.

Spirek did not make it mandatory that her students attend the conference. Those that did were able to earn a couple of extra credit points by answering a couple of questions that she handed them as they walked in.

“35 students went outside of class and gave up their evening because they trusted me that this was something special,” Spirek said. “This is as good as it gets as a professor.”