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Cronkite said Americans may have thought they got the full story during Operation Desert Storm, but the media was denied much of the type of access it had been granted in the past.
"[In past conflicts], you wrote it to be the history," he said. "We have no history now of the Persian Gulf War. We have only what the military reporters wrote and that's what their bosses told them. That's not good enough."
Cronkite admitted that in some cases, such as the recent congressional report that outlined the country's homeland security weaknesses, he wonders whether or not reporting all the facts is in the country's best interest.
"It seems to me that as citizens, we should get this info so we can shout to Washington, 'Let's get this game going,'" he said. "But at the same time, there's a terrorist cell sitting there saying, 'That's how we do it.'"
But for a country's citizens to be truly free and the government to be held accountable, he said people must have a free press that gathers all the facts.
He said an example of the alternative would be a situation like what he witnessed after WWII, after the Nazi concentration camps were freed. The people who lived in nearby towns cried at the sights of the persecuted Jews and told reporters they had no idea of what was going on behind the walls of the camps.
Many were probably telling the truth, he said, but that did not make them any less responsible.
"They applauded as Hitler closed down the independent newspaper and television stations and only gave them his propaganda," Cronkite said. "When they did not rise up and say, 'Give us a free press,' they became just as guilty."
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