By his own account in ''A Reporter ' s Life ,'' he dashed around a lot as a war correspondent yet never cut a dashing figure. Nor does his autobiography. The early chapters of ''A Reporter's Life'' could serve as a text for journalism students who will never have the chance to do the sorts of jobs that reporters did before they became known as journalists. Unfortunately, they will find no index to assist them. By some accident a carload of correspondents entered Amsterdam before its liberators and found themselves being pelted with tulips.
Tulips are heavy flowers.
In bunches they are dangerous. CBS Evening News,'' from which he retired in 1981. Mr. Cronkite owes his place in the public esteem not to any astounding reporting feats but to his long tenure as the nightly personification of CBS News, when it was at its best. He grew increasingly avuncular, increasingly admired as he grayed before the nation's eyes, Middle America's line to the world's power centers and its embodiment of national celebrations and sorrows. With the decline in the fortunes of network news, which has more to do with the arrival of cable than with the departure of any individual, the Cronkite years are now deemed to have been something special, not quite the Murrow years, but right up there with many other television classics of no great vintage or distinction.