Source, in full
Johnson has been said to have stated this after viewing a February 1968 report by Walter Cronkite in which the CBS News anchor described the Vietnam War as "mired in stalemate." However, it is strongly questioned whether Johnson actually said this. A version of this supposed statement by Johnson was not reported until 1979 by David Halberstam in his book The Powers That Be. Further research has cast doubt on this statement; see Chapter 6: "Debunking the 'Cronkite Moment'" in Getting it Wrong: Debunking the Greatest Myths in American Journalism by W. Joseph Campbell.