Adrian Cronauer: A Military Broadcaster's Tribute

"One of the all-time great voices.” NPR's Scott Simon said of 
Adrian Cronauer (left), pictured with Robin Williams (WETA-FM)

If Adrian Cronauer had an over-sized ego he never revealed it to me. He appeared to be modest about his fame, even telling me in 2014 that Robin Williams’ portrayal of him in Good Morning, Vietnam was not his favorite Williams’ performance. That designation, in Cronauer's opinion, goes to the actor’s rendering of Popeye in the 1980 movie Popeye.

I spent more time with Robin Williams, during the filming of Good Morning, Vietnam, than the total time I talked with Cronauer during multiple phone calls. But I have devoted many hours reading about Adrian and watching or listening to his interviews. Just reviewing his lifetime achievements alone, tells me that ego was not his primary driving force. It was public service.

Whether he was anchoring news on TV, playing a symphonic masterpiece on Virginia public radio, voicing commercials for Lipton tea, practicing law, teaching college students, or providing radio listeners in Vietnam with a comforting diversion from the war, Adrian wanted to please his audience.

In 1965 Air Force Sergeant Adrian Cronauer was an on-air talent at Armed Forces Radio Saigon (AFRS). He had volunteered for Vietnam and was a 27 year old deejay when his trademark “Goooood Morning Vietnam” greeted listeners tuning in his Dawnbuster show. The airman’s first job was directing the news operation at the fledgling AFRS station, which had studios in the Brink Hotel on Saigon’s Hai Ba Trung Street. Today, it’s the site of the luxury Park Hyatt Saigon Hotel.

Photo courtesy afvnvets.net

By the time I arrived, three years after Cronauer, the military network had been re-branded as the American Forces Vietnam Network (AFVN) and was providing radio and television programming to millions of Americans, Vietnamese and allies.

Over time, Cronauer became the persona of AFVN and when word spread this week that Adrian’s booming voice had gone silent, the news instantly swept through the military broadcasters community where the sorrow runs particularly deep.

Cronauer’s passing, along with Robin Williams’ death four years earlier, now brings to a close the wildly successful Cronauer-Williams pairing. Both men wore the “Cronauer” name patch; one envisioned the plot, and the other turned it into the first situation comedy combining humor and the Vietnam War.

Good Morning, Vietnam was a 1987 box office hit and a favorite at the Oscars and Golden Globes ceremonies. The Roanoke Times even credits Cronauer for “helping make its star Robin Williams a household name.” It’s true; Robin’s career soared after his “best actor” recognition.

Robin Williams leaps from a jeep while filming the convoy scene outside Bangkok. copyright:fredericksen 

It is not widely known that Cronauer came very close to being killed in Vietnam. The radio announcer had just finished dinner with friends at the popular My Canh floating restaurant on the Saigon River. He was still in the area when Viet Cong terrorists targeted the restaurant with two powerful explosions. In excess of 120 people were dead or wounded. More than two dozen Americans were killed, injured or missing. [Read the My Canh story elsewhere on my blog] Military censors prevented Cronauer from reading a radio bulletin, and a cinematic restaurant bombing is recreated in Good Morning, Vietnam

It would be another two decades, following the movie release, before the impact of Cronauer’s Vietnam story brought his name to prominence. Actress Bette Midler even asked for an autograph, and prank callers would leave phone messages on his answering machine reciting “Gooood Morning Vietnam,” before hanging up. [See my complete story on the making of Good Morning, Vietnam elsewhere on my blog.]

Cronauer would later leverage his notoriety for a number of patriotic and national causes, including the Citizens’ Flag Alliance, a group urging a constitutional amendment to protect the American flag from desecration.

In 2001 he went to the Pentagon as special assistant to the director of the Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Office, a position he said was “some of the most rewarding work I’ve done.” He raised awareness of the POW-MIA legacy on the lecture circuit and liaising with veterans, family groups and others.

Unlike today, when so many journalists openly reveal their political leanings, Cronauer was old school and kept politics private. Later he would expose himself as a conservative: “People were surprised to hear I’m a lifelong card-carrying Republican.” He was involved with the Robert Dole campaign and the Bush family.

In my own career, having this overlapping background with Cronauer and Robin Williams is one of the highlights I treasure most. My connection goes beyond working at AFVN and being on the set when Good Morning, Vietnam was shot in Bangkok. Like Adrian, I too was involved in the POW-MIA issue in Vietnam, covering the story for CBS News and actively searching for clues. My experience is shared in the digital book After the Hanoi Hilton: An Accounting. 

When Robin died in 2014, Cronauer told me he was “gobsmacked.” Their improbable partnership resulted in a public relations windfall for armed forces broadcasters, especially those who served in Vietnam. Right up until Williams death, Adrian told me they exchanged Christmas cards every year.

It is doubly tragic that these two talented media masters suffered from brain disorders as their time ran out: Williams had Lewy Body Disease and Cronauer had been plagued with dementia.

Last year I went back to Adrian with some questions for a Vietnam Magazine story on the movie’s 30^th anniversary. His email response was devastating: he’d moved into an assisted living facility and had developed a stammer in his speech. “This is very embarrassing to a highly articulate guy like me—so I don’t do interviews anymore,” he wrote. “Sorry, but that’s the way things go as you get older." 

Cronauer was 79 years old when he died in Troutville, Virginia last Tuesday (July 18, 2018). He’d been living on an acreage in the mountains with his wife Jeane Steppe, who died in 2016. It isn’t surprising that the funeral announcement made this request: “In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to a veterans organization of your choice.”

Although many other American Forces Vietnam Network broadcasters have gone on to noteworthy careers, Cronauer was our symbolic “staff announcer.” Out of a thousand AFVN veterans who were on-the-air or behind-the-scenes, no man was more distinguished than Adrian Cronauer and I suspect even Pat Sajak, who hosts television’s Wheel of Fortune, would agree. Sajak was among the later deejays who adopted Cronauer’s time-honored tradition by repeating “Goooood Morning, Vietnam” at the start of every Dawnbuster show.

As military broadcasters cope with another fallen veteran, life will go on without our beloved icon. In fact, Cronauer may have left us with one final PSA (public service announcement). He told the Roanoke Times in 2010, "On my tombstone, it’s going to say ‘Vietnam DJ.’ That’s not a bad legacy to have."

Read much more about AFVN and the many characters who made it great, in my digital book Broadcasters: Untold Chaos.

A T-shirt on sale today in Ho Chi Minh City. copyright:fredericksen