On November 2 , 1952 , Downs made a somber appearance with Edward R. Murrow on '' See It Now '' after the Ivy Mike operation , the first successful testing of a thermonuclear weapon . It marked the closest the Doomsday Clock came to reaching midnight . He stated : " This seems to me to be more a day for a searching of the human soul perhaps than for any kind of scientific celebration . " During World War II Downs established close friendships with both Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite . This placed him in the middle of a heated rivalry between the two men . The antagonism began in 1944 when Murrow sought out Cronkite to replace Downs as the Moscow correspondent . Cronkite initially accepted , but when the United Press offered to raise his salary , he opted to stay with them . The move soured his relationship with Murrow
Ivy Mike
Ivy Mike
Bill Downs