SHORT TAKES : Cronkite Memoirs in Works

NEW YORK — Walter Cronkite has begun writing his memoirs at last. He signed a contract for his autobiography 20 years ago.

“I have probably the longest existing book contract in the history of publishing,” the former CBS anchorman said in the Sept. 24 issue of People magazine.

The 73-year-old Cronkite, who signed a contract with publisher Alfred A. Knopf Inc., finally got around to working on the book this summer.

It won’t be a tell-all about CBS News. “It seems to me there have been enough books about all that,” he said.

And the title? “I’m going to have to fight the publishers to keep them from calling it ‘And That’s the Way It Is.’ I think we might come up with something more imaginative.”