'OLDEST LIVING REPORTER' STILL KNOWS A THING OR TWO.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Walter Cronkite and wife Betsy are spending the week in Vienna, Austria where, he reports, he's been working from dawn to dusk preparing "The New Year's Celebration 2000" that will be beamed from the famed Musikverein Concert Hall via satellite on PBS.

Included on the WNET Great Performances show that Cronkite will host - in addition to a concert of Strauss waltzes, polkas and marches - will be footage of Vienna as it was and as it has become.

One gets the feeling that the 83-year-old newsman will be relieved when the emphasis fades on the last century and the new millennium.

"As the world's oldest living reporter, it seems I'm looked upon as the sage. I've probably been interviewed for more New Year's Eve programs than anyone."

Tired of the subject as he might be, one can't resist asking him just a few questions about his many years of covering American affairs of state.

He still feels, he says, that "Jimmy Carter might not have been the smartest politician, but was the best brain in the White House. And Clinton comes close. It's just regrettable Clinton got himself involved in such a scandalous affair, which will always serve as an asterisk to his name in history."

His opinion of Gerald Ford? "The weakest president, though it wasn't his fault. He never had a chance. He was only in power a couple of years."

Is he sorry that Richard Nixon was pardoned? "Not anymore. It helped us put things behind and move on."

The greatest president of the 20th century? "No doubt about it - Franklin Roosevelt. But then, Congress usually gives wartime presidents powers that enable them to do exceptional things." Among the things Roosevelt did: "Centralizing power in Washington that changed the entire face of government in America."

THERE'S A SHORTAGE

Janet McTeer, voted best actress by the National Board of Review for "Tumbleweeds" - and being talked up for Oscar consideration more and more - is taking the acclaim with, well, as the English actress puts it, "A bucket of salt." She acknowledges that "people are calling a lot and sending scripts my way." But the bottom line is, she notes, "There aren't many wonderful scripts for women over the age of 10 ... "

THOMAS IN SWEEPS

Richard Thomas became a Laura Ingalls Wilder fan when he was preparing to make the Jan. 2 CBS TV movie "Beyond the Prairie: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder." Thomas, who plays Wilder's father in the telepic, says, "The first thing I did was to read her books, particularly 'Little House in the Big Woods,' 'The Long Winter' and 'Little House on the Prairie.' A lot of the incidents in our movie are things that she wrote about in those books. I had not read them as a child, and I thought they were wonderful." Thomas also recently wrapped the CBS telepic "In the Name of the People" with Scott Bakula and Amy Madigan.

"Amy and I play the parents of a murdered teen-ager, and Scott plays her murderer, who is on Death Row," says Thomas. "It's a very dramatic movie ... quite powerful and very different from 'Beyond the Prairie.' They're getting it together very quickly to air Feb. 2 for sweeps."

THE WOLF IS AT THE DOOR

Producer Dick Wolf, whose "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" is being moved from Mondays at 9 to Fridays at 10, reveals that it's a shift he's been asking NBC to make since the series debuted last September. "It's like brandy and cigars. It's a way you want to end the week." Besides, he admits, he wasn't too happy that, on Mondays, he was on against the popular "Everyone Loves Raymond" and "Ally McBeal." Wolf is just hoping that people who haven't sampled his gritty crime show will do so now.

The show focuses on sexual crimes, and has brought out the point very strongly that assaults on women "are massively underreported because victims are embarrassed or even ashamed." The police, he says, in cities like New York and L.A. "are thrilled that our stories encourage women to report sexual crimes. The compelling reason is that it helps police take such criminals off the street."

- With reports by Stephanie DuBois.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1) CRONKITE

(2) CLINTON

(3) THOMAS

(4) MADIGAN