No less an authority than Walter Cronkite has reported that half of al

These kind of SCs remind me that I am not a native english speaker. This is a complete IDIOM based SC - and also not a very common IDIOM. I will prefer POE here :

(A) No less an authority than
(B) Nonetheless an authority - this looks like a continuation from some other sentence
(C) Nevertheless authoritarian - Same reason as B. Also, should have been "an authoritarian"
(D) Not less an authority than - Normally I have not seen Not used to modify noun - I think it can modify verb only- not sure though
(E) An authority not less than - looks like we are talking about some other authority and comparing with Walter Cronkite

So, that leaves us with A. Just for confirmation I googled for Idiom No less than and it looks like a legitimate idiom :
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/no+less+than

Choice E changes the meaning of the sentence. It suggests that someone else (not cronkite but someone whose authority is no less than Cronkite's) has reported that half of Americans don't read books.

This is pretty confusing. A and E seem to be right. Need some explanation

Such a weird idiom.

Only made sense after looking at detailed explanation.

Posted from my mobile device

This idiom was new to me too.

Feels like something is missing. "No one less than Walter Cronkite" would have sounded better.

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