are woodward and bernstein still friends
You want to deal a careful glancing blow. It was one of the most incredible feelings that Ive had in my life because, you know, it had been a long time since we had started to work on the story, and I didnt exactly know who I was or who he was -- existentially, it was sort of a total mind----. . Editors looked around and thought, Who could we call in? They deposited, at the end of 1974, over $600,000. How did that come about? And my father said probably the severest thing he has ever said to me. Bob Woodward: In the family I was raised in: a brother, a sister, two stepsisters, a half-sister. It was never conclusively established that this had been done by the Nixon campaign, but one of the people in the White House acknowledged to one of our reporters that he had written it. What are you most proud of, looking back on your career so far? Mr. Bradlee, do you think there could be another Watergate today? Felt brazenly denied having been Woodwards source. Soon other newspapers began to investigate the Watergate story more energetically, and legislative and judicial agencies began to uncover a larger and larger pattern of lawbreaking. All stability. Speaking to the crowd of around 2,000 reporters at the Washington Hilton where President Trump was not among them they talked about what they had learned from each other during their long stint reporting together in the Seventies. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. It seemed to always be about Nixon. Bob Woodward: Well, of course, what Faulkner is trying to do is get to the interior, and in the end, as a journalist, you are trying to get to the interior. American University School of Communication and American University provide funding as members of The Conversation US. She posed this, almost suggesting that it was inevitable. He continued the story of presidential leadership and foreign policy in Obamas Wars (2010). How do I pay someone back, either good or bad, for what they have done to me?. We were reporting on the Presidents men, and the White House people, the Attorney General, John Mitchell, people in the Nixon campaign, the Committee to Re-Elect the President, and the focus was not Nixon. In the end, the Watergate scandal brought down a president and made Bob Woodward the most famous investigative reporter in America. Much to his chagrin. Before this, the three men went to great lengths to hide Felt's identity. So, yeah, I think they were friends. He said, I think on balance I am against it. I mean, he didnt tear his hair out and say, God damn it, Katharine, you cant do this. All talk. He quickly tired of the routine assignments his position offered, and began to hunt for news on his own. But Bernstein and Woodward were already branching out into another form of journalism, having secured a contract to write a book on their Watergate investigations. Get to the bottom of it.. We wanted to be sure that it wasnt sabotaged in some way by, you know, printers slipping in the F word or something like that that was going to screw it up. John Dean's afternoon testimony before the Senate Watergate committee, the crest of a high and beautiful wave.", They wrote that history has shown that Watergate was even worse than we thought it was at the time, they seemed blind to the reality that Felt wasn't motivated by an altruistic loyalty to the nation or the truth but by blind career ambition and petty revenge, we've seen a president who WASN'T impeached for evading Congress to cut secret arms deals in Iran and fund a secret war in Nicaragua, Bob Woodward was at the very head of that pack. W. Joseph Campbell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. It was embarrassing that they had this great story and we didnt. It was already changing, but he certainly speeded it along. Was he the more experienced journalist at the time? . There was competition. He dropped out of the University of Maryland and became a reporter in New Jersey where his investigative reporting caught the eye of the Washington Post, which hired him in 1966 (via Huffington Post). But they grew to like one another" and are very good friends now. So much has happened since then. I would have summer jobs, while my parents and other siblings would go on vacation, for instance. display: block; Mr. Bradlee, its important to remember that Nixon was re-elected during this period. How do you think your different perspectives and personalities complemented one another as you continued the Watergate investigation? However popular, the heroic-journalist myth is a vast exaggeration of the effect of their work. "They couldn't be more different. On a Saturday in June 1972, Bernstein was assigned, along with Bob Woodward, to cover a break-in at the Watergate office complex that had occurred earlier the same morning. It was a takedown that transcended politics, transcended ideology. George Tames/New York Times Co./Getty Images, American University School of Communication, unfolded over 26 months beginning in June 1972, Getting It Wrong: Debunking the Greatest Myths in American Journalism, Woodward and Bernsteins All the Presidents Men, cinematic adaptation of All the Presidents Men, Committee Member - MNF Research Advisory Committee, PhD Scholarship - Uncle Isaac Brown Indigenous Scholarship. Bob Woodward may have achieved the greatest publishing success of his career with Fear, the inside story of turmoil inside the administration of President Donald Trump. Goes Out newsletter, with the week's best events, to help you explore and experience our city. 1996 - 2023 American AcademyofAchievement. Alicia Shepard fills in the gaps in her very candid book, "Woodward and Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate.". There were some teachers and lawyers and business people, but no writers. (They later discovered that Sloan meant to communicate to them that Haldeman was guilty, but that Sloan had not said so to the grand jury because he had not been asked.) Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. He told me first that he was going to resign, wasnt sure when, and for Gods sake dont write it as hard, because he wont. Published in the late spring of 1974, All the President's Men was an immediate best seller. What books impressed you as a kid? It appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list for three weeks. Like an assistant secretary of defense who had been a year or two before head of a big Republican contributor and head of an automobile company and, you know, sold cars in Omaha or somewhere. I think the lead of his story was, Will the wonders of Watergate never cease?. As a colleague of ours at the Post, Bill Greider, wrote the day they disclosed the secret taping system in the White House. And he was the one who said that. So I went to work with about seven or eight other people, including Carl (Bernstein), and I went to the arraignment of the five burglars, and the judge wanted to know where one of them worked, and he was mumbling. His father was a judge and Woodward eventually entered the Navy after graduating from Yale. Mr. Bradlee, at what point did you get the inkling that the Oval Office was involved? He has also done reporting for television and opinion commentary. The book drew upon the notes and research accumulated while writing articles about the scandal for the Post and "remained on best-seller lists for six months". . In 1992, Bernstein wrote a cover story for The New Republic magazine indicting modern journalism for its sensationalism and celebration of gossip over real news. Maybe it was 16, but he had fully a decade-plus of experience under his belt. How did you get interested in those things? Just it was terribly, critically important that we do it right and that we not brag, not seem to be bragging, and that we didnt allow any television in there for days. Lets be sure for the record to say that it wasnt just the Post. Woodward has written best-selling books on the last ten presidentsNixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. He met his Deep Throat source secretly to get as much information as possible. Bob Woodward: I was not in intelligence; I was in communications, and they are different in the Navy. It was mysterious always, his writing, but of great emotional impact. Then in March 1973 one of the Watergate burglars, James McCord, a former CIA official, wrote a letter to Judge John Sirica, who was trying his case, that essentially confirmed the Bernstein and Woodward stories. He is now Assistant Managing Editor of the Post, and has written nearly a dozen bestselling books. Yes. Im out there doing it, and if theres pressure or debate or controversy, theyre absorbing that pressure. 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Raised in a traditional Republican household, Woodward was very well-educated and has been described as gentle. It was so important. While single, in the 1980s, Bernstein became known for dating Bianca Jagger, Martha Stewart, and Elizabeth Taylor,[16] among others. Was he the more experienced journalist at the time? Ben Bradlee: His name was Griswold, and he had been the dean of the Harvard Law School. I was the lowest-paid reporter at The Washington Post, because they would only give you credit with the Newspaper Guild if you had worked for a daily, and I had worked for a weekly. The Supreme Court ordered the president to turn over his tapes, which really sunk him the smoking gun tapes at the end. He persuaded The Washington Post to give him an unpaid two-week try-out. I suspect that most people from the generations that came after mine don't really know that much about Watergate other than that a president resigned in disgrace, the only time that's ever happened. Woodward cautiously would have to go from one step literally to another. There were no bars in town. The rest of them all got away with it. He soon became the papers leading reporter, and by September 1971, the Post was ready to give him another try. Bernstein's career since Watergate has continued to focus on the theme of the use and abuse of power via books and magazine articles. Were you the only child? Thats why we all joined this business. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. Bernstein was the first to suspect that President Nixon was involved, and he found a laundered check that linked Nixon to the burglary. He joined the Washington Post's metropolitan staff in 1966, specializing in police, court, and city hall assignments, with occasional self-assigned feature stories. We missed the first edition, but we published it the second edition, which came out at 11 oclock at night, 11:30. Where were you in the pecking order of siblings? Hes finally embarrassed, said Woodward with a smile. Bob Woodward: Yes, we are. In addition to the espionage and sabotage, another series of felonies stemmed from the attempt to cover up the earlier crimes by perjury and other obstructions of justice. Our lawyers were telling us that and this New York judge had ruled that the statute says whoever has reason to believe that publication of certain information will threaten the national security of the United States shall be this was a civil suit, but the criminal equivalent, which they would certainly have done had they convicted us, would have put us in jail, put us all in jail, including Katharine Graham, or the possibility of it. What an incredible jump in your fortunes as a journalist, from one year on a little suburban paper to The Washington Post. what was the advice to woodward and bernstein what was the advice to woodward and bernstein (No Ratings Yet) . In 1975, it was turned into a movie starring Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein and Robert Redford as Woodward which later went on to be nominated in multiple Oscar (including Best Picture nomination), Golden Globe and BAFTA categories. Beyond that, the deeper problem of Nixon Exceptionalism is that it established new standards for what constituted presidential misconduct -- standards that weren't based on the discredited ideas of the 1960s, but the "objective" standards of the Watergate era. Robert U. Woodward was born in Geneva, Illinois, and raised in nearby Wheaton. Robert H. Ferrell But as Pakula began to understand Woodward, he wondered if the charming, handsome Redford, then 39, could play someone so different from himself. Woodward lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Elsa Walsh, a writer for The New Yorker and the author of Divided Lives. This. There are hundreds of millions of American dreams. I would have been more effective.. And it was the origins of the tradition of every scandal after having the suffix, "gate" added onto it at the end of its title to stress how important it is. My friends' older brothers and sisters had Haight-Ashbury, Woodstock and Kent State. When they found such a player in their legendary source "Deep Throat" -- later revealed as deputy FBI director Mark Felt -- they seemed blind to the reality that Felt wasn't motivated by an altruistic loyalty to the nation or the truth but by blind career ambition and petty revenge. [23], Bernstein is a frequent guest and analyst on television news programs, and in 2011 wrote articles for Newsweek/The Daily Beast, comparing Rupert Murdoch's News of the World phone-hacking scandal to Watergate. We published it the second edition, but no writers the more experienced at... Presidential leadership and foreign policy in Obamas Wars ( 2010 ) quickly tired of the Conversation US work. 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