Woodward noted how Bernstein had taught him about the importance of being very aggressive, and recalled how Bernstein had clambered aboard a full cab with the Watergate burglars lawyers to get information and borrowed $20 from Woodward, which he did not return. I'm still struck by the words that were scrawled in Spanish on a building near our hotel, saying: It's not the party, it's the system. That writing was actually on the wall the whole time. In the end, the Watergate scandal brought down a president and made Bob Woodward the most famous investigative reporter in America. Now Hollywood Shuffle is a classic, Before and after photos from space show storms effect on California reservoirs, Dramatic before and after photos from space show epic snow blanketing SoCal mountains, The chance of a lifetime: Five friends ski the tallest mountain in Los Angeles, Best coffee city in the world? There was the whole intelligence-gathering apparatus. She posed this, almost suggesting that it was inevitable. But together they did something that neither one of them could do individually. When you began to work as a journalist, what was the reaction of your family? 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. Its small wonder that the heroic-journalist myth still defines popular understanding of Watergate. So its not inevitable that the system works. Mr. Woodward, can you tell us about the night you first got that phone call about a break-in at the Watergate? Bernstein and Woodward did not, all by themselves, bring about the destruction of the Nixon presidency, but some historians of the period do credit their early investigations with both informing and stimulating the official investigations by a special prosecutor, the courts, the Senate Watergate Committee, and the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives that eventually forced Nixon to resign when it was revealed that he had participated in the cover-up almost from the beginning. [22] A CBS News end-of-year survey of publishing "hits and misses" included A Woman in Charge in the "miss" category and implied that its total sales were somewhere in the range of perhaps 55,00065,000 copies. In fact, it probably doesnt work that often. They had a much-publicized extramarital relationship in 1979. As the Watergate scandal unfolded in the pages of the Washington Post in the early 1970s, the two reporters who first broke the story became just as famous as the people they were writing about. We shouldnt do that. That doesnt mean there wont be more scandals and maybe even larger scandals, but in a sense, the vision or the dream of the people who wrote the Constitution has, at least in part, been realized. Pakula wrote that Redford would have to scrap his charm. Bob Woodward: This is a book I did in 1999 that took the five presidents after Nixon Ford, Carter, Reagan, the first Bush, and Clinton and analyzed the Special Prosecutor law, and showed how that, and the new climate of Congressional activism and media activism, meant the presidency was going to be forever altered. The who-was-Deep-Throat conjecture kept Woodward, Bernstein and the heroic-journalist myth at the center of Watergate conversations. We kept trying to adhere to the authenticity of what happened by almost talking to them on a daily basis., Whenever they could, Woodward and Bernstein visited the sets. One midnight in June 1975, Bernstein watched as Pakula directed a scene. You are trying to find out what really happened. When Woodward left the Navy, American involvement in Vietnam and domestic opposition to the war were at their height. The judge said, What do you do? and Woodward overheard the words CIA. So if your interest isnt whetted by this time, youre not a journalist. And when, the next day, Woodward this is probably Sunday or maybe Monday, because the burglary was Saturday morning early called the number and asked to speak to Mr. Hunt, and the operator said, Well, hes not here now; hes over at such-and-such a place, gave him another number, and Woodward called him up, and Hunt answered the phone, and Woodward said, We want to know why your name was in the address book of the Watergate burglars. And there is this long, deathly hush, and Hunt said, Oh, my God! and hung up. Woodward and Bernstein never disclosed any information or provided hints about Deep Throat and spoke about him in vague terms in their book, "All the President's Men.". We had such good sources. I think the lead of his story was, Will the wonders of Watergate never cease?. He met his Deep Throat source secretly to get as much information as possible. During Watergate, no matter how well Bernstein reported the story, he was pegged by Post editors as the bad boy of the duo -- always late, unreliable and quick to hype his leads. Still, facts and events from the book were questioned by Nixon's friends and family, and some obvious sources denied ever speaking with Bernstein and Woodward. They have always backed what I do. Whats not known? The duo of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein have become synonymous with reporting the comings and goings of the Watergate scandal. The American Academy of Achievements interview with Bob Woodward is combined with an interview with his longtime editor and mentor, Ben Bradlee (1921-2014). I mean, I shudder to think the way we put it. This button displays the currently selected search type. Ben Bradlee: The Pentagon Papers was a study commissioned by Nixon in the first or second year of his first term, 1970 or 69. For example, talk about how it affected Muskie. When Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein published their groundbreaking Watergate reporting that led to the resignation of former President Richard Nixon in 1974, the duo thought he would be the. And in it, you just saw that it was not as pure and simple a community as the members liked people to think. "[32], Differences between Bernstein and Woodward, A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton, A Woman In Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton, "Carl Bernstein on Trump and the Current State of Journalism", "Yes, kids, there is life after high school", "He Went From Watergate to 'Heartbun,' From Investigative Superstar to Celebrity Dinner Guest. Shepard discussed it with co-anchor Harry Smith on The Early Show Tuesday. His detailed notes, first made public in December 2005, were donated by his wife to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences after his death in 1998 in an automobile accident. Felt was 91 when, in 2005, he acknowledged through his familys lawyer that he had been Woodwards source after all. 25 Feb/23. Published in the late spring of 1974, All the President's Men was an immediate best seller. Thanks to their investigation and reporting, the American people had a deep look into Nixon's role in the break-ins and cover-ups. It was so important. I called my father and said Im not going to law school, but have this job at a newspaper he had never heard of. You are trying to get it right and you never do, and that there must be a sense whenever you get to something and then realize two weeks earlier, two days or two minutes earlier, you didnt know that, and its critical that no matter what you do, you are never going to have the full story. Yes. Who played quite a role in the Watergate affair. As the stakes increased, and as the White House looked more and more threatened, and Nixon himself looked more threatened, and his office became threatened, we just were determined that we werent going to make any silly mistake. Watergate was the biggest political scandal of the century. "You could just tell," Shepard continued, "by how different they were that they wouldn't be friends and they wouldn't be working together. [31] Due to their different styles, other journalists described them as a perfect team. He yelled, Stop! Bob Woodward: Oh, yes, I had teachers at Wheaton. Id have drinks with him early all of late July and early August. Robert U. Woodward was born in Geneva, Illinois, and raised in nearby Wheaton. It was, after all, the courts unanimous ruling in July 1974, ordering Nixon to surrender tapes subpoenaed by the Watergate special prosecutor, that sealed the presidents fate. The burglary was revealed as part of an extensive program of political espionage and sabotage run by Nixon subordinates at the White House and its political campaign organization, the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CRP, or, as referred to in most later press coverage, CREEP). You dont think of journalists automatically as patriots, one. Carl is Jewish, grew up in the Washington, D.C. area. Were you the only child? A drone. Such speculation sometimes pointed to W. Mark Felt, a former senior FBI official. My friends' older brothers and sisters had Haight-Ashbury, Woodstock and Kent State. I can't tell you how many times back then that Americans -- looking for a silver lining in the cloud of Watergate -- uttered this phrase: "The system worked." It was also the fact that they were so different, and that they were lowly metro reporters. Somebody who through force of personality made history interesting and important. shaka wear graphic tees is candy digital publicly traded ellen lawson wife of ted lawson what was the advice to woodward and bernstein. Whos going to get what lead and put it together? This was the lesson of Watergate: Nixon Exceptionalism, that the 37th president was so "uniquely and pervasively" corrupt that the fair and decent American "system worked" and removed him on the basis of the objective, indisputable fact of his evil. Bob Woodward: Who knows whether its that? It was to see if they could find the origins of our involvement in Vietnam, and what went wrong. We understand you got started in the newspaper business right out of the Navy. The dichotomy intrigued Pakula. This was later confirmed by both Woodward and Bernstein. Bob Woodward: Certainly. [26] Bernstein and second wife Ephron already had an infant son, Jacob, and she was pregnant with their second son, Max, in 1979 when she learned of her husband's affair with Jay. Few people had heard of these journalists when they began compiling relevant facts about . 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. There are hundreds of millions of American dreams. The work of Woodward and Bernstein was called "maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time" by longtime journalism figure Gene Roberts.[2]. Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex. The guts are supplied by the owners of the newspaper and the editors. Staggering snowfall in California mountains leaves residents trapped for days, SpaceX launches new crew to space station, Prosecution wraps case at Alex Murdaugh murder trial, White House cybersecurity strategy pivots to regulation, Explosive found in checked luggage at Pennsylvania airport, feds say, FDA authorizes first at-home test for both COVID and flu, Couple accuses fertility clinic of implanting embryo with cancer genes, Air Force relieves six officers after failing safety inspection, Several hospitalized after Lufthansa flight diverted to Dulles due to turbulence. Carl Bernstein, born on February 14, 1944, in Washington, D.C., began part-time work at the Washington Star at the age of 16 and later dropped out of the University of Maryland to work full-time as a reporter. They were 30 and 31.". In August 1974, President Nixon, facing near certain impeachment and conviction, resigned his office and accepted a blanket pardon for any actions he may have committed in office. What made you back the kids, Woodward and Bernstein? Bush . A community high school history teacher named Elizabeth Duncan who taught American history and was a great teacher. He was ten months further along in his career than Woodward when the scandal broke out. Woodward is the fifth branch of government! Woodward and Bernstein did disclose financial links between Nixon's reelection campaign and the burglars arrested June 17, 1972, at headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, in what. This was our time, our story. So we did, and there was no threat to the national security, and information, truth, is not a threat to security, and we believed that. The piston driving the Nixon administration was hate. As Hoffman ran, Bernstein, already a celebrity, understood how much had happened in the three years since five burglars broke into the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate hotel. Woodward was able to soldier on and write 14 books. "They were journalistic icons for the role they played in bringing down, or helping to bring down a president of the United States, (Richard) Nixon in 1974," Shepard understated. Nonetheless, the heroic-journalist myth became so entrenched that it could withstand disclaimers by Watergate-era principals at the Post such as Graham. The role of Congress and the courts -- where even Republicans refused to turn a blind eye to a Republican president's wrongdoing -- was critical to this belief, but it was the journalist at the very top of this moral pyramid. No soul.. Bernstein was born to a secular Jewish family in Washington, D.C.,[4][5][6] the son of Sylvia (ne Walker) and Alfred Bernstein. Im thinking of the bookAs I Lay Dying, which is from all different characters points of view, like interviewing people for a story. Obviously, theres not one American dream. He also felt compelled, as a reporter, to point out that Bernstein's remarks were . Bob Woodward: As defendants, as tax cases, divorce cases, the full catastrophe of litigation. So why not take Woodward at his word? Passion and obsession intertwine in Fire of Love, With characters wise and reassuring, animated short The Boy, the Mole comforts. Woodward stayed at The Washington Post. Why has the heroic-journalist interpretation of Watergate persisted through the 50 years since burglars linked to Nixons campaign were arrested at the Watergate complex in Washington? I have forgotten which one it was. The young protesters were arguably unlearning the false lessons of Watergate, that meaningful social change had to come from pounding the pavement, not just from pounding a keyboard. He worked at ABC, CNN, and CBS as a political commentator, and was a spokesman in various television commercials. Although the movie is the result of Redfords determination to get it made as the Watergate story unfolded, its authenticity and endurance have everything to do with its director, Alan J. Pakula, who morphed into a Sigmund Freud with notepad before any camera rolled. Thank God. But in the end, its only a glancing blow. Were there other writers in your father or mothers family? There was a letter forged, saying that Muskie had made some disparaging remark about Canadians, and Muskie got very upset. What I try to do is piece together how people make decisions. Bull---- artist. And my father said probably the severest thing he has ever said to me. It was very complicated, then and now. It was a Saturday morning, I think the summer. He wanted to understand Woodward and Bernstein deeply so he could capture their true characters and motivations for the movie. Are there particular books that you remember? Later Career. What were they doing? 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. So you would not go from the CIA to the White House instantly, but within several days, through the work of another reporter, we learned there was this cryptic entry in the address books of two of the five burglars that very simply said H. Where did you work? And he went, CIA, Central Intelligence Agency. And I know my reaction was one of Oh! Maybe it was 16, but he had fully a decade-plus of experience under his belt. What did you mean by that? Hoffman was running down an empty street, chasing after Redfords gray Volvo as it pulled out of the Post parking lot. Robert Upshur Woodward, born on March 26, 1943, in Geneva, Illinois, attended Yale University on a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) scholarship, after which he served for five years as a naval officer. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. Carl Bernstein has some strong words for what his former colleague's revelations mean for the Trump presidency and democracy itself.On Wednesday The Washington Post published a preview of Bob Woodward's forthcoming book, Rage, in which Trump told Woodward in March that he knew COVID-19 was serious but "wanted to always play it down." Six months later, 190,000 people have died in the U.S. from . On June 17, 1972, Woodward was assigned to cover a story about an attempted burglary the night before in which five men had been arrested at the headquarters of the 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". The five Watergate burglars and several other Nixon subordinates, including former U.S. Attorney General Mitchell, were sentenced to prison terms. Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward, left, and Carl Bernstein on March 1, 1974, Washington, D.C. Woodward moved logically. Irresponsible., * Carl saw Bob as a machine. [27] Ephron was inspired by the events to write the 1983 novel Heartburn,[26] which was made into a 1986 film starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. Woodward and Bernstein (and many others) were absolutely convinced there was a deal where Nixon would resign if his successor Gerald Ford issued a presidential pardon. Im out there doing it, and if theres pressure or debate or controversy, theyre absorbing that pressure. While Bernstein was surprised by how mythical Deep Throat became in American pop culture, he remains as much of a part of the Watergate story as Woodward and Bernstein. And it turned out he had worked for the CIA for years, had been working in the White House as a consultant to Chuck Colson, who was then Nixons hatchet man. We want to thank you for talking with us today. We made one mistake in a story in which we said that Woodward and Bernstein said that there was a slush fund of $300,000 set up in the Committee to Re-elect the President, and it was controlled by Haldeman, and that one of the witnesses had testified to that slush fund to the grand jury investigating Watergate. Did you? and he said, No. And the whole town shook, as far as Im concerned, because that was the first time we had been accused of getting anything wrong. Kind of parse it out. But she wasnt the editor. And it in many ways is, I think, the principle under which she and her son, Don Graham, tried to run The Washington Post. We talk all the time. By his own admission he failed at that". From the time of the break-in, and through the fall and winter of 1972-1973, Bernstein and Woodward, under increasing public attack from White House spokesmen, worked virtually alone on the story. Woodward immediately published a full account of his dealings with Felt in his book, The Secret Man. Soon after the Nixon resignation, Bernstein and Woodward began work with a team of researchers on The Final Days, an account of the last months of Nixon's presidency, based on interviews with 394 people. I worked quite hard, did a number of stories that the Post and The New York Times picked up. Journalists honor free press at Correspondents' Dinner wit 11-year-old reads aloud from 'pornographic' book he checked out from library at school board meeting, Canadian teacher with size-Z prosthetic breasts placed on paid leave, Mike McCarthy shreds ex-Cowboys coordinator after firing, 2023 Billboard Women in Music Awards: Lana Del Ray, Kim Petras, & more, RHOA star Drew Sidora accuses ex Ralph Pittman of cheating, mental abuse, Original Gone With The Wind script reveals secret war over slavery, cut scenes, Sunny Hostin Points Finger at China for COVID Crisis: Did Not Cooperate With the International Community, Kanye West and 'wife' Bianca Censori look surprisingly happy on dinner date. Bob Woodward: We had done some of the early stories, that it led to the Senate Watergate Committee, led to the House Judiciary Committee and impeachment investigation. I think they were really out to get to the bottom of the story. And we were so scared that we were going to by this time, we knew that the front page was going to be a historical document. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. Are you and Bernstein still friends? 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. Bob needed Carl because Carl was pushy. Hes finally embarrassed, said Woodward with a smile. 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. 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