Carl Bernstein (born 1944) and Robert Woodward (born 1943), investigative reporters for the Washington Post, wrote a series of articles about the Watergate scandals that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. 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. } Woodward cautiously would have to go from one step literally to another. In his obituary column written in 1994, writer Martin Weil had this to say about the late Lewis: "A familiar and trusted figure to top police officials, [Lewis] went into the building with investigators and remained there unchallenged through the day, gathering information available to no other news outlet.". You are trying to understand somebodys reasoning and their emotions and the demons they may or may not have. Mr. Bradlee, do you think there could be another Watergate today? This button displays the currently selected search type. [20], He then began working for ABC News. Maybe it was 16, but he had fully a decade-plus of experience under his belt. And my father, a man of great restraint, nonjudgmental in fact, said probably the severest thing he has ever said to me. The Post played a critical role in the beginning, and Woodward and Bernstein came in at critical moments. Although Woodward and Bernstein were able to link the burglary of Democratic National Headquarters to operatives inside the Nixon White House, and to President Nixons re-election campaign, they were unable at first to prove any direct involvement by the president or his senior staff to either the burglary or its subsequent cover-up. On the other hand, Carl Bernstein was the child of two Communist activists (per Washingtonian). The next year, when I entered college determined to be a reporter just like the guys that Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman had portrayed on the screen, there was a surge in enrollment in journalism schools. Not one of the 17 stories he filed was printed. Bob Woodward: Sure. And most of us had served in World War II. And redford was the one who shaped 'All the President's Men.' Sometimes I was thought to be the more cautious one, but Carl (Bernstein) could be cautious, and I could be aggressive or overly aggressive. Bernstein and Woodward pursued documentary evidence by cross-checking telephone books, airline records, building directories, hotel records, andin what some claimed were violations of journalistic ethics confidential credit card and telephone company records. You have to remember that the Attorney General, who prosecuted us was the first and only Attorney General in the history of the United States to go to jail. Woodward would only reveal his informant was an individual working in the Executive Branch. How do I pay someone back, either good or bad, for what they have done to me?. And in that same space of time, Woodward's written five books. I got there just as Hoffman broke from the building. Both men continued to work for the Post. Richard Matthew Pious So we started phrasing it close to resignation, and debating resignation, and then, finally, we learned that I think he was going to do it at nine oclock at night, or eight oclock at night. Between June 1972 to November 1973, Felt spoke with Bob Woodward 17 times, originally confirming leads the pair found, but eventually, began to offer new information to the team. What are you most proud of, looking back on your career so far? So we were terribly worried, and we didnt its a big newspaper and a lot of people in it, and you cant control all of them even if you wanted to. 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. Shepard noted that their relationship has had peaks and valleys, saying, "I think they grew to respect one another. A day prior, another Washington Post journalist got the first swing at what would become the story of the decade. I now do my books alone, but I have a full-time assistant who is kind of my collaborator. Bob Woodward: An immense amount of independence. His unfounded fear of being fired and his need to belong fueled his workaholic lifestyle. There had been some disparaging remarks made elsewhere about his wife, and he cried, in the snow, in New Hampshire, standing on the back of a flatbed truck, and its generally believed that was the end of his candidacy. In The Last of the Presidents Men, Woodward told the story of Alexander Butterfield, the White House aide who disclosed the existence of President Nixons secret recording system, the revelation that ultimately led to Nixons downfall. Kind of parse it out. But she wasnt the editor. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. In fact, it probably doesnt work that often. It seems that there are very few long, extensive investigations into corruption where an editor lets reporters work on a story for a couple of years. THIS year marks the 30th anniversary of the movie All the Presidents Men, starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, respectively. We worked her over very hard, but so did the lawyers. He met his Deep Throat source secretly to get as much information as possible. Writers or journalists who inspired you? 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. And I was going on an unknown path, and that concerned him, but when I got into it and then went to work for the Post, he was quite supportive. Compared to Woodward, Bernstein was a strong writer, and therefore wrote articles based on Woodward's information from Deep Throat. They had a much-publicized extramarital relationship in 1979. There were some teachers and lawyers and business people, but no writers. Bob Woodward: About six months after Watergate, after Carl and I had written many of almost all of our main stories, she called me up for lunch. 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. During his marriage to Ephron, Bernstein met Margaret Jay, daughter of British Prime Minister James Callaghan and wife of Peter Jay, then UK ambassador to the United States. The Watergate scandal began in May 1972, when members of PresidentRichard M. Nixon's campaign team (known as Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President or CREEP) broke into the Democratic National Committee's headquarters in the Watergate Hotel (per History). It was inconceivable that Nixon wasnt. 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). The Post is a very competitive institution, and I think that was the main reason. #inline-recirc-item--id-abdd83c2-8c88-11e2-b06b-024c619f5c3d, #right-rail-recirc-item--id-abdd83c2-8c88-11e2-b06b-024c619f5c3d { Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Make no mistake (as Nixon himself was fond of saying), what Woodward and Bernstein accomplished from 1972 to 1974 was incredible and deserving of all the accolades they received at the time. I would have been more effective.. White bread. Was he the more experienced journalist at the time? It taught me the benefits of collaboration, and that collaboration is a wonderful thing. Not, "What did the president know and when did he know it? WASHINGTON Watching Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein on stage at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner on Saturday night was like a Simon and Garfunkel reunion. He had gone to Vietnam as a soldier, so he had fought in Vietnam, but he got convinced that it was a quagmire and that it was a great mistake and that by releasing this study, he could shine light into the darkest corners and change the course of the world. 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. Few in the room. I mean, he was no rank amateur himself. You want it to be fair. We were told that before we could write it, but yes, we knew it. After a brief period of national self-examination and a few watered-down post-Watergate reforms, the sins that Woodward and Bernstein attribute uniquely to Nixon, including the squelching of dissent and the discrediting of journalism, resumed with an intensity just as great as the early 1970s. Five long years of unruly marches and campus takeovers hadn't toppled the Establishment. While Woodward interviewed their informant, known as "Deep Throat," Bernstein discovered cash payments from Nixon's reelection campaign in one of the burglar's bank accounts (via The Washington Post). It was one of those families that was glued together.. This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Their editors at the Post allowed them to keep most of their sources confidential, but demanded that alleged facts be confirmed by more than one witness. Mr. Woodward, there is an interesting scene in the book and in the film All the Presidents Men where you tap out a story and Carl Bernstein immediately starts rewriting it, and youre miffed. Where were you in the pecking order of siblings? Bernstein has been married three times, first to a fellow reporter at The Washington Post, Carol Honsa; then to writer and director Nora Ephron from 1976 to 1980; and since 2003 to the former model Christine Kuehbeck. Following the 1972 arrests, journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post investigated the scandal relentlessly. .component--type-recirculation .item:nth-child(5) { 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. Mitchell? We didnt allow television in for six months, I dont think. That, at least, was the interpretation of the late Stanley Kutler, one of Watergates leading historians, who noted: You had to have that kind of corroborative evidence to nail the president of the United States.. Will the luck of the Irish affect the Oscars? Goldwater Republican. Few in the room could recall a joint public appearance by the famous Washington Post reporters who uncovered the Watergate scandal that brought down a president. https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/woodward-and-bernstein, "Woodward and Bernstein Well, it turns out a lot of CIA people were, and they tried to use the CIA to cover up the FBI investigation, but they never pinned it on the CIA. You have kids who werent born at that time doing term papers on it at colleges and high schools. One of the managing editors at the Post, Howard Simons, during Watergate this was not on a Watergate story, but I was struggling with a story early in my time at the Post and he came by, and he said, You dont have to understand a man in an afternoon. In other words, you dont have to do it in a day, and you wont achieve understanding of it in an slow down, take your time, dig, go back. 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