>> From the Library of
Congress, in Washington, D.C. [ Applause ] >> Susan K. Siegel: Good afternoon. I have the privilege of welcoming
to the stage our very special and talented interviewer
for this program. He's one of the nation's leading
philanthropists, a tireless advocate of reading and literacy, a great
friend to the Library of Congress, and the individual most
responsible for ensuring that there is a National Book
Festival, year after year. David Rubenstein. [ Applause ] >> David M. Rubenstein: Thank you. Thank you very much. We have a special treat. We have, I think, the
world's most famous journalist as our special guest, and just for
those who might have been living under a rock for the past
35 or 40 years, briefly, Bob Woodward is the reporter
who, with Carl Bernstein, broke the Watergate story. Ultimately, the Washington Post
won a Pulitzer Prize for it. Bob has gone on to become the
role model for journalists all over the world, but since he
did that at the Washington Post, and he's still an associate
of the Washington Post, he has written sixteen books, twelve of them New York Times
bestseller, number one bestsellers. The only person who's ever written
twelve New York Times number one bestsellers, total sixteen books,
all of them, of course, bestsellers. His most recent book is, "The
Last of the President's Men," which is about, a very interesting
story about some person was involved in Watergate, and approached
Bob not long ago, and Bob has written about it. We're going to talk about that
book, talk about Bob's view on the campaign, and also talk
about his other books in his career. So, without any further ado,
let me introduce Bob Woodward. Bob. [ Applause ] So, thank you very much for coming. >> Bob Woodward: Thank you. >> David M. Rubenstein:
So, most people would think that Watergate was kind of over
in the 1970's, or so forth. President Nixon resigned, you wrote
some books, there was a movie, you were played by Robert Redford. >> Bob Woodward: You have no idea
how many women I've disappointed. [ Laughter ] >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay, I'm
sure that's not true, but, so... >> Bob Woodward: I could
tell you it's true. During that period, I would make a
date with someone over the phone, and then go see them, and they'd
open the door and go, huh? [ Laughter ] >> David M. Rubenstein: So... >> Bob Woodward: I
know disappointment, because I've seen it [laughter]. >> David M. Rubenstein: So, we're
going to talk a little bit later about what happened in early,
in the days of Watergate, but I'd like to start about your new
book, because most people, like me, would say, "Well, Watergate
was kind of over." Anybody still involved in Watergate, we didn't really think they had
any information left to talk about, but then you got some information from a very famous person
involved in Watergate. Could you explain how
that came about? >> Bob Woodward: Yes. Alexander Butterfield,
who was the Nixon aide who disclosed the secret taping
system, and I'd just met him, but I saw him at one of these
conferences and said, you know, let's get together, and so
we talked, and I visited him at is home in La Jolla, California. Always go to someone's
home if you can. >> David M. Rubenstein: Because? >> Bob Woodward: If, if I
was doing a book on you, I'd want to come to where you live. Because I went to his home, and I
said, "Do you have any documents?" And he said, "Yeah, I have
a few," and I said, "Well, can you get them out for me?" And so we filled 20 boxes [laughter]
of documents that he had spirited out of the Nixon White House, and 73
new documents, top-secret documents, things that we hadn't seen, and
foremost was a top-secret memo that Henry Kissinger, Nixon's
national security advisor, had sent him, update on
Vietnam, and then Nixon, in his own handwriting said,
"Well, the bombing in Vietnam for 10 years has achieved zilch. Nothing. That it's a failure." And this totally contradicted the
public position and showed a level of deceit on the warfront
that was equivalent to the deceit of Watergate itself. >> David M. Rubenstein: Alex Butterfield had
been a military officer, and when he left the military,
he reconnected with, I think, Bob Haldeman, who had he had known
in college, and his job was to work as an assistant to Bob Haldeman,
but what was his main job in the White House, other than
being an assistant to Haldeman? Was he supposed to trail
Nixon, or what did he do? >> Bob Woodward: Well, he
had the office adjacent to Nixon's Oval Office, and his job,
essentially, was anxiety alleviation of the President, and of course, Nixon's anxieties could
never be fully alleviated. So it was 24/7, and what
Nixon did, he, you know, if he had something he wanted
done, somebody screwed, somebody investigated, you
know, Nixon essentially, we know from the tapes, and
this book even in more detail, he used the Presidency as an
instrument of personal revenge. >> David M. Rubenstein: So,
Alexander Butterfield was, had the office next
to the President, and, for those who may not remember, in
the most dramatic part, I think, of the Watergate hearings in the
Senate, Butterfield was called to testify, and he
was asked a question about whether there
were taping devices in the Oval Office,
and what did he say? >> Bob Woodward: Well, he was going,
he wasn't sure they were going to ask that, he thought
they wouldn't. He resolved that if they asked a
direct question, he couldn't lie, because even though
he was not under oath, it's technically a
violation to lie to the FBI. Of course, no one ever
lies to the FBI [laughter], or says they can't remember, and,
and no one, and it's a violation of law, technically, to not tell
a Senate committee the truth, and so when he was asked about this,
but, he knew it might be coming, and he was faced, and this is
part of the drama of this story, which we haven't seen before, he
was faced with a moral choice. Because Nixon's policy was,
"Oh, the tapes are sacred. No one's going to know about them. No one's ever going to find
out about them," and it was, you know, conceal, don't reveal. And so, when Butterfield
was asked this, he said yes, there were listening devices, and of
course that provided the thousands of hours of Nixon's tapes. It led to his downfall and
resignation and then there are more and more that come out
essentially each season, and we peer into the life
and the soul of Nixon in a way we'd never seen
in another President. >> David M. Rubenstein: When Alex
Butterfield was asked in the Senate, do you know if there's
a taping device, did the Senate investigator
already know the answer to that, had he already told
them prior to that? >> Bob Woodward: No. He had, well he had in a closed,
closed-door hearing he had told them on the Friday before, but
they called him on Monday. Now, somebody told me that weekend
that Butterfield had come in and said there were these
secret taping systems. I thought, wow, that's,
that's one hell of a story, and I was unsure what to do. So I called Ben Bradley, the
Editor of the Post, and said, "There's a secret taping
system, and what do you think?" And Ben said, "Oh, well I
wouldn't bust one on it, and I think it's kind of a B plus." So I didn't do anything, and then
Butterfield testified on Monday, and it was explosive, and Ben, to
his credit, came by and knocked on my desk and said, "Okay, it's
more than a B plus" [laughter]. >> David M. Rubenstein: So,
if there had been no tapes, do you think Nixon would
have had to resign? >> Bob Woodward: No. I think, I think that the,
what happened in the trajectory of Watergate, there
were all the hearings, there were all the accusations,
there were some documents, but Nixon denied everything,
and when the investigators asked for the tapes, they
had to go to court, and eventually the
Supreme Court said, 8 to 0, because one of the Justices
recused himself, said, "No, you have an obligation
to turn over your tapes," within two weeks, Nixon
had resigned. >> David M. Rubenstein: So
when Butterfield testified, was he working the
White House at the time? >> Bob Woodward: No, he
was FAA Commissioner. >> David M. Rubenstein: And was
his career essentially terminated by the people who were
his supporters, because he had told this? >> Bob Woodward: Yes, I
mean, he paid a price. He went to California, here
he was kind of a Nixon guy, and he had broken omerta,
the oath of silence, and it led to Nixon's downfall, and
so he, Butterfield, was ostracized, and that is part of the story
here of the penalty, you know, we think we have a
culture of truth-telling. Actually, we don't. When somebody tells the truth,
they, and it harms others, and it has political impact, the truth-tellers pay,
and Butterfield did. >> David M. Rubenstein: So, he
gave you twenty boxes of documents, he didn't say, don't write about
this or that, he just said here, do what you want with
them, more or less? >> Bob Woodward: Yeah, more or
less, and I put them in the book. There were about 70
pages of the documents, so you can see Nixon's handwriting
or, you know, what was going on, and it, it's, it is, to me,
I thought we knew everything about Nixon, but this is a new
layer of the deceit and the anger, which it just does not subside. >> David M. Rubenstein: Now, in
your career, have you ever met, did you ever meet Richard Nixon? >> Bob Woodward: No. I was not on his Christmas
card list. [ Laughter ] I was on another list
though [laughter]. >> David M. Rubenstein: And, and
did you ever try to get an interview with him when he went
back to [inaudible]? >> Bob Woodward: Yes,
yes, Carl Bernstein and I did many times,
and he declined. >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. So let's go talk about the current
election campaign, if we could. You have, you're still
covering this campaign, and you've covered
many political kinds of leadership, leaders
over the years. Right now, tell us your
view on Hillary Clinton, do you think that she and
Donald Trump, for example, both of them are older than most
people who are elected President of the United States, generally. Do you think age is a
factor in this campaign? >> Bob Woodward: You know, well, I
don't know, but it's interesting. President Obama, who now will
leave the Presidency at age 55, has said privately that the Office and being President has taken a
psychological and physical toll on him that he did not
anticipate, and physically, he was not getting enough
exercise, not walking enough, and so he had a new
treadmill installed in the White House residence,
and each night he gets on it for about an hour or hour
and a half, and the top aides who send him written material,
memos, have to make sure it's in large type, so he can be on the
treadmill and read at the same time, and he has indicated to people that because the Presidency
is different now than it was during the Nixon era,
it's 24/7, everything comes at you. I, I think Presidents have
a concentration of power. Now Obama does much more than Nixon
did, and if you were to say what is, this is the age of the
American Presidency. We in this country,
and in the world, get measured by how
the President does. >> David M. Rubenstein: So this,
what you just said is private, so nobody should talk
about what you just said about the President's
private habits. >> Bob Woodward: Yes, right,
that's off the record. >> David M. Rubenstein:
Off the record. Okay [laughter]. >> Bob Woodward: And, and
you know what it means, off the record means you absolutely and totally cannot use it unless
it's really good [laughter]. >> David M. Rubenstein: So, actually
for some people [inaudible]. >> Bob Woodward: And
that's not really, I mean, that's not surprising that, I mean,
you see Obama, you know, Obama, you see him, has he aged? >> David M. Rubenstein: Well, I'd say he has more gray
hair than he used to have. >> Bob Woodward: Well,
how about you? >> David M. Rubenstein: Well,
my hair is dark, I dye it gray. I want people to think
I'm more mature. That's the reason. But... >> Bob Woodward: Does it work? >> David M. Rubenstein:
Hasn't worked yet, but hope is, hope springs eternal. So, let me ask you, you have
interviewed Donald Trump. >> Bob Woodward: Yes. >> David M. Rubenstein: Any impressions you
would like to convey? >> Bob Woodward: This
was five months ago. Bob Costa, reporter at the Post,
and I interviewed him, and, first of all, he wanted to
kind of do this on the phone, and we said no, we
want do it in person. I've never really met anyone
who has the capacity to measure, in the moment, the reaction he's
generating among the people he's talking to. Other words, the reaction
to himself. And so, he's, face-to-face, very
careful, not hostile, not angry. But in the text of the interview,
he said some things that, I mean, let me confess I thought
afterwards, you know, maybe that these things are
so raw that it will hurt him or maybe finish him, because one,
one of the things he said was, "I bring out rage in people." And he said that with pride. Now, I mean, you worked for
Jimmy Carter and, you know, you, Presidents have to
bring people together. Camp David Accords was an example
of, you, you can't be President and bring out rage in
people, but he does, and he thinks it's a good thing. We asked him about the economy, and
he said he thought we were going to have an awful recession. Asked him about Lincoln and
Nixon, two Republicans, and why, we asked him, why did
Lincoln succeed as President? And he went, gave a long
rambling answer, and said, well, Lincoln succeeded because he did
things that needed to be done. Now, if you were in high school, and you wrote that on
an exam [laughter]... >> David M. Rubenstein: So... [ Applause ] >> Bob Woodward: I mean, look. I mean, that's, he did things
that needed to be done. Like what? I get, we didn't, we were I think
embarrassed to ask [laughter]. And so why did Nixon fail? And he went on a little bit,
and he said, well, basically, because of his personality
[laughter]. And we couldn't, I'm sorry, I
couldn't help but say but yeah, but he was a criminal [laughter]. And, and Trump said, "Oh,
that too" [laughter]. >> David M. Rubenstein: So, now, have you interviewed
Hillary Clinton lately? >> Bob Woodward: No. She, I'm, on not the
Christmas card list. >> David M. Rubenstein: So she won't...but you've
interviewed her in previous times? >> Bob Woodward: Yes. >> David M. Rubenstein:
And your impression? >> Bob Woodward: And my
impression is, I interviewed her when she was First Lady, and
she was so open and candid in describing how her husband
decided to run for President. I asked how, and she
said, oh, I know. And explained how was her idea
that he run for President. And, I, I was astonished that she
would take the credit for this, but it, we checked, and it's true. She was the one who said,
in 1991, to him, "This, if you run, this will be your time." And he said, "Oh, no, it'll be
a dry run," and she said, "No, you will win, but you're,
it's going to be hard because the Republicans are
going to come after you," and there will be what she called a
"pain threshold" that we have to go, we're going to have to
go through, and over. And, and I've seen her before,
and she is a different person. I mean, whether it's that, I mean,
you know, is she different in and what we see on television,
from what you have seen? >> David M. Rubenstein: I'm
going to ask the questions, because people want to hear
your opinion [laughter]. >> Bob Woodward: No, I asked that
question, and let it be noted that you didn't answer [laughter]. >> David M. Rubenstein:
I think people want to hear your views
on things, not mine. But let me start back. You come from a family in the
Midwest, your father was a judge. Many people who are
judges would probably like to have their children
be lawyers, too, maybe judges. You went to Yale. School that probably
produces more lawyers and business people
than journalists. Did you know you wanted to be a
journalist when you went to Yale? >> Bob Woodward: No. And I served in the Navy five years
after college, and I was going to go to law school, and I thought,
"Oh my God, I'll be, you know, 30 years old when I
get out of law school. That's the end of life [laughter]. And so, I went into, to
journalism, and I told my father, "I've got a job at this weekly paper
in Montgomery County, Maryland, that pays 115 dollars a
week, and I'm going to do that instead of going
to law school." My father, who was a
really open-minded person who didn't make judgments,
said, "You're crazy." >> David M. Rubenstein: So,
you did that for a while, and then you got a little bit of
a tryout with the Washington Post. >> Bob Woodward: Which I failed. >> David M. Rubenstein: So you
had two weeks or something, or... >> Bob Woodward: Yeah, two-week
tryout, and I wrote lots of stories, none of which they published,
and they said, you know, see, you don't know how to
do this, which is true. And, and so I worked at the... >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. >> Bob Woodward: Montgomery
[inaudible]. >> David M. Rubenstein:
You worked in Montgomery, and eventually the Post
gave you another chance, and you went back, and
that was 1971, or 2. >> Bob Woodward: Yes, yes. >> David M. Rubenstein: '71. So, when you get back
there, and you're assigned to the metropolitan area? >> Bob Woodward: Right,
to the night police beat. >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. So, which is not usually a
way to advance your career, right, the night police beat? So, how did it actually happen
that you, as opposed to any of the other 500 reporters there,
were assigned to Watergate break-in? >> Bob Woodward: I'd
been there nine months. I really loved it. I did the night police beat,
I would come in during the day and do stories, do follow-up
stories, and you can't, I can't really capture for you
completely, being in the Navy where it's controlled,
where you have no freedom. The Washington Post, at that
time, and I think now, you know, it's a reporter's newspaper, and
if you can find out something and do something, you, you're
supported by the editors. And so, the morning of the Watergate
burglary was this Saturday morning, June 17, '72 was one of the
nicest days in Washington, by far, and the editors met,
they, this burglary was, looked like a police story, and
they said, who would be dumb enough to come in and work this morning? And immediately my name
came up [laughter]. >> David M. Rubenstein:
They called you to come in? >> Bob Woodward: Yeah, and
they called me to come in, and I went to the arraignment,
and the judge, and here are the five
burglars in business suits. Now, I'd covered the police beat
for nine months, and I'd never heard of a burglar with a business suit
[laughter], let alone five of them, and they stood there, and
the judge asked the head, James McCord, where did you work? And McCord went, [whispered] "CIA." And the Judge said, "Speak up." And he said, [louder whisper] "CIA." And the Judge said, "Speak up." And he said, "CIA," and I
was sitting in the front row and I think I said
out loud, "Holy shit!" [ Laughter ] >> David M. Rubenstein: Did
the judge hear you say that? >> Bob Woodward: No, I don't think
he did but, and, and, you know, this, and it turned out this guy
was Head of Security at the CIA, the Head of Security of the
Nixon Reelection Committee. >> David M. Rubenstein:
But at that point, you didn't think this was a story that would really touch
Nixon, I assume. >> Bob Woodward: Yeah,
you just, you never knew. Bernstein knew. He had a nose for it, that
quite frankly, I didn't. >> David M. Rubenstein: So,
you began to develop the story, but for many months, people were
skeptical this was anything more than a break-in by some,
you know, rogues, let's say, and nobody thought, really, that it was Nixon behind
it, is that correct? >> Bob Woodward: Other than Carl. >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. So, but, you began to go do a lot of
research, and you published stories, many of them were used stories
that were, there were cited sources that wouldn't, you
couldn't disclose. Was that a novel thing at
the time, the, to not be able to disclose those sources? >> Bob Woodward: It
happened a lot in diplomatic and political reporting, but we
instituted a two-source rule, and, but at the same time, as you look
back on this, it was very risky, not for Carl and myself,
we were young. I could have maybe
still gone to law school if it'd turned out not to be true. And, but the risk was
borne by the editors, and particularly Ben Bradley,
and the owner, Catherine Graham. >> David M. Rubenstein: So, when
you began to write some stories that turned out not to be accurate, and was proven they weren't
accurate, did you get in trouble? >> Bob Woodward: Yeah, well
we got, we made some mistakes, but they were mistakes in form. Actually, the, if you looked at the
coverage, the stories as people had, they were very conservative,
and careful, and unintentionally understated. >> David M. Rubenstein: So, where
were the other major newspapers? I mean, you and Carl Bernstein get a
lot of credit, maybe all the credit, for breaking this story, but where
were all the other major newspapers, what were they doing? >> Bob Woodward: Well,
it was a police story. You had to go, and, and, quite
frankly, it was Carl Bernstein who had the, "Well,
these people won't talk, so we have to go see them at
home, and knock on their doors, and that's what, what we did, and
we got clues, and we had Mark Felt, who was Deep Throat, the
number two in the FBI, guiding us in a very secret way, and
we kept finding pieces of the puzzle that said, "No, wait a minute. Watergate isn't just one thing. It's a series of sabotage and espionage operations
launched by Nixon." >> David M. Rubenstein:
Now, in the movie, there's a famous thing
about Deep Throat. And where that name
come from, by the way? >> Bob Woodward: The Managing
Editor of the Post, Howard Simons, if it was on deep background,
and so, Howard says, "Oh yeah, your guy 'Deep Throat, '" and
so the name stayed around. >> David M. Rubenstein:
So, did you actually go into the garage and all that? >> Bob Woodward: Yeah. Exactly as... >> David M. Rubenstein:
And he was not worried that you would disclose his name? Obviously not, I guess, but... >> Bob Woodward: I think he probably
was worried but I, you know, we'd made an agreement, you
know, you make those agreements with somebody and try
to stick to them. >> David M. Rubenstein: So, Mark
Felt, who was the Deputy Head of the FBI, but wanted to be
the head of the FBI, presumed, what was his reason
for talking to you? >> Bob Woodward: Complicated,
like all human motivation. Some high road, some high
purpose, that this was too corrupt, and at the same time,
he was very upset that he did not get
selected to be FBI Director. >> David M. Rubenstein:
So, most people, let's say, were playing the parlor game for
20 or 30 years, Who is Deep Throat? So, when people would come
up to you and say well, can you just tell me
privately who it is, I'll just, I won't tell anybody? Did that happen a lot, and
did people get accused of it, and they were being accused of
it, and you knew they weren't it, but how did you handle all that? >> Bob Woodward: Sometimes, couple
of people were accused and said, you know, I can't get a
job unless you call the guy and say it wasn't me. And but, you know, it was, I mean,
we agreed, and I told my wife, and Bradley knew, and it, I mean, I
hate to be so practical about this, but when there was this parlor
game, and I'd go interview people, and I remember going to see a
Senator about a sensitive subject, and he said, "Oh, my wife said
to me," you know, "He never told who Deep Throat was, so he's not
going to tell who you are," and so, it, it helped in the
work, that people knew. >> David M. Rubenstein: Well, what is the journalists'
convention on this? Let's suppose Mark Felt had
died, and once he's deceased, do you feel an obligation to protect
his identity is no longer around? >> Bob Woodward: I think
once somebody is deceased, they're not going to
object [laughter]. >> David M. Rubenstein:
Right [laughter]. So, how did, you know, the
previous book you wrote talked about Mark Felt. You identified him, and
how did that come about? At what age did he actually say,
"Okay, you can use my name now?" >> Bob Woodward: He didn't. What happened, he, he
unmasked himself in 2005 and, to Vanity Fair magazine, and so
we had make sure that he was, because he was old and frail, and I
wrote what had happened in book form to be published after he
died, but it actually turned out to be a good thing,
because it was a mystery, and people were confused by it. There was some doubt, and to
remove that doubt, I thought, was important to the story,
and to the history of this. >> David M. Rubenstein: So,
you wrote a book called, "All the President's Men," and
that was made into a movie, and we mentioned Bob Woodward
played you, and so forth. But then you wrote another
book about that period of time, which was, "The Last,"
"The Final Days," I guess. Now, can you describe what
were the most surprising things that you learned about in the final
days of Nixon's White House time? >> Bob Woodward: This
was about his last year, while he was under investigation,
and leading to the resignation. It, it showed how much it
was a lawyering operation. It showed how emotional it was. The night before Nixon resigned, he
had a meeting with Henry Kissinger when they got down on the floor
and prayed, and you could see that, we published this in the book, and
I remember Kissinger denied it, and then, and said oh, you know,
there was this unfeeling account of that evening together with
Nixon, which has showed Nixon out of control, and then Kissinger
wrote his own version of that in his memoirs, and it's
actually more searing. He said Nixon wasn't out of
control, just he was shattered, and it was very sad and, you
know, what we often forget in reporting is the emotional
impact of these political events, and that was kind of
the culmination. >> David M. Rubenstein: So
how often does it happen that somebody calls you up when
you're a reporter, and says, "I have a great scoop for you,"
and it turns out not to be much, or it turns out to be great. I mean, did somebody...? >> Bob Woodward: Never enough. David M. Rubenstein: Never enough? >> Bob Woodward: Right. >> David M. Rubenstein:
But, do you ever get...? >> Bob Woodward: Somebody
called me from the White House when you worked there,
do you remember this? >> David M. Rubenstein:
I do remember that. >> Bob Woodward: Do you
want me to bring it up? >> David M. Rubenstein: I do
remember, and it was painful, but... >> Bob Woodward: Okay, about a
memo that David wrote to Carter about OPEC, the oil monopoly, and
you suggested that the strategy for dealing with OPEC was what? >> David M. Rubenstein: To
blame it on Bob Woodward? I don't remember, but... [laughter]. >> Bob Woodward: No, no [laughter]. >> David M. Rubenstein: No, what,
actually what it was, was... >> Bob Woodward: Was to declare
war on them, essentially, yes. >> David M. Rubenstein: At the time,
he was stopping back from a trip to Japan, he was in
Hawaii, and they were going to spend a couple days there,
and I think that sense was that he should come back and
deal with the energy problem, and deal with it directly. That, I think that was
the essence of the memo, but I'm not sure the reporter got
it right, but anyway [laughter]. >> Bob Woodward: Yes, I'm sure,
and it was the language of, "Let's declare war on it, on OPEC." Which, you know, I mean we
did a big banner story on it, and that made you famous. >> David M. Rubenstein: I don't
know about that [laughter]. So, let me ask you about
another related subject. After you did those two
books, you were given access to a famous person,
and you came out of it, it wasn't in the political
world, it was John Belushi, and you wrote a book
about John Belushi, and it seemed like it was a painful
experience, because everybody who kind of knew him then said
your book was not accurate. And, can you describe
what that was about? >> Bob Woodward: Actually they
never said it was not accurate. They said it didn't show the good
side of him, the joyful side. You know, look. It, it was a drug overdose death. He was a drug addict. These people who were close to
him knew he was a drug addict. They gave him money to buy drugs. They fed it, because that was part
of the Belushi show, and they were, I don't think the term was used
in the 80's, drug enablers, and they felt guilty about it, and
what I did it all on the record. They were all confessional
about, you know, what they did, and the end result was tragic
and sad, and they didn't like it, and they, I think some of them thought they should
blame me, the messenger. >> David M. Rubenstein: Your next
book was about the Supreme Court, and that's a place
that very few people, maybe nobody ever really
got access to the Justices. How did you get access to the
Justices, or their Clerks, and, and how did that come about, and
what did you learn in that book that was really most interesting? >> Bob Woodward: It was sitting
there, the, you know, the Court, how does it really function, and one
of the Justices, Justice Stewart, kept wanting, I wanted to talk to
him, I finally came to his house, and he outlined the brethren,
and he was quite angry at Chief Justice Burger, and we
realized this is an important story. We got five of the Justices
to cooperate, 1 40 law clerks, boxes of documents, of
drafts and memos, and it, it was kind of a shock to the
legal community when it came out, and it was denounced, and
now people acknowledge that it's the most severe
critics say it was accurate. And, you know, it, it's,
it's not a pretty story when you say the Supreme Court,
that decides what the law is, or interprets the law, that personal
animus and some of the things that drive most human
beings one way or another, plays a role, and it does. >> David M. Rubenstein: So,
another book you wrote dealt with the Iran Contra situation,
and your, and Bill Casey, and do you think President
Reagan knew about Iran Contra? >> Bob Woodward: There is no
evidence, and I did a later book on that, and dealt with the
lawyers who investigated Reagan, White House lawyers, and, and they
concluded, and I think that's right, there was no evidence that he knew
about illegal diversion of profits from the Iran arms sales
to the Nicaraguan... >> David M. Rubenstein: Now, in
that book you were criticized by some people for saying you had a
lot of conversation with Bill Casey, and people said Casey
couldn't really talk that much, and you visited him in the hospital. How did you respond
to those critics? >> Bob Woodward: Well, there's
a CIA Inspector General's report that they documented, that
I talked to Casey in person or on the phone 48 times. And I wrote about seeing Casey in
the hospital, and he spoke, I think, 19 words to me in four or five
minutes, and then Bob Gates, who was his deputy who became the
CIA director after Casey resigned, wrote in his own memoir that he
talked to Casey at the same time, and that you could understand Casey. >> David M. Rubenstein: Let's
talk about President Bush. You wrote a book about the
war that we did in Kuwait, and that was "The Commanders." And in that war, what, who do you
think the hero was that really came up with the strategy that
won that war in Kuwait? Was it Colin Powell, was it
Schwarzkopf, was it President Bush? And what went so well
in that particular war? >> Bob Woodward: Well, when we look
back, I was somewhat of a critic of the war and whether it
was necessary at the time, but the genius of the war was, it
was quick, lasted about 40 days, minimal US casualties, and
it accomplished the mission of getting Saddam's Iraqi Republican
Guard and forces out of Kuwait, and sending them, and
they went back to a Iraq. So, the genius of it, or who's the
hero in the end, was President Bush, who put it all together, used
diplomacy, went to Congress to get authority, but also listened
to Colin Powell, who was chairman of the Joint Chief, saying, we
need 500,000 troops to do this. >> David M. Rubenstein:
So, when you write books like the ones we just talked
about, how long does it take you to do the research, and how long
does it take you to do the writing, and do you do all the
research and then write, or do you research,
write, research, write? What's your style? >> Bob Woodward: You want
to do a lot of research, and then start writing early. Sometimes I call it a premature
draft, so you see what's missing, and then you go back and
do more interviewing. >> David M. Rubenstein:
Do you write it out longhand, do you use a computer? >> Bob Woodward: I use a computer. >> David M. Rubenstein: And when
you use a computer, do you show it to an editor early on, or do
you just keep it for a while until you're ready to show it? >> Bob Woodward: I show it to,
my, I have an assistant or two, and to my wife, Elsa, who's the
best editor around, and I, you know, it's a process of, you, you
add to it and then I show it. Alice Mayhew at Simon & Schuster
has been my editor on all 18 books. >> David M. Rubenstein: So,
some people have a theory, it's maybe my theory, that if you're
a journalist and you're writing for a daily publication,
let's say the Washington Post, somebody might be less
inclined to talk to you, because whatever they say might
be in the newspapers the next day, but if you're talking to a
book author, you figure, well, this will be coming out in a year
or two, and I won't care about it. Do you think that's true or not? >> Bob Woodward: I think
no, it's somewhat true, and they realize you're talking to other people, and
it, it gets around. I mean, even the Obama White House,
I've done two books on Obama, and people would say,
okay, he's working on this, he's got these memos or
documents, or the accounts of what happened at meetings. >> David M. Rubenstein: But
the, do you ever say to people, "I'm talking to X, they've
authorized me to say that they're talking to me," or do you never tell
anybody who you've talked to? >> Bob Woodward: It depends,
some people are willing to talk on the record, most just on
background, except Presidents. When you interview a President,
I don't think you can talk to a President on background. So when I've interviewed Bush or
Obama it's always on the record. >> David M. Rubenstein: So, for
people who may not be familiar with the journalist terms, "Off
the record" means, again... >> Bob Woodward: You can't use it. >> David M. Rubenstein:
You can't use it any time. >> Bob Woodward: Well, except it
doesn't mean you can't find it out elsewhere, and because
you can't, you know, flush it out of your
mind, and so sometimes, people think off the record means
it's, I'm never going to see this in print, and they're shocked when
they do, and you have to explain, yeah, you told me about this, but
I found out from somebody else, and then you want to find out more. So they know, okay, you got it... >> David M. Rubenstein:
And that's off the record. What is background? >> Bob Woodward: Background
means that you're going to use it and not say where it came from. >> David M. Rubenstein:
What's deep background? >> Bob Woodward: Means you're
really going to just kind of say it like it came out of the air. >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay, and on
the record means that they can clean up the quotes, or they
get to approve the quotes? >> Bob Woodward: No, it means, it's on the record,
you're going to use it. Sometimes people want to
go, want you to come back. I'm not really in love
with that process, because you then get people
wandering and cleaning up, and you want what they
really said and meant. >> David M. Rubenstein: So
when you interview somebody, do you write notes, or do you tape? >> Bob Woodward: I tape as much as
I can with the person's knowledge, and it's amazing how
all of a sudden, that tape recorder goes away, you
would think it would cause people to freeze up, but it doesn't,
because they know, okay, I'm not going to give that, I mean,
I've got transcripts of interviews from people over decades that I've
used in books, and if you look at these or listened, you
might really be surprised at the clarity and
the, forthrightness. >> David M. Rubenstein:
When you're taping somebody, do you ever make the mistake I
do, you push the wrong button and it doesn't, the tape doesn't
work, or does it always work? >> Bob Woodward: Yeah,
it's happened once. The tape ran, the battery ran out. >> David M. Rubenstein:
Now, you've interviewed, you never interviewed Nixon. >> Bob Woodward: No. >> David M. Rubenstein: But you
did interview President Ford? >> Bob Woodward: Yes. >> David M. Rubenstein: What was
your impression of President Ford? >> Bob Woodward: You know,
Gerald Ford turned out, I thought when he went, September
1974, he'd been President for one month, went on TV
announcing, he, on a Sunday morning, giving Nixon a full pardon for
Watergate, I didn't see that. I was asleep that morning, and
Carl Bernstein called me up, and said, "Have you heard?" And I said, "I haven't heard
anything, I was asleep," and Carl, truly the ability to say things with
the fewest words and the most drama, said, "The son of a bitch
pardoned the son of a bitch." >> David M. Rubenstein:
[laughter] Okay. >> Bob Woodward: And
even I was able to figure out what had happened [laughter]. And I thought, ah, it's the
perfect corruption, of, you know, Nixon's the one behind all
this, he gets a pardon. There was an aroma of a deal,
I later for the book "Shadow," 25 years later, met Ford and
interviewed him for the first time. Kept going back to him, and
he really explained what, what happened, and
what is important is I, I think what Ford did was really
courageous rather than corrupt. He had to move on beyond Watergate. The only way to do it was pardon
Nixon, because Nixon was going to be investigated, certainly
charged, might go to trial, might go to jail, and as
Ford said, we'd have two or three more years of Watergate. The country couldn't stand it. >> David M. Rubenstein: You
think had he not pardoned Nixon, he would've been reelected? Or elected? >> Bob Woodward: Ford? You know, I don't, I mean, obviously
that's, if history, you don't know but Ford, in having the luxury
of time, I could go visit him at his home in Colorado,
or in California, and I think we peeled the onion
on that pretty completely, and what was a shock to
me was how wrong I had it. I thought it was the
absolute corruption, and the Kennedy library gave him
the profiles in courage award for pardoning Nixon,
and I watch that and I, it's true, it was a cold shower. And then I realized, you know,
how humbling, how, to be honest, humiliating it was, because
I was sure it was corrupt, and then you examine
it 25 years later, and it's the precise opposite. It's courage, and so that puts
a, puts you, your judgmental, the part of your head,
in slow motion. Don't rush to judgments. You may have it absolutely wrong. >> David M. Rubenstein: Did you
ever interview President Carter? >> Bob Woodward: Yes. >> David M. Rubenstein: And what was
your impression of President Carter? >> Bob Woodward: Well,
the first interview with him was his first
month in office, when I found out that King Hussein of Jordan had been
on the CIA payroll. And we called the White House, and I remember Jody Powell
was the Press Secretary. I hadn't covered the
campaign, and I said, there's a secret operation
of paying King Hussein. The CIA does it, and the
operation is called "No Beef." And I remember Jody
Powell going, "No shit!" We didn't deal with stuff like
that in Georgia, and then he said, "You and Bradley come see Carter
tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock," and Carter, off the
record, confirmed it, and, but Ben asked him, will
it harm national security if we publish this? And Carter said no. And of course Brzezinski, who
wasn't invited to the meeting, went nuts afterwards, and, and
we published it, and Carter went up to the hill and and said some
things that were not factual, and I was distressed that again,
after all of Nixon's saying things that were not true, I was
distressed that Carter kind of couldn't face up
to what happened. >> David M. Rubenstein: Did
you ever interview Reagan? >> Bob Woodward: No. No. He would never do an interview. >> David M. Rubenstein: And did
you interview George Herbert Walker Bush? >> Bob Woodward: He would
never do an interview. He had been Republican National
Committee Chairman during Watergate, and I wasn't on his Christmas
card list either [laughter]. >> David M. Rubenstein: Did you
ever interview Bill Clinton? >> Bob Woodward: Oh yes. >> David M. Rubenstein: And
your impression of Bill Clinton? >> Bob Woodward: Oh, Clinton,
what an interesting interview. It was, I think he'd been, it
was '94, I was doing the book, "The Agenda," on his
economic policy. It was a background interview,
but he's talked about it, and, and what you go into the Oval
Office, and he drills you with this eye contact that is
almost a gravitational force. I've never known it, I
mean, he doesn't blink. Now, you blink all the time. I blink all the time. Well, I think, ever since he
was five, he decided he wanted to be President, and realized,
contribute every organ in the body to the task [laughter]
including your eyes. >> David M. Rubenstein: Alright. Bob Woodward: And so, it
creates that sense of intimacy, slows time down just a little
bit, and did this interview, and I thought oh, because it's,
you are the only person who exists, and it, no blink, focus,
gives paragraph answers, and I was thinking, oh, he
realizes how brilliant my questions are [laughter]. And I left the interview
thinking, this, you know, what a great interview, such
insight, I can use all this, and then I read, had a transcript
made, and read the transcript without the eye contact,
and it was mush [laughter]. But, but it sure felt
good [laughter]. >> David M. Rubenstein: So did
you ever interview George W. Bush? >> Bob Woodward: Oh yes, many times. >> David M. Rubenstein:
Your impression of him? >> Bob Woodward: Four books. Bush was, he agreed to be
interviewed extensively for hours, two, three hours, four hours, three
of the four books I did on his wars, and there was always little
pushback, but I have 300 pages of transcript of those interviews,
which were almost all on the record, and I'm going to publish them
someday, because you see, there, in his odd way, there's a lot of
candor, there's some defensiveness, particularly about the Iraq
war, but I think when people say that on the Iraq war that he lied,
I spent a year and a half on this, and talked to everyone, and
got notes and documents. I think he made a tragic mistake,
I think the CIA, George Tenet, telling Bush it was a slam
dunk that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,
the CIA made a terrible mistake, but I don't think it was a lie. I think it was a tragedy, and
if you go through all the steps, you kind of come up, gee, you know, he should've realized it was
not necessary to go to war, but there was a momentum and he, you
know, he had the support of people like Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton, who voted to give them the
authority to go to war. >> David M. Rubenstein: So, have
you interviewed President Obama? >> Bob Woodward: Yes. >> David M. Rubenstein: And what is
your impression of President Obama? >> Bob Woodward: Very smart. Likes, you know, he, look at the
world, media world, he lives in, the few questions and, and so
forth a lot of softball interviews. I sent him a, I think,
12-page single-spaced memo of, I understand this is what happened,
these were the meetings, the issues, the discussions, and I want to
interview you, and he, he agreed, and I think he agreed because he
knew he was going to get his say. And he gets his say, it doesn't mean
that there isn't criticism of some of these things, he's very much
on top of the job, I mean, I just, I have a little technique when
I'm interviewing somebody. I take this finger and put it over
this finger and dig it into the nail so it hurts, and it tells me to
shut up when I'm asking questions. And just as the CIA, they say, "Let
the silence suck out the truth," sometimes you just have to
shut up, and so, with Obama, he likes to talk, and so I do
this and shut up, and he will, would say things, like, just
out of the blue he said, "Oh, what do you think I
worry about the most?" Now what do you think Obama
worries about the most? What's the big worry? >> David M. Rubenstein: Well, I think his biggest worry'd probably
be seen as being, doing a good job as President of the United
States, and bringing, making sure there's no... >> Bob Woodward: I mean, the one,
kind of, thing that, you know, what he said, he said,
"The thing I worry about is a nuclear weapon
going off in an American city." He said that would be a game
changer, and, and, and then he said, "Many of our intelligence programs
are designed to prevent that," and I think that's true,
I think, you know about, if you know about some of
those intelligence programs, which over the years I've learned
about, you don't write about them, because they buy a degree of
security, and so that was kind of, okay, you know, he's
worried about the thing that could devastate this country. >> David M. Rubenstein: So, you've
written, as I said, sixteen books. >> Bob Woodward: Eighteen. >> David M. Rubenstein: I'm
sorry, eighteen books [laughter]. Eighteen books. Twelve of them New York
Times Bestseller number ones, and they all were bestsellers. What's your nineteenth
book going to be? >> Bob Woodward: The
Rubinstein Empire [laughter]. >> David M. Rubenstein: That's
going to be a very small block. So, as you look... >> Bob Woodward: And, no,
the title's going to be, "Why does he really give
away all this money?" >> David M. Rubenstein: So,
let me wrap up [laughter]. >> Bob Woodward: You know the
Citizen Kane movie, Rosebud? >> David M. Rubenstein: Yes. >> Bob Woodward: What's rosebud? >> David M. Rubenstein: I just
want to do a good interview of you, and have people buy
your book and read it. >> Bob Woodward: Anyone who believes
that, raise your hand [laughter]. >> David M. Rubenstein:
So, your legacy. Obviously, as I said at the
beginning, you're regarded as one of the greatest, maybe the
best-known, and best journalist of the 20th Century, 21st Century. What would you like
people to know about you? >> Bob Woodward: You know, I think
that's, it's, the work is out there, and that speaks for
itself, and the mistakes, I think the interesting legacy
question is for journalism now. Yesterday I was talking down
at the Museum to 250 people, and I asked the question, I said, how many of you think the media
is doing a good to passable job of covering the Presidential
campaign? Not a single hand went
up, and, you know, you and I don't think we'd take
a poll here, maybe we could. How many people, can I take a poll? >> David M. Rubenstein: Sure. >> Bob Woodward: How many people
think the news media is doing a passable to good job of covering
the Presidential campaign, raise your hands? Yeah, there're six people,
out of, now, that's sincere. They're not making that up. Part of it is, it's kind of,
it's fun to dump on the media, but we need to face the fact that
we've lost the trust and confidence of a large majority, a vast
majority of the public. It'd be like if you, if the
Carlisle group, you know, was going, and you kept losing money,
losing money, losing money, there comes a point where
you have to say, hey, we're going to have
to deal with this. We are going to have to deal
with it in the news media. I do not have the answer
to how we do that. The new owner of the Washington
Post, Jeff Bezos has said, he said to me a year ago, said,
make sure we, because he asked me. He said, could we have
known about Nixon earlier? And I said I don't think so, but
we could've done a better job, and he said, to his credit, he
said, okay, we need to make sure that we provide in the
Washington Post as much background on who these people really are,
and then he said the goal is that no one can go to the polls in
November and say, I couldn't find out who the final candidates were. And that's exactly the right goal,
and he said to me, you tell Marty, Marty Baron, the Editor of the Post,
this was Bezos, like a good CEO, was totally breaking the chain of
command, and said pass on to Marty, he will have the resources
to do this. And if you talk to Marty Baron,
he'd say Bezos has delivered. We have many people, we have
40 people covering the national campaign one way or another, it's
more than the New York Times, and we have had some
fabulous stories. We've done a book on Trump. Now, are people going
to get up and applaud? No. I mean, we still are distrusted. We're still on probation, and
we need to figure out how to get out of probation, that is the
monstrous problem we've got to confront. >> David M. Rubenstein: So, as a
journalist, you have quite a legacy. You have two daughters. Do they want to be journalists? >> Bob Woodward: One, Tally, is, works at the Columbia
Journalism School, administers the Masters
program there. The other is a sophomore in college,
and she couldn't run further from journalism [laughter]. >> David M. Rubenstein:
Bob, I want to thank you for all the great books you've
given everybody [applause]. And thank you for a great job. >> Bob Woodward: Thank you. [ Applause ] >> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress. Visit us at LLC.gov.
