Lally Graham Weymouth Recalls The Decision to Publish The Pentagon Papers | FULL INTERVIEW

Lalli Weymouth thanks for sitting down with us do you remember the Pentagon Papers episode and the publishing the moment that your mother Catherine Graham made the decision to publish of course I remember it and I remember the drama around it and of course it was it she was as you know she took over the paper after my father died and and this was a big moment for her because she it was a very big decision as you know because it wasn't just about publishing the Pentagon Papers it was also a business decision for us for her for our company because we were about to have an IPO we were about to take our company public and of course many people many of the lawyers thought that that could be threatened by actually publishing the Pentagon Papers when your mother took over the paper I'll just start with that what did you think well actually the reason Allison plays me in the movie is that I I didn't really think she was very decisive my mother she knew that she wanted to run the company which she had no experience as she knew well herself to do because my father had been a very glamorous powerful smart figure and who had just died at a young age she hadn't really been at home raising four kids taking us to football games and you know the things that kids do mm-hm and so is she knew very well that she had no business experience and she really had never worked on a nine-to-five job as so many women do today of course there was a very different era mm-hmm so I actually wrote her first speech to the board I was then a freshman in Radcliffe that is quite amazing because did she ask you to do that and you were you were that confident as a freshman I can't remember how it happened but she saved this speech and when she wrote her Pulitzer prize-winning book she published the speech again and I remember I used to write from New York magazine for before I wrote for the post mmm and the editor of New York magazine told me that was a great great speech she wrote and I guess I did have the confidence to say we're not going to sell the paper there were a lot of rumors that we were going to sell the paper when my father died so I knew what I wanted to say that we were not going to sell the paper that we were going to run it and that she was going to carry on the tradition of my father and so on and so forth it was more complicated than that but that's what Allison is talking about when that she talks to Meryl Streep in the movie as me but you felt at the time with your mother that she was the person who could do this but she could have to say that she was very decisive about it I mean she knew that she won she was very very sure very unsure about many things but she was very sure about one thing that she was going to carry on and that she was going to run the Washington Post but her father had bought in an auction which he had given to my father to run and my father had done a fantastic job running mm-hmm and she was determined that she was going to do it in spite of her lack of experience so I knew I knew what the speech had to say when I was at the Washington Post when I started in the mid-1980s or the late 1980s your mother was a figure in the news room in the building and so by the time that we were coming around to sort of towards the end of the century you know her as this supremely confident person what's so fascinating about the movie which is based on her memoir is that there was that moment where she wasn't that confident person and she and we're we're seeing that happen in the film we're seeing that evolution in that pivot point when I think that's true she became she used to practice even her speech to the staff her Christmas speech after all you know I'm very in in my bedroom with my brothers you know I'm very happy to be here at Christmas if you can believe it well and as you said 25 years later she could make a terrific speech she had a speechwriter and all those things that most public figures have but she was really had gained a lot of confidence 25 to 30 years later but she didn't worked at it I've got to say she studied business she worked hard she meant Warren Buffett she evolved and a lot of I think a lot of hard work went into that evolution so here she is faced with this decision right which the which the movie is really about when the Pentagon Papers have been leaked to the New York Times and then the New York Times publishes them and then is enjoined from publishing any further she's now facing a very serious decision as a new publisher as you pointed out with the company about to IPO with pressure from the bankers and she has to assure from our lawyers and from lawyers and also you have to say pressure from the newsroom she had hired this kind of firebrand passionate editor in Ben Bradley who wanted to raise the bar at the paper wanted to make it one of the great papers and at the time the Washington Post was that was an aspiration but it hadn't been achieved at that time what do you remember about that the dilemma and the and the sort of agony she might have gone through in that decision-making process well I think that Spielberg did a great job in the movie showing although of course the board wasn't exactly the board that he portrays in the film but nevertheless he shows the the invite the advisors being being sort of again especially the business advisors being against publishing mm-hmm but the lead business advisor who was called Fritz bebe who was not much fun I've got to say but he kind of left the door open to her he kind of said to her you know he left the door open he didn't adamantly say you can't publish he said you know basically it's not advisable but you can publish you know he left the door open and I think he was the person she really relied on and I think that once he left the door open they called her and she she did want to publish of course and and she liked Ben and she hired Ben and fired our old managing editor whom we as kids adored and his kids were our best friends so that it was offered friendly mm-hmm and so on that's a pretty big decision in itself yes it was a very big decision but it was obviously the right decision he was a fantastic editor and they were a great duo I think but they're definitely a great duo and it's a the interaction between them is really wonderful in the film and the interaction you know between them in real life there's many wonderful pictures of the two of them there's many wonderful anecdotes that we've heard about them it's also interesting that it seemed that your that your mother relied on you for advice and relied on you for as a sounding board is that is that something that's very vivid to you in your memory in terms of how you I think both my brother and myself my brother Don and myself my mother liked to read new decisions she was actually although she did make this decision boom as my brother points out she often would you know agonize over decisions and I I have to say I share that trait and my brother does not share that trait and so I sympathize and I think she would sound it out both on me and Don and you know what do you think and cheaper sounds with both and other people two other friends I think she you know run it by a series of people and then finally she would make up her mind but it was it was hard for her did you think about it at the time of here is your mother in basically a sea of men this is how its portrayed in the film and I actually saw a still I don't know if it was read it to the film but there is a photo of her in the boardroom and it's just her she's the only woman all these men was it striking to you at the time or is it more in retrospect that were we I think it's more in retrospect at the time I think it was so unusual for a woman to be in the role she was in because after all my father had been the one that was in the role and my mother had been at home as I pointed out to you taking us to the Safeway grocery store right and so and taking us on tours of the White House and whatever you know doing them most of our my parents friends were pretty traditional couples hmm you know the women didn't work they raised the kids and so you know nobody else around the government because apparently man ran right women didn't run the government right right but the Zoey likes frankfurter James Reston or whatever that's right the main the men did run the government well so in that way they were maybe not so typical I'm losing it was a more traditional setup between the men and the women of course yeah a sense that you didn't have a Ruth Bader Ginsburg they actually do today and you didn't have these outstanding women that you have today running corporations and doing so many things right right well she was definitely a trailblazer in that regard did she reveal her fears to you did you see her in those moments of uncertainty and yes and I think that you know like everybody she was always I think the next big drama was the what was Watergate of course of course when you know we were all worried there was no security at the house and Mitchell made that remark about I can't even quote it but it was very aggressive and we were worried that John Mitchell about it made a crude remark about uh-huh and we were watching and everybody was worried that our television licenses might be taken away right father had bought a lot of television stations Nixon hated the Washington Post and so we were worried about our television licenses being taken away right it's on the tapes yeah some of the tapes that are played in the film and it's on the Nixon tapes that are in the presidential library we didn't have access of course of course of course but so without having access to the tapes we were not stupid and so therefore everybody was worried about that right and so that was a very very next big hurdle that she faced I think was Watergate and I think it was her next really big triumph when it turned out there were months of course I think it was saved I hope I my memory is not wrong but there were months when I think it was CBS or no we were we were out there publishing for months and months the Watergate stories with Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein sneaking into this garage mm-hmm and you know she kept saying well why isn't anybody is such great story wise than anybody else publishing and I think finally if I my memories doesn't serve me wrong was CBS or somebody picked it up and and everybody was like oh thank god you know we're not out here alone hmm and and then of course the you know the whole of the Watergate saga unfolded and it turned out to be true but but there you know that was a very hard period for her I think and much longer than the Pentagon Papers longer - - and much more drawing and really when the post was absolutely the center of attention and Woodward Bernstein were the center of attention and it was very difficult talk a little bit about Ben Bradley's relationship with your mother Catherine Graham I think they just had a great relationship she respected him and I think he respected her I think they were a great team it's it's kind of an unusual it's there's always there's a certain it's a kind of a love story between them in a way you know I don't know if every but I think they respected each other liked each other and he was respected her and and she learned from him and he learned from her I think it was a great partnership it is it's an unusual partnership because she coming in at the time untested as she had been and then thrown into a moment of a huge test and she had to decide whether she was going to really back this decision she'd made to hire - to hire this firebrand editor who was going to lead the paper and to greatness supposedly right which he did of course but it requires so much trust and so much kind of balancing because he was a huge personality and but he didn't face the business implications that she did over publishing a story or court but I think that ultimately they understood each other and I think ultimately he obviously had to understand the implications right well there's a scene in the movie where his wife says to him you're not risking anything it's I thought that was interesting it's Katherine Graham who's risking here and there was an interesting insight and she a kind of moment of truth telling between her and Ben Bradlee yeah and it's kind of true because he could go on to glory whether or not you know it had financial implications for the paper not to say that he didn't care about that but that was her responsibility really yeah what do you think of as her legacy today as we look at how much change has happened both for women and so much change in the media as well when when you think about how she would look at all of the the what's going on today and I just think it's too hard it's too hard to speculate one of the things that I've thought about in in having seen the film and putting this series together is how few women publishers there still are today and that your mother remains kind of a unique figure in what she what she created and what she stepped into and what she became do you that's true but I think also the media industry has changed so much mhm and the media the industry is having a very hard time as you know do do the internet and due to all the changes yes and so it's a different different industry than the one I grew up with oh it's very different I don't think anyone ever thought that newspapers could go away seemed like such a permanent part of our lives that's that's one of things that I thought I wanted to become a reporter I thought well we'll never run out of news yeah have jobs dirty we didn't run out of news we just ran out papers working as a business yeah that's true I obviously didn't didn't occur to me that there could be something like the internet that would come along but at the same time it's also been a huge evolution for women and and there's a discussion now and there's a desire to see more women's leadership is that something that you think your mother was consciously aware of wanting to represent being a leader in that in that mode or is it just something that was kind of a byproduct of her being placed through historical circumstances in that position and her stepping into that role I mean I think it's just too far you know too long ago to say but I think she would have been I mean no I think it's too long ago you just can't say she worked all the way through what let's say went to chief 20001 she died to that one but she retired well before them and exactly in the 80s don don was already the publisher must have been early 90s late 80s maybe is that about right yeah and nobody she became the chairman she became the chairman so she stayed involved in the paper for quite a long time well and then she wrote a book right right right exactly can you share sort of what some of or your own it's something that your mother gave to you told you as your own as a woman and you're a writer and a very successful writer and a journalist who's traveled the world and met world leaders and written about that I mean what did she what do you what do you feel she gave to you I can't say specifically what she gave to me other than you know she was an excellent mother but I thought she was very funny in a certain way she loved news I called her once from Rome and I was spending a weekend at the Pope to summer palace and I told her I was writing about I was writing a column about this weekend at the bed John Paul the second home drive at home it was very few people 20 people were invited mm-hmm and I said you just won't believe what happened but it was the weekend Bill Clinton's Monica Lewinsky the whole thing was revealed and I said you won't believe that the Pope actually asked me you know what's going on in Washington so I was planning to use this as the lead of the column I was writing for the post next thing I know I get back and she thought it was so entertaining that she leaked it to the Style section oh I thought I thought that her love of news was fantastic she just couldn't contain herself I'm like I said to revolt you know I was planning to use this with my leader she's like I just couldn't help it you know I love the story you know I thought that we decide to forgive she loved she loved she couldn't resist a good story that's so great that's right she loved the news she what she called me up yeah I remember she called me with the tip about Mike Nichols one time and she'd been with with Mike Nichols very friendly good night Nichols yes I can't say what it was because it was off the record but she she Mike Nichols is no longer with us either but yeah even me sort of a style reporter at the time she would call me with a tip so but stealing her daughter's lead that's kind of you can say it's cute hikky tears over the line I'm glad you think it's but I thought it was I thought it went to show her you know love of the of the sport a love of the right yeah well that's fantastic story thank you so much lolly for spending the time with us really nice of you thank you

Channel: TheWrap

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Length: 17min 55sec (1075 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 10 2018