The late Katharine Graham on the 25th anniversary of the Watergate scandal

Howard was on duty that Saturday and he called me at the farm and said the most extraordinary thing he said you won't believe what happened last night and I said what and he said well two really incredible incidents he said some people were driving a car and apparently they were drinking or something but they went through the wall of a house and in the living room where two people were making love on the sofa and out the other side and he said this was one incident and the other thing he said well there were these five men insert with who were caught in the Democratic headquarters wearing surgical gloves and he told them to me as equal story and like dad the other thing didn't develop quite the way water yeah the glories of newspapering yeah and you certainly didn't sense the seriousness of it at that point well nobody could because it just seemed like a farce and it was a forest until I got into court when of course the date book in one of the burglars pockets we had the Howard hunts initials and WH White House and his phone number and so that's suggested immediately that this was strange and that maybe it was even linked to the White House nobody quite thought it was or believed that then but the forest thing didn't last long mm-hmm and you said in your book several times that you thought the post was lucky in several aspects and maybe one of the lucky things was that the story was given to the Metro staff and to Woodward and Bernstein instead of the National staff well it was because I think that as as George said the National staff I think I would add a little bit George and I hope you agree with me I think they were very skeptical about story for at first is right I don't think that they would have you know I wouldn't believe the White House would orchestrate him no they wouldn't and the the reason that Woodward and Bernstein were just a great team because they were very young they were both not with people are married and they were working 16 hours a day and seven days a week and they were loose you know they were not covering a beat and so they could in fact they were put on the story and I don't think that that it would have happened under national and so for a while it's a great story right it's very exciting there's more revelations but there comes a point when suddenly you sense that this is something really serious well that really was in October when the two big stories broke about the fact that all as was said in the earlier group that all these things were connected and that they were really massive and that Haldeman and Ehrlichman were involved and so that was in October and then the pressure got very very tough and how did the pressure what form did it take well it took a lot of silly forms and one very very serious form that that's the serious part were - they were tact our credibility on every level and they wouldn't answer phone calls from the post they were told not to speak to our reporters what was rather ludicrous was they were told not to come to dinner at my house and I think that you know people like George Schultz and even Henry you know came well Pete Peterson Peterson was Secretary of Commerce Peterson was a great friend and he was very irreverent and he got into trouble during those months and one of the troubles he found himself in was that Haldeman called him and the White House phone operators were to find anybody anywhere and they unfortunately found Pete at my house in the country and I think that that had a good deal to do with other things remarks he'd night with the fact that he was Nixon was reelected went from the friends list to the enemies list yes he did but the a lot of this stuff was happening in October and we're in the middle of a presidential election right right and McGovern is way behind in the polls right yes and the Washington Post has a policy of not endorsing right right did you ever talk about maybe this is serious maybe we should break our policy maybe we should endorse on the editorial page does that ever come up well I think that in almost indirectly we did endorse by it talking about issues but no it didn't come up as a as a as a part of that decision we and then inherited the no endorsed rule on I think it dated from the time when the District of Columbia to never vote my father had set this policy and we just adopted it but of course we changed it later how involved were you in the stories would been tell you about every story no certainly not but and I was not directly involved with Woodward and Bernstein but I was involved with both men in Howard and I talked to them constantly about how did we know we were right because our when I sorry I forgot the second part of this you know the real threat was the challenge to our television station licenses which were up for renewal in Florida and when the tapes came out they literally censored this part where Nixon is saying to Haldeman do they have television stations up for license renewals because if we that is one way we can get at them and they are going to have big trouble and that is said in the way and that's on the tapes when did they actually mount they found some dead friends right to mouth East there were three challenges in Jacksonville and one in Miami and and almost all of them were obviously politically motivated mostly by committee to re-elect the president people or friends of Nixon's or friends of Agnew's down there and some of them were just playing people who thought it was blood in the water and wanted a license was this during that same time period they came in January after after he'd been reelected yeah they were they had this tape system obviously in the white house did you ever talk or fear that they had tried to put a tap in the post yeah somebody said I guess ed Williams got involved who was our Edward Bennett Williams is a famous criminal lawyer but he was our lawyer at the time and he was a friend of Ben's and so he was very involved with everything and at one point the issue arose about were we being taped or even followed and I don't I think that was paranoia you know not that paranoia doesn't sometimes have a reason but but I think that probably people were over overly brought up you never saw any evidence we really we really went over the phones very carefully and and we never found any any proof that anybody was listening what about tax stuff anybody do any IRS stuff it's a night miner done over a year that's a hold of me about it through all these administrations I don't know did now there came a time after Nixon was reelected you had broken a lot of stories right that the whole White House was involved in this illegal activity and then there was a period of time when there weren't many stories right right in the most terrible time for us right after the election the story simply dried up and of course we were really uptight about that because everybody had said we were just this was a political vendetta and that we were just trying to harass the president who you know I mean they didn't believe it and in fact other papers didn't believe it for a long time we ran these stories and nobody picked them up they go out on the wire and nobody would run them and then little by little I I just of course I want to give credit for a there was reporting in the time and in the LA Times and in Time magazine and Newsweek but that came later and for a long time we were alone what about your social life what about your friends did they come to you and say why are you doing all this I mean Joe Allsop wasn't critical well Joe was a critic right along because Joe was very he was a great friend of mine but he was very close to the administration and and he simply didn't believe it till really the tapes came out did and he would tell me darling you have to be careful you have to stop this you don't know what you're doing Andre Meyer who was a friend of mine who was a head of Lazar at that point said you know I know that you have to be careful and if you make a mistake you Peterson came to see me very nicely because that was dangerous for him and said you better be right because if you're not this is going to be big trouble did you have it lose some sleep over it I sure did you would have been crazy if you hadn't but but you had confidence in Ben and in Howard and in the and well I'm careful I did you know you had to be worried because even Ben I think was worried but I would go to him constantly and say how do we know we right how do we know we're being accurate how do know we know we were in fair how do we know we're not being led up a garden path and the grounds going to be cut out from under us and then would say three things he said first of all that the fact that we were alone was great because the boys could be careful and quite often they pulled stories back and they double checked we two sourced everything I have a feeling you know somebody said that two sources were not is how Harry Rosenfeld said to me he really thought the two sources who's not as great as it sounded but that's what we thought and then he said lastly well I think we really tried to double check and that was probably right lastly he said you know Woodward has a source that he goes to when he's puzzled about a story and the source has never misled him and I don't know who deep throat is but I have every reason to think that deep throat a was a man and he was a single person and see he existed as such because Ben really said that to me as part of the reassurance that it was a man it was it didn't say no he didn't say that he said he has a source and you I think that you know I just think it was a man and but you never asked him what was I sort of asked Woodward facetiously one day when I got nervous about not being near Woodward and Bernstein and not having really not really knowing them very well and I knew how young they were and so I said to Ben and Howard I would really like to meet with these kids and get to know them a little bit and so actually Carl was out of town and Bob and Howard and I had lunch and during that lunch I said to Bob you know I said tell me who's deep throat because by that time Howard had been these you know the deep throat was a dirty movie that was out at the time and I don't know why Howard called this guy deep throat I mean if it was a guy and so I said tell me who it is and Woodward I had to use Woodward's book because I didn't really remember Woodward naturally went right downstairs and took notes on everything and so he had the he had all this conversation written up and he said that I'd asked him who was deep throat and that he looked stricken and I said oh don't don't bother I don't worry I don't want to I don't want the responsibility you don't have to tell him so I never really pursued it very seriously did you ever think twice about that I mean your family's business could have been at stake you're being challenged to TV licenses you got these young kids out there they're obviously attacking you on every level they could think of well you know the identity of deep throat was he was not a source Peter he was a Woodward used him to check with as I understood it then and I think now and I think that this was a source you know that he went to when he was puzzled about this story or that story or and he really was very of reaffirming to Bob and I think I still as I say I didn't pursue it because I don't think that I thought that everything depended on deep throat I was pretty nervous but it was a it was a variety of things that made me nervous and and I was going to say you know the administer I mean Sigler was attacking us every day for our reporting and innuendo and guilt by association of the things we were alleged to be doing and the Washington Post is crazy and you know and it was it was very very tough atmosphere mm-hmm you were here this afternoon and I think John Fialka from The Wall Street Journal said he was at the Washington star at the time and he would read the stories where deep throat was used this source was used and it said he said I think that it seemed to him that it was an omniscient source with somebody who could see the story from all angles and he always thought it might have been the head of an intelligence agency and he said isn't that an interesting constitutional question if an intelligence agency knocked off a sitting president I don't think that I think that's giving deep throat entirely what you credit credit interesting uh do you think I mean look I don't know the details of it and Bob and Carl do and what Ben does but I think I think I'm right well you say that it's the only secret Ben is ever kept track well it's the only secret Washington's ever a cat and it'll be revealed when the man dies do you think the use of that source at your newspaper and others do you think it led to the overuse of anonymous sources or to contribute it to that I don't know that's a hard question I don't think again anonymous sources was another issue I don't think that the fact I think that deep throats importance in all this is well replayed I don't even think that Bob voted him that much I could be wrong and I don't think you could tell about I don't know John feel cos a you know he's terrific and he made he may have read it more carefully and than I did but at the time I wouldn't I wouldn't have thought that he was that that important and then in the whole thing what were the positives and the negatives of the Watergate investigation for the post the positives were that for the first time we were on the we were our profile was very high we were people knew who we were the paper had been very small and developing and Bennett come in and 65 and we're now at 73 and seventy two to four of course and so that's about nine years that Ben had been editing by the time we got to the end of Watergate and excuse me so you know it put us on the map and it you know our credibility turned out to be verified and I guess we became a major league player now the negatives I quoted John Anderson it was an editorial writer who said we paid a price for this because the letdown was terrific and I think the paper was on hold for a while because we were so paralyzed by the concentration on the story and I think you said that the Metro staff all wanted to do investigations right well there was a little bit of that and you know there was a little bit over investigatory thing for a while but I think that gotten balanced after when we got going again but you paid a sort of emotional price mm-hmm and I suppose that the country did did you think that you paid a personal emotional price I mean there was that lewd rude comment by John Mitchell that Katie Graham is going to get a sensitive part of her Anatomy got in a ringer if she continues it well you know there was a concentration on me as as the personification of the paper because I think that it you know that I was a woman in this job and therefore there was a lot of concentration on this was all mine doing and so I took I mean this is still going on I've been Don's been publisher the post since 1979 and people including people in high office still think that I've gone down there and told them to do something it's quite crazy well you're one of the most powerful women in America I've been out of power for quite a while we would be happy to take some questions from the audience I thought there were going to be some on cards and if there are please give them to me I think people are saturated and if not you can walk down to this microphone or that microphone but please be careful walking down look since we're taping we'd like your questions on on on television if possible your late husband Phil was involved in democratic politics right well to summit to some personal with Kennedy and Johnson right uh did you ever think of if he had lived how he would have handled this that ever occur you during all no I mean once you get started you you really don't yeah would you depend on for advice just banner who didn't tell me yeah and I don't think anybody outside the paper were the people on the business side supportive of this they were they really were Fritz BB was who was the chairman of the company who died in the middle of it actually and 73 I guess but he was he was a lawyer and he was very editorially minded and he was wonderful I depended a lot on him but all the business people I must say totally supported it and you never really lost any business oh yes we were cut up yeah at some advertising dropped us just because they thought you were being unfair yeah but you followed through with it anyway sure and why did you feel that it was the thing you do as a publisher well yeah but you know where as in the case of the Pentagon Papers the decision came up to me and I decided that issue that we would print there was never a moment of decision in Watergate you were just got you started with the farce we talked about the breaking and entering and then you gradually got into the water deeper and deeper until these two big stories broke in October and I don't think that you know there was no going back there was no decision to make you just had to keep going and you we talked about the story drying up and then and Howard are both very funny about this they said they were literally beating Woodward and Bernstein to get us a story and finally I guess it was I forget what big story broke but anyway then finally there was a story the finding that was a story how did you feel when you've learned that President Nixon had resigned and where were you well when it became apparent that he would have to after the smoking gun tape came out I was on vacation on Martha's Vineyard and I went down I got on a plane and went right back to the paper because I thought I wanted to be there and I thought it was going to happen and so I was there for two or three or four days before and during the resignation and then when he left in the helicopter I just went back to the vineyard and I was there and turned on the television the first time I heard the word President Ford I just couldn't believe it and I really did feel relieved but I didn't take any personal pleasure in this I really would like to emphasize that we were pleasured we were we were pleased at having our reporting vindicated but I don't think that anybody wanted to bring him down or thought that the President of the United States having to resign because he would be impeached was a great event for the country we didn't what do you think of the movie all the President's Men well I tell this story in the book because Redford and I got across each other and we both heartily disliked each other because I was the one nominated to say no if we didn't want a cooperator know that we didn't want the film done in the city room and so I got too self-conscious and negative about it I think in in hindsight and I think the movie when it came out I'd thought right away it was a great movie I still do you know he said well we're going to do this wonderful movie it's going to be about the First Amendment and I thought forget that how can you do a movie about the First Amendment but he did struggle though he did it was a great movie I love them all the presidents what'd you say in your book that it caused some dissension within the post you know it did Meg pointed Meg Greenfield the editor of the editorial page pointed that out when I was doing in a real nerving for the book she said it was it was really like the apple of discord it somehow raised tensions because certain people like then just for the stories say really it wasn't Ben's full but Howard was put into Ben's you know what Howard contributed was put into Ben's and guy credit yeah and Barry Sussman who was a Metro editor didn't appear at all and and there was even tension between the editorial page of the news page and I don't know it really didn't cause a lot of problems so that start that were emotional problems amazing what celebrity culture do to people it is we got this from two people a question from the audience 25 years later is the Washington Post better or worse because of Watergate well I think it's better much better than it was because we've grown and we've tried to improve the paper continuously and I don't think that it was better or worse because of Watergate but I think we were in the process of building up during Watergate and did afterwards and I have to say I think the paper is better now and I left I mean I think it's so you know I really believe in it what about journalism do you think it was a plus for journalism a lot of people went into journalism because of our you well I think it was a plus for journalism because we were on a grill and we and we our credibility was validated sure did you know Richard Nixon very well before all this happened I've met him a few times and and but I didn't really know him he as I've heard from people near him he came in really disliking the press in general and the post in particular because going back to when he ran for vice president and the fund that he had the secret fund which was really pretty small when you look back on it but there was a quite a sort of scandal about this hidden secret fund he had from political contributors and the post at that time when back in when he was running for vice president with Eisenhower said he should get off the ticket and then we'd been critical of his you know he was so violently anti-communist and right when I mean not that you couldn't be any communist but that he used it as a political weapon and against Helen Gahagan Douglass and he came in with you know with all these with it Wallace baggage and I guess we got across each other right away so you never really had much of a relationship no I met him a few times and it wasn't affected he never called you during this or anything no he called me once when he got elected and he actually I you know he came to an editorial lunch when he was campaigning I mean we had perfectly proper professional relations before Watergate never after that of course he called you after he was elected me once and said that Henry Kissinger was working for him no one had heard of Kissinger and he said I would like he was national security advisor and he said I would like him to come over and reef your editors and and then Kissinger came to lunch and I you know I arranged it and I I met him in formal formal situations but I never knew him

Channel: Freedom Forum

Views: 64,770

Rating: 4.8372879 out of 5

Keywords: Katharine Graham, Watergate, Newseum, Washington Post

Id: kAJf8Sx4c0M

Length: 26min 35sec (1595 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 12 2012