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On June 18, 1972, a Washington Post front page story
reported the previous day's break-in at the Democratic National Committee's office
in the Watergate complex in Washington, DC. Five men were arrested while attempting
to photograph documents and place bugging devices in the offices. The White House
dismissed the crime as a "third-rate burglary," and much of the nation's media
soon
dropped interest in what some jokingly referred to as "the Watergate caper." But
two
of the reporters who worked on that first Washington
Post story, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, continued tracking down sources
and pursuing leads on what became the biggest story of twentieth-century American
politics. |
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Robert Woodward, born March 26, 1943, in Geneva, Illinois, was raised in nearby
Wheaton. The son of a Republican lawyer and judge, Woodward attended Yale University
on an ROTC scholarship, graduating with a BA in History and English in 1965. He
then
served as a communications officer in the US Navy from 1965 to 1970. After leaving
the service, he contemplated attending law school, but then decided to seek
reporting jobs with the Washington Post or the New York Times. Turned down for a lack of experience, he
spent a year as a reporter for the Montgomery County
Sentinel in Maryland before getting a position at the Washington Post in 1971. At the time of the Watergate break-in,
Woodward had been at the Post less than nine months
and had worked as a reporter for less than two years. |
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Carl Bernstein was born February 14, 1944, in Washington, DC, and raised in nearby
Silver Spring, Maryland. His parents were social activists and members of the
American Communist Party. He began working as a copy boy at the Washington Evening Star at age sixteen, and after
finishing high school attended classes part-time at the University of Maryland.
He
eventually began contributing stories at the Star and
in 1965 moved to New York City to work as a reporter at the Elizabeth Daily Journal in New Jersey. After one year at the Journal, Bernstein returned to Washington, DC, and took
a reporter position at the Washington Post. |
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At first the two reporters worked independently of one another. Woodward discovered
that one of the burglars, James McCord, Jr., was a former CIA employee, recently
employed as a security coordinator for the Committee for the Re-election of
President Nixon (CRP). He also tracked a phone number in one burglar's address
book
to White House consultant Howard Hunt. Bernstein was able to confirm the burglar's
calls to Hunt through telephone records, and also traced a check in one burglar's
bank account to the CRP. With support and guidance from Post editors Barry Sussman, Harry Rosenfeld, Howard Simons, and executive
editor Ben Bradlee, Woodward and Bernstein combined their efforts to further explain
the break-in, seeking information from hundreds of administration officials,
campaign workers, White House staffers, and other sources. |
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For several months, Woodward and Bernstein continually wrote front page stories
exposing links between Watergate and the CRP, but were unable to directly connect
the burglars to anyone close to Nixon. One of Woodward's sources, identified on
May
31, 2005, as FBI Associate Director Mark Felt, provided deep background information,
on the condition that Woodward never identify, quote, or use him as a sole source
of
the information. Deep Throat, as Felt was labeled by Howard Simons, confirmed
the
reporters' suspicions and leads, and helped focus their investigation on the trail
of money from the burglars to the CRP to the White House. Eventually, in an October
10, 1972 story, Woodward and Bernstein were able to disclose in detail that the
Watergate break-in was part of a larger effort to sabotage Nixon's political
opponents--paid for through the CRP under the direction of some of Nixon's closest
aides. |
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White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler reacted with strong criticism to the story,
questioning the methods and political motivations of the Washington Post and the two reporters. After Nixon's re-election in
November 1972, many thought the story would die, but instead, repercussions from
the
break-in continued. In January 1973, the five Watergate burglars and two former
White House employees who directed them, Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, were
convicted for the break-in. In February, the U.S. Senate formed a committee to
investigate the Nixon campaign. And in March, Watergate burglar James McCord,
Jr.
informed Judge John Sirica that he and the other burglars had lied during their
trials, were pressured by the White House to withhold information, and that
high-ranking officials had known about the Watergate break-in plan. |
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By April 1973, the Post, numerous other news agencies,
and the Senate committee were all focused on discovering what knowledge, if any,
Nixon had of the Watergate burglary. On April 30, due to the mounting evidence
of
their personal involvement, Nixon's Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, Domestic Affairs
Advisor John Ehrlichman, and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst all resigned
and
Presidential Counsel John Dean was fired. At a press conference the following
day,
Press Secretary Ziegler apologized to Woodward, Bernstein, and the Washington Post for his previous criticism, admitting to
the validity of their stories. |
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In May 1973, the Washington Post received the
Pulitzer Prize for Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate coverage. Interest in what
the
two reporters had accomplished was growing, and a book offer from Simon and Schuster
had already been made. Originally planning to write a story from the burglars'
perspective, Woodward and Bernstein decided instead to tell the story of their
investigation of the break-in and the cover-up. While still covering the ongoing
Watergate story for the Post, they worked on the book
nights and weekends, eventually taking a five-week leave of absence to write full
time. |
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Published in June 1974, All the President's Men was a
best-seller, receiving strong reviews and extensive media coverage. The book
revealed the existence of "Deep Throat," causing great speculation about his
identity, particularly since the Watergate story continued to unfold after the
book
was published. In July 1973, the Senate investigating committee had uncovered
the
existence of the taping system used by Nixon to record meetings in the Oval Office.
In February 1974, the House Judiciary Committee began impeachment hearings. And
one
month before All the President's Men was released, a
federal grand jury indicted seven of Nixon's top aides in the Watergate cover-up
and
informed the judge that there was enough evidence to indict Nixon, but they did
not
have the legal authority to charge the President. |
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After the release of All the President's Men,
Woodward and Bernstein continued covering Watergate for the Post and began making plans for a follow-up book. Soon after Nixon's
resignation on August 9, 1974, they took another leave of absence to work on what
became The Final Days. Focusing on Nixon and the
inner workings at the White House over the last 100 days of his administration,
Woodward and Bernstein found that with Nixon out of office, many high-level White
House and government personnel were willing and eager to talk to them and explain
their side of the story. They hired two research assistants, Scott Armstrong and
Al
Kamen, and proceeded to interview nearly 400 people, promising them complete
anonymity since many still worked in government or had continuing connections
to
Nixon or other politicians. |
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As they worked on the new book, production began on a movie version of All the President's Men starring Robert Redford as
Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein. The actors and director Alan Pakula
relied
heavily upon the two reporters for their opinions and insight on the film's content
and authenticity. Opening in April 1976, the film was greatly successful and later
won four Academy Awards, including best screenplay adaptation for William Goldman.
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The same month the movie opened, pre-publication excerpts from The Final Days were released in Newsweek. Strong reactions to the excerpts, which included details
about Nixon's personal life, were often negative and highly critical of Woodward
and
Bernstein. Commentators pilloried the book as an invasion of privacy and an
unnecessary attack on the already humiliated Nixon. Despite the criticism, the
book
was soon a best-seller after its release in May. By then, many reviews noted that
as
a whole, the book was not an attack on Nixon. Some even found it to be somewhat
sympathetic towards the former President. Still, facts and events from the book
were
questioned by Nixon's friends and family, and some obvious sources denied ever
speaking with Bernstein and Woodward. Some questioned the credibility of the work
due to the lack of footnotes and named sources, even though many acknowledged
that
it would have been impossible to write without the promises of anonymity. |
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With increasing fame and notoriety, Woodward and Bernstein had themselves become
the
focus of numerous news stories. While often forced to defend their own work, they
criticized other reporters and journalism in general for simply reporting official
comments on important events without question or critical investigating. To many
in
America, the two reporters were heroes who stood up against power and corruption,
and enrollment in journalism schools soared as students sought to follow the
examples set by the two role models. |
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Soon after finishing The Final Days, Bernstein left
the Washington Post in 1976. He contributed articles
to Rolling Stone, the New
Republic, and Time and worked as
Washington Bureau Chief for ABC News from 1979 to 1981. From 1981 to 1984 he was
a
correspondent for ABC in New York, and since 1992 has been a visiting lecturer
at
New York University. In addition to his books with Woodward he has written Loyalties: A Son's Memoir (1989), His Holiness: John Paul II and the Hidden History of Our Time (1996)
with Marco Politi, and A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary
Rodham Clinton (2007). |
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Woodward continued working at The Washington Post,
becoming assistant managing editor in 1981. He also continued writing and has
produced numerous best-sellers. In addition to his books with Bernstein he has
written The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court (1979)
with Scott Armstrong, Wired: The Short Life of and Fast Times
of John Belushi (1984), Veil: The Secret Wars of
the CIA, 1981-1987 (1987), The Commanders
(1991), The Man Who Would be President: Dan Quayle
(1992) with David Broder and Dan Quayle, The Agenda: Inside
the Clinton White House (1994), The
Choice (1996), Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy
of Watergate (1999), Maestro: Greenspan's Fed and
the American Boom (2000), Bush at War
(2002), Plan of Attack (2004), and State of Denial (2006). He also co-wrote the television
movie Under Siege (1986) and mini-series The Nightmare Years (1989) with Christian Williams. |
