Excerpt from katharine graham's personal history.

June 1972 One Saturday morning, Howard called me and said, "You won't believe what happened last night." He's right. I really don't trust him too much. What he said sounded ridiculous. He told me that a car crashed into a house and two people in the room were having sex on the sofa. The car crashed in from one side and rushed out from the other. Speaking of climax, he told another interesting story. Five men wearing surgical gloves were arrested for breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.

President Nixon was in Kay Biskan, Florida when the incident happened. Ronnie Ziegler, his press secretary, dismissed the incident as "attempted third-degree theft" and added that "there are signs that this is not the case". Of course, none of us knew that it would last forever, and everything seemed so funny at first.

The first person to call Howard was Joe Carifano. Joe is not only our lawyer, but also the lawyer of the Democratic National Committee. Howard took action quickly when he heard about it. Once he told me that he tried to contact Ben, but Ben was at home in West Virginia and the phone was disconnected. He called Harry Rosenfeld, then the city news editor, and Harry called Barry sussman, one of the three assistants in charge of the District of Columbia.

Al Lewis has been a police reporter in Washington post since 1935. He knew everyone in this department and was assigned to follow the incident. As usual, he first went to the police station to check the names of those arrested and found them to be false. There, he miraculously met Charlie Wright, the executive director of the police station, who was very friendly to Al. They came to Watergate Hotel together and walked in together. He saw crowds everywhere. Some people in the car crime lab tried to get fingerprints on the front door, while others took magnets off the ceiling to look for clues. Lewis took off his jacket and stayed there all day.

The "break-in" incident was published on the front page of Sunday. Lewis used the title "Five people conspired to eavesdrop on the Democratic Party's office". Some professional writers, including bob woodward and Karl Burstein, contributed to reporting this event. They reported the background materials of the suspects respectively. Carl found that four of them were from Miami, and all of them had participated in anti-Castro activities. Phil Geyelin's comments were published in the Washington post the next day, entitled "Incredible Mission", and began to quote "Mission Impossible" broadcast by CBS TV: "It is customary for you or anyone in your army to be arrested or executed, but the Secretary of State denied knowing any of your actions ..."

Of course, all we see is the legendary tip of the glacier. Without Woodward and Bernstein's extraordinary investigation and report, we might not know the size of this glacier. The two of them have never worked together, and one of them (Woodward) has not published an article for a long time. To some extent, they are a natural couple, because their personalities and abilities are complementary. They are both very clever. Woodward is kind, diligent and enterprising, Bernstein is messy and unrestrained, but he is an excellent writer with more imagination and creativity. In other respects, the relationship between them is like oil and water, but the final products are all good, although one after another or perhaps because of this strange mixture.

Barry sussman knows little about the story of the clumsy thief. He knows he must talk to bob woodward. Woodward was born in the navy. He was admitted to Harvard Law School, but chose journalism as his career. He wanted to work in Washington post very much, so Harry Rosenfeld told his deputy Andy Burroughs to try Woodward for free for two weeks-reading his manuscript every night to decide what he could do. Bob wrote 17 stories in two weeks, but none of them were published. At the end of the probation period, Burroughs confidently declared that Woodward was a clever boy and lacked the ability to become a newspaper reporter-in short, there was little hope and it would be more troublesome to train him. Harry told Woodward to accumulate some experience and come back in a year. For Woodward, this is an inspiration, but it is also an encouragement. He didn't take Harry's words as a complete refusal. According to his point of view, "although the two-week journalism internship failed, I know I like it." "

After Woodward left, he got a job in Montgomery, Maryland, near Washington. Not long after he was there, he began to find a job as a local journalist in Washington post. A few months later, he called Harry again; Harry was painting the basement on the ladder when he called home. Harry was disturbed by him many times during the holiday, so he lost his temper and complained to his wife Anne that the young upstart had been pestering him. Anne asked quietly, "Isn't this the kind of person you often mention, Harry?" Of course she is right, and she is absolutely right. Harry finally decided to hire Woodward, who went to work in Washington post in September of 197 1.

From the beginning, Bob showed his ability, and no one among the editors doubted it. They sent Bob to court to cover the case. On the other hand, Karl Burstein has never raised himself since he came to the newspaper office in the autumn of 1966. He is an excellent writer, but his bad work habits are well known, such as his tears. In fact, Carl almost got Ben Blary fired before he was scheduled to cover the story. Carl is notorious for opening irresponsible expense accounts and many dereliction of duty, including leaving the rented car in the parking lot, which caused the company to pay a large sum of money. When Bob rearranged Al Lewis's notes, Carl glanced back at his materials and left in a hurry. Or did Harry save Ben and Howard when they both wanted to fire him? Harry explained that Carl had a special talent and worked hard, and made great contributions to tracking the Watergate incident. Because this is the first time Carl has linked the brand-new $65,438+000 bill in the thief's pocket with the money raised in Nixon's presidential campaign.

Woodward and Bernstein are obviously the key journalists in this incident. They did so much together that we began to call them Woodstein. As the executive editor, Ben is in charge of this matter. He laid down the basic principles-do it, do it, do it, let everyone go further and never back down in the face of opposition and intimidation.

Howard Simmons has semi-independent decision-making power over the newspaper, and he helped push the case forward. Especially his attitude, which Woodward later described as "intriguing, makes us wonder what will happen next." Harry Rosenfeld said to Howard, "When the children keep running, he will stand up and beat the waves." It was Howard who followed the incident very early.

Harry is a conformist, difficult-to-get-along, distinctive editor, and another real hero in our coverage of Watergate. From the beginning, he thought this event was a big local news, regarded it as an event that local staff in Washington post beautified themselves, and put the report about this event on the front page of the local edition.

Barry sussman actually freed himself from the editorial work in the District of Columbia and devoted himself to directing the Watergate story day after day. He is suitable for this kind of work. As Woodward and Bernstein described in "The President's Owner", "sussman has the ability to grasp the facts, keep them in mind, and keep recalling them in his mind. Compared with other journalists in Washington post, sussman is an expert on Watergate. When the library can't provide information, he becomes a provider of reference materials ... Watergate incident is a confusing event, and he is a person who collects fragmentary stories. "

In editing, Phil Geyelin and MiG Greenfield are both valuable talents. Through their articles and roy wilkins's articles, they constantly input fresh content for our news edition. In the first few months, Washington post has been arguing about the seriousness of the known facts, much earlier than the White House began to worry about this issue. At that time, the whole incident was considered dead. These editors played a great role in exposing Watergate and influenced the public's thinking about Watergate.

It was Herblock that had a more direct impact. A few days after the comic book "Three-level Theft" was published, another painting came out. This cartoon depicts a guard throwing an eavesdropper out of the Democratic Party headquarters. The onlookers were Richard Nixon, Richard Klein Ernst and john mitchell. The topic is "Who would have thought of doing such a thing?" "One of the cards is very eye-catching. Nixon grabbed both ends of the tape and it said, "I'm ... a liar." In a recording, he said "no". Herblock has always maintained an offensive posture. He made a cartoon about Watergate before the news in our newspaper. Six days after the wiretap, I was in the news room. He showed me a cartoon showing two people investigating footprints, which represented the eavesdropping case and the Nixon Foundation scandal leading to the front door of the White House. The cartoon says, "It's strange-they all seem to have some connection with this place." I smiled and said, "You won't publish it, will you? "The next day, that is,1June 23, 972, this cartoon was published in the newspaper. All this happened at the climax of the political campaign of 1972: george mcgovern was nominated as a candidate by the Democratic Party, that is, two weeks after the eavesdropping incident at the Democratic Party headquarters.

Woodward and Bernstein have been following the clues of Watergate eavesdroppers from the beginning, showing great confidence and ability, and sometimes they flatly refuse. From then on, Bob went to court and listened to James McConnell talk about "CIA". He was attracted by the story. When Carl brought Howard Hunt's address book, they found the name "Coulson" and the phrase "W. Palace" in it. Just like Herblock, they decided that it had something to do with the White House. Woodward and Bernstein soon got busy when they found that many calls came from Bernard Barker, one of the eavesdroppers, Gordon Liddy, who was re-elected as a member of the presidential committee, and a lawyer code-named CRP.

On August 1 day, more than a month after the eavesdropping case, the first news was jointly reported by Bernstein and Woodward, and it was reported that the eavesdropping was related to CRP. Three weeks later, on August 22nd, President Nixon was nominated as the presidential candidate again at the Republican National Convention in Miami. The next week, obviously, he wanted to announce the end of Watergate. Nixon talked about the thorough investigation of the eavesdropping incident by John Dean, the presidential adviser. He said: "His investigation shows that no one in the White House staff, no one hired by the government a few days ago, was involved in this very strange incident. If you try your best to make the incident big, it will really hurt people. " Later, from John Dean's confession, we learned that Nixon had never heard of "his" investigation before claiming the above, which was really strange.

On September 15, a federal grand jury tried five eavesdroppers and two former White House aides, Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy. On the same day-but it was not known until two years later-Nixon told two aides that the White House was posing an economic threat to Washington post. "Problems will soon appear ... Washington Post will soon face one trouble after another. They have a TV station ... they will re-register ... things will not be that simple ... this play is not good. " Nixon said of our lawyer, "After this election, I don't want to be in the position of Edward Bennett Williams. We'll cure this bastard. Trust me, we will. We have to do this because he is a villain. "

Two weeks later, half of Bernstein's and Woodward's articles were published on the front page of Washington post. They dug up a secret fund on Maurice stans, a former secretary of the Ministry of Commerce and later the financial chairman of CRP. The fund is managed by five people, one of whom is john mitchell. It is mainly used to collect information about the Democratic Party. This incident escalated, and Mitchell himself was involved, not only in his role in the general election, but also in the then Minister of Justice, because Woodward and Bernstein revealed that Mitchell's personal use expenses came from the fund established the year before.

CRP artistically denied this fact one by one and publicized it everywhere. In order to find out the truth, a piece of news from CRP helped to tell Bernstein: "This is absolutely out of thin air." Bernstein called Mitchell directly and asked him to go to a hotel in new york. When Carl told him about it, Mitchell growled, "Yes, yes, yes, God." Carl thought that "the sound was screaming" and that Mitchell would be furious. When he read the first two paragraphs, Mitchell interrupted him and screamed, "Nonsense, you published it in the newspaper? This will be completely denied. If it is to be published, this little woman Catherine will be crushed by a big fat man. Oh, my god This is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard. "

Bernstein was a little overwhelmed. He called Ben at home, told him what Mitchell said and discussed adding it to the prepared article. Ben told Carl that he could use it except "Little Women". I will be caught by Hercules. I don't need to be informed of this decision first. Later, he said to me, "Catherine, this news is too good for you to read." I agree with Ben's decision. ) That's it. When I read the newspaper, I was still shocked, especially after listening to Mitchell's words, which were so selfish, impulsive and threatening. I met Carl the next day and asked him if he had any other messages for me.

What Mitchell said was simply unacceptable-especially when he called me Katie strangely. No one has ever called me that. Bob later noticed that he was interested in Mitchell's words as an example of Nixon's insensitivity. I mobilized all my strength and became a comprehensive reporter for Watergate. In any case, Mitchell's words will go down in the history of Watergate and become evidence of my public contact with Watergate. Later, although before Watergate ended, I received a special gift from a dentist in California. He filled his teeth with gold. He made a small washing machine, much like the old one. After a while, art buchwald gave me a small gold box made of a small washing machine. I sometimes hang these two decorations around my neck.

10, the incident became clear, and Washington post published two articles, which caused the Nixon administration to fly into a rage. The first article published in June 10 described the eavesdropping case and thought it was a large-scale and nationwide political theft. The plot was carried out in an effort to get the president re-elected, and was instigated by officials of the White House re-election committee. This view was refuted by a CRP spokesperson: "This is not only a fabrication, but also a bunch of absurd materials."

Ronnie Ziegler, Nixon's press secretary, accused the White House at the morning press conference: "All stories are based on hearsay, innuendo and fabrication ..... There is no doubt that this government will not forgive any conspiracy and private surveillance." On the same afternoon, Clark McGregor, who succeeded john mitchell as Nixon's campaign chairman, held a press conference. He didn't ask any questions, just read a prepared document. He said to Washington post:

Today's credibility is far less than that of george mcgovern.

Using innuendo, third-party rumors, unfounded accusations, anonymous materials and alarmist headlines, the Washington post viciously tried to find out the connection between the White House and Watergate-an accusation that Washington post knows well and many investigations have proved to be false.

It is hypocritical for Washington post to launch this important event-the "double standards" it advocates can be felt by everyone today.

This and Ziegler became two shells that attacked us.

Naturally, I hate these attacks very much In fact, I find them hard to understand. I always remember the scene in War and Peace, when a soldier was chased by the enemy with a bayonet, he was thinking: Is this man really going to kill a person deeply loved by his mother?

Senator Bob Dole also joined the attack, saying that the report he saw about Watergate was "an unfounded and unreliable joint attack by george mcgovern and his associates on the Washington post". In order to ease the mood, Dole added: "McGovern found his current predicament in the campaign. In order to attack the campaign through the media, he has given his privilege to the editors of Washington post, so that they can follow the path of the candidates at every point. "

Ben was as calm as usual, convinced that this was a joint attack on the newspaper, and he quickly called a reporter to express his views and fight back:

Time will tell who is right or wrong about the news released by Clark McGregor and the CRP activities reported by Washington Post. Now it can be fully explained that this newspaper modulation report involves not only individual facts, but also shows a successful challenge. McGregor and other senior administrative officials called these stories "absurd stories" and thought that Washington post was "evil", but the facts were recorded and there was no evidence to the contrary to challenge them.

654381October 24th, Dole made another offensive speech in Baltimore-counted by Woodward and Bernstein-in which he quoted 57 passages from Washington post, including:

The biggest political scandal in this campaign is the brazen way. Watson's Invitation combines McGovern's campaign with housework. ...

Washington post's reputation for objectivity and credibility was discredited, and they almost disappeared from this huge institution.

There is a cultural and social exchange between McGovern and Washington post executives and editors. They belong to the same class; People will find that they are close neighbors and gather at parties in Georgetown.

None of this will help. The next day, Washington post published the second part of the article. The report came from Woodward's main source, and the fifth eavesdropper confirmed that the dirty money came from a secret fund and was done by H.R. Haldeman, director of the President's Office. When Dwight Chapin, the secretary appointed by the President, was also involved in this secret fund according to the reporter's description, they had to find a way to explain to the American people who Chapin was. Chapin is with the president every day; But it is also difficult to connect this money with those in power in the White House. However, in the second article, both columns are marked with the headline: "Confirm the connection between Nixon's senior assistant and the secret fund", which is completely different. This refers to Hartman, who is the most powerful person in Washington except the president. He is an adviser and assistant to the president. This article links Watergate with the White House.

The report of this incident made people notice that the federal investigators knew about Haldeman's participation and confirmed his accounts before taking the oath to the federal grand jury. This report is very insightful, but unfortunately, the reporters made the only mistake in the number of reports. The contents of the report are true; The mistake lies not in facts, but in assumptions. Woodward and Bernstein believe that Hugh Si Long, a former CRP treasurer and former Haldeman's assistant, disclosed the secret fund to the grand jury. In fact, he only told Woodward and Bernstein this situation. The only reason why he didn't tell the grand jury was that he wasn't asked this question. Si Long denied Washington post's article published the next morning through his lawyer, and expanded its influence in various places, including Ronnie Ziegler of the White House, who also criticized the newspaper. He didn't admit this fact at all, accusing Washington post of being politically motivated and attacking Ben Blary as Nixon's sworn enemy.

Washington post felt a little strong vibration. Harry Rosenfeld has been reporting this special event until the end, when he thought that his connection with Haldeman meant that Nixon was the boss behind the scenes. As Harry said, "If Haldeman did it, it was Nixon. Haldeman is no different from Nixon. " Harry didn't know that the reporter's idea would screw things up. He discussed and corrected with Howard Simmons, and went to Woodward and Bernstein respectively, but none of them could be found. Ironically, the two men are discussing with the publisher that they will write a book about Watergate. When they finally found it, the reporter and Rosenfeld refused to withdraw the report until he knew more in court. The next day, we cancelled this part, saying that Si Long had told the grand jury about the relationship between Haldeman and the fund, but the contents of the report remained unchanged.

I feel surrounded. The constant attacks by the central reserve police and administrative officials worked, and they gained the upper hand. In those few months, the pressure that forced Washington post to stop publishing was so great that people felt uncomfortable. But strong evidence is part of the reason why I keep fighting.

Many of my friends are confused about our report. Joe alsop has been putting pressure on me. Before the election, Henry Kissinger and I had a painful meeting, as if at a grand banquet. Henry asked me, "What's the matter? Do you think we won't be re-elected? " He's a little upset. I assured him that, like everyone else, I had no doubt that Nixon would be re-elected. Henry later told me that although he rarely had threatening discussions, he knew that Nixon wanted to unite more people after the election. Maybe it's his way of warning me. Anyway, Henry's words increased my nervousness.

Some readers wrote to me, denouncing Washington post's ulterior motives, corrupting news ethics, lacking patriotism, and our disloyalty in telling people news. This is a particularly isolated moment for our newspaper. Other organizations also began to report this story, but we have gone far and they are far behind; Woodward and Bernstein hold most of the information. The cable TV service system and the Associated Press published our articles, but most newspapers didn't report them, or reported a little on the back. Howard is used to calling his reporters and friends all over the country and telling them that he missed a big news. Because an important event has to be reported within 24 hours, people know. Sometimes I think privately, if this is such news, what are other newspapers doing?