The best duos complement the other's strengths. Woodward was soon joined on the story by Bernstein, and together the two young reporters undertook a series of investigative reports that gradually revealed the connections between the burglary and a converging pattern of crimes that finally implicated President Richard M. Nixon himself, forcing his resignation in the face of otherwise certain impeachment. Well, I was down there. Whats the government up to? Bob can formulate and Carl can draw conclusions.. Woodward and Bernstein were no closer to revealing who approved the break-in than they had been in June, and even further away from exposing the obstruction of justice that followed the. William Faulkners books, certainly. It seems that there are very few long, extensive investigations into corruption where an editor lets reporters work on a story for a couple of years. That goes back to the idea of family secrets. We didnt allow any television people in. Ben Bradlee: Well, we were tired. What books impressed you as a kid? Ben Bradlee: Nixon himself? Although Woodward was reluctant to talk about himself as a reporter, he was determined to expose other peoples secrets. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. After the clapping died down, Woodward observed, "There was lots of applause, but it wasn't universal.". With astonishing regularity, Woodward has continued to produce bestselling books on previously hidden aspects of American life. Mr. Woodward, there were mistakes made during Watergate, you have said in the book. Woodwards father was a prominent attorney, and hoped that Robert would follow in his footsteps. Hunt had been studying Ted Kennedy and checked books out of the library. Im out there doing it, and if theres pressure or debate or controversy, theyre absorbing that pressure. So, yeah, I think they were friends. Richard Nixon's RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (1978) gives the former president's version of the events surrounding Watergate. . Light in August; Absalom, Absalom; The Bear, that little novella. Are there particular novels of his that you remember liking? Why did this happen? "[32], Differences between Bernstein and Woodward, A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton, A Woman In Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton, "Carl Bernstein on Trump and the Current State of Journalism", "Yes, kids, there is life after high school", "He Went From Watergate to 'Heartbun,' From Investigative Superstar to Celebrity Dinner Guest. You want to deal a careful glancing blow. When will all the truth come out? Quite optimistically. Although the movie is the result of Redfords determination to get it made as the Watergate story unfolded, its authenticity and endurance have everything to do with its director, Alan J. Pakula, who morphed into a Sigmund Freud with notepad before any camera rolled. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. Bernstein was among three CNN reporters who last week broke the story of former Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's allegation that Trump knew in advance of the June 2016 meeting between representatives of his . So he didnt think it was a good idea. Bob Woodward: Of course. But it would have been I mean, there was a lot of money on the table. That we do explain enough about whats going on. This time though, a security guard noticed that multiple latches on the doors were taped so they wouldn't lock and called the police, who caught the men in the act. Each of these presidents had their own way of responding. But then two by-the-book (sort of) dudes with wide ties and spiral notebooks -- Woodward and Bernstein -- came along in stoppage time to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Dont tell me never. Dont let things elude us. It wasn't just me -- a culture was defined. He joined the Washington Post's metropolitan staff in 1966, specializing in police, court, and city hall assignments, with occasional self-assigned feature stories. The processes that caused [Nixons] resignation were constitutional., Grahams words, however accurate and incisive, scarcely altered the dominant popular interpretation of Watergate. [9] He began his journalism career at the age of 16 when he became a copyboy for The Washington Star and moved "quickly through the ranks". Bob Woodward: Or The Sound and the Fury, which is his great book. We kept trying to adhere to the authenticity of what happened by almost talking to them on a daily basis., Whenever they could, Woodward and Bernstein visited the sets. We're much better friends than we were at the time. Nixon was a full-blown hater, and if you listen to the tapes, its chilling and frightening. We talk all the time. How did we get into committing 500,000 troops 10,000 miles away in a way that we could never win? Im not really like that anymore, Bernstein said in the interview. Id have drinks with him early all of late July and early August. The duo of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein have become synonymous with reporting the comings and goings of the Watergate scandal. [20], He then began working for ABC News. I recall in that incident, I did one, he did one, and I looked at his, and I realized his was better, as was almost always the case. This. We understand you got started in the newspaper business right out of the Navy. Were much better friends than we were at the time. It was strange. Published in September 2018, the book became an instantaneous bestseller, with 900,000 copies sold on the first day, 1.1 million in the first week. The book and movie introduced Woodwards super-secret source, Deep Throat. For 31 years after Nixons resignation, Washington periodically engaged publicly in guessing games about the sources identity. And that this wasnt just a cover-up of a burglary. At that period, what did you like to read? Woodward and Bernstein (and many others) were absolutely convinced there was a deal where Nixon would resign if his successor Gerald Ford issued a presidential pardon. Bob Woodward: We had done some of the early stories, that it led to the Senate Watergate Committee, led to the House Judiciary Committee and impeachment investigation. We made one mistake in a story in which we said that Woodward and Bernstein said that there was a slush fund of $300,000 set up in the Committee to Re-elect the President, and it was controlled by Haldeman, and that one of the witnesses had testified to that slush fund to the grand jury investigating Watergate. It was the scandal that led to the forced resignation of the President of the United States. [14] While there, he won first prize in New Jersey's press association for investigative reporting, feature writing, and news on a deadline. Its small wonder that the heroic-journalist myth still defines popular understanding of Watergate. He'd started at age two, I think. Now Hollywood Shuffle is a classic, Before and after photos from space show storms effect on California reservoirs, Dramatic before and after photos from space show epic snow blanketing SoCal mountains, The chance of a lifetime: Five friends ski the tallest mountain in Los Angeles, Best coffee city in the world? Not, "What did the president know and when did he know it? Stop!, Bernstein recalled in a 1975 interview, now in Pakulas archive, that big crowds were outside. (The Academy of Achievement interviewed both Bob Woodward and Ben Bradlee, the Executive Editor of The Washington Post, on May 1 during the 2003 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. Their interviews are combined here.). But in his interview with Woodward, Pakula discovered that the reporter could surprise: Other peoples secrets fascinated and obsessed him. [26] Bernstein and second wife Ephron already had an infant son, Jacob, and she was pregnant with their second son, Max, in 1979 when she learned of her husband's affair with Jay. Pakula wrote that Redford would have to scrap his charm. Raised in a traditional Republican household, Woodward was very well-educated and has been described as gentle. We talk all the time. Bob Woodward: Is the CIA connected to this? Woodward and Bernstein were successful at concealing the identity of their informant until 2005 when he outed himself due to the public. Bob Woodward: We accused some people of things they didnt do that were based on some reports, written reports. A day prior, another Washington Post journalist got the first swing at what would become the story of the decade. But even they seemed to take the wrong lessons from what they'd done. Back at home, you could cross out the word "party" and replace it with "Nixon." In their dogged reporting of the Watergate scandal, Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered the crimes that forced Richard Nixon to resign the presidency in August 1974. He just had a psychosis about being controlled by authority figures. Carl tried his hand in television, at ABC News (and was a consultant at CBS News for awhile). He had gone to Vietnam as a soldier, so he had fought in Vietnam, but he got convinced that it was a quagmire and that it was a great mistake and that by releasing this study, he could shine light into the darkest corners and change the course of the world. I can't tell you how many times back then that Americans -- looking for a silver lining in the cloud of Watergate -- uttered this phrase: "The system worked." ." Hes a reporter doll. More so than the book, the cinematic adaptation of All the Presidents Men placed Woodward and Bernstein at the decisive center of Watergates unraveling. How did you do that? This was the lesson of Watergate: Nixon Exceptionalism, that the 37th president was so "uniquely and pervasively" corrupt that the fair and decent American "system worked" and removed him on the basis of the objective, indisputable fact of his evil. He worked at ABC, CNN, and CBS as a political commentator, and was a spokesman in various television commercials. Woodward, with Scott Armstrong, wrote a study of the Supreme Court, The Brethren (1979); and Woodward wrote a study of the death by drug overdose of comedian John Belushi, Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi (1984). They were 30 and 31.". Bob Woodward: I was going to go to law school after five years in the Navy, so I was age 27, and I got a job at a weekly paper in Montgomery County, Maryland for $110 a week. 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