The Watergate Scandal

And it's impact on journalism

Interview with Ben Bradlee By: Jill Wiedenmayer Instructor: Mr. Alex Haight Date:February 10, 2006

Wiedenmayer 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Release Form Statement of Purpose Biography Historical Contextualization Transcription Interview Analysis Appendix Time Log Works Consulted

2 3 4 5 16 36 43 46 47

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

The purpose of this oral history project is to provide a better understanding of Watergate, through an interview with a direct witness to the events surrounding the Watergate Scandal. Mr. Bradlee worked at The Washington Post before, during and after Watergate. Watergate was the catalyst in the progression of journalism. Before Nixon's presidency White house scandals were not publicized as greatly as they are today. Through Mr. Bradlee's interview he able to reveal his

Wiedenmayer 3 opinion on progression of journalism.

BIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN BRADLEE

Wiedenmayer 4 Benjamin C. Bradlee was bom on August 2, 1921 in Boston Massachusetts. His mother owned a dress shop and his father was a banker, who unfortunately went broke in the Great Depression. However, wealthy relatives helped with the fmnily expenses and helped to put the Bradlee children through private school. Mr. Bradlee received a scholarship and attended Harvm^d. However, the day that he arrived at Hm^^ard was the day that Hitler moved into Poland and the Sudetenland, foreshadowing the inevitable war. At the age of twenty-one World War II had stmted mid Mr. Bradlee was drafted and served on a destroyer for three years. When he was released from the Navy he was left jobless, but soon took a job at a small newspaper in New Hampshire mid then moved on to work as a young reporter at The Washington Post. At The Washington Post he became friends with Katherine Graham the owner of The Post. There he covered first hand stories such as the race riots in Anacostia and the assassination attempt on President Truman. Mr. Bradlee then moved on to work for Newsweek as a foreign correspondent in Paris, but moved back to the United States to raise his son. Mr. Bradlee moved back to his job at The Washington Post, where he becmne the Executive Editor. At The Washington Post he worked many famous, historical stories such as the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. Today he is eighty-three years old and still works at The Washington Post. HISTORICAL CONTEXTUALIZATION

Historimi Eric Altermmi believes that, "Dishonesty has become so pervasive a part of our public discourse that in some cases, the very same people who pose as defenders of the absolute truth feel no compunction about relying on deception to do so" (Alterman 10). The President of the United States is admired for his courage, his chorizema, mid his honesty. However, with the prominent revelation of dishonesty in the White House during the Watergate Scandal people's

Wiedenmayer 5 views of the past and current presidents have changed. The Watergate Scandal was marked at the first time in American history the lies White House administration were nationwide publicized. The Nixon Administration paved the way for future scandals and also lead to the revelation of past scandals that had been kept secret for years. There have been various presidential scmidals before Watergate that have gone overlooked by the press and or by history. However, none were so widely covered and evidently remembered as Watergate. Mmiy previous presidents' great achievements reflect upon their legacy in the White House, even if their presidency was miything but successful. Corruption in the White House has often gone overlooked for centuries. Historians today have consistently given "Nixon low marks as president. One poll ranked him as the second all time worst, behind Harding, another as third, worst being Harding and Grant" (Greenberg 291). Ulysses S. Grant, elected this country's eighteenth president in 1868, is remembered for his strategic military tactics during the Civil War along with his efforts in Reconstruction. However, throughout his entire presidency he battled scmidal and corruption. On various occasions subordinates of Grmit were instigators of corruption in his administration in order to make a profit. For example, in 1874, Secretmy of the Treasury John Sanborn signed a contract with the Bureau of Internal Revenue for a commission giving him and a few other politicimis the power to build a private collection of United States revenue (Thomdike Al). John Sanborn collected over $427, 000 in delinquent taxes. This collection eventually was put into the republican campaign funds. Grant was not the only president to get into money trouble. Harding was involved in the Teapot Dome Scandal. Harding's secretary of interior, Albert B. Fall, secretly leased public oil reserves to private companies in return for $400,000 in bribes. However, the bribe money transferred to the Depmlment of Interior "wasn't judged an illegal act until some years after the fact" (Anthony 54).

Wiedenmayer 6 Historimi Paul Greenberg believes that "In the 1950's, political scandal usually meant graft, the exchange of favors, or lining one's pockets for political gain; until Watergate, the Harding Administration's Teapot Dome fiasco loomed as the benchmark for scmidal (Greenberg 49). Although Franklin D. Roosevelt is most acclaimed for his efforts to end the Great Depression, his presidency has also been tagged with scmidal. In 1918, his wife Eleanor found out about his affair with Lucy Mercer Rutherford, however he continued his affair during his presidency. Roosevelt's sexual affair with Rutherford along with three other women was not revealed until sometime later (Flynn 249). Aside from his various adulterous escapades, FDR had various criminal offenses that have yet to be recorded in recent textbooks. On Februmy 1, 1920, he admitted before a large audience, "Two months after the war was declmed, I saw that the Navy was still unprepared and I spent $40,000 for guns before Congress gave me or anyone permission to spend the money." He then went on to admit that he had "committed enough illegal acts" to be impeached and then jailed for "999 years" (Cook 265). FDR is not the only president who portrayed a clean image but underneath was subject to scandal. Historians and reporters have characterized Kennedy's presidency, which took place from 1961 to 1963, as the ascendance of idealism in the aftermath of World War II. However, it was not until twenty yems after his death that Kennedy's sexual affairs along with vmious other illegal activities while in the White House were revealed and have thus become increasingly documented. It has been found that Kennedy had "one of the biggest cash piles of the century through bmiking, shipbuilding, Hollywooding, stock-jobbing, and bootleg liquor, among many other activities" (Johnson, A History of the American People 849). More recently, the Clinton presidency has been mmked by his affair with Monica Lewinsky. After the incident was widely publicized by the press he went on television in front of the nation and lied. The scandal threatened impeachment, leading to a

Wiedenmayer 7 drawn out impeachment trial. Due to the vast amount of publication, Clinton's presidency will forever be tainted by scandal. Richard Milhous Nixon, will forever be known for Watergate and the only president to resign, however before all the scandal he was deeply involved in the nation's politics. He first made his name in 1948 as a Congressman during the Cold Wm. The Cold War brought an anticommunist fear, producing the Second Red Scare, thus he was appointed to head the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. As head he lead the semch for communist State Depmtment Official Alger Hiss, who was later sent to prison for perjury. In 1952, Nixon, then a U.S. senator, was accused of having a secret political fund of about $18,00, which had been collected from illegal campaign contributions. Nixon was urged to resign, however he redeemed himself when he gave the "Checkers speech" on television, claiming that the money was not for personal use but for reimbursement of expenses. This issue was widely covered and became one of the primary issues during his later vice presidential cmnpaign. From 1953 to 1962, Nixon served under Dwight Eisenhower for two terms as Vice President. He is most acclaimed during that time for his foreign efforts in reducing the tension with China and the U.S.S.R. that had started due to World Wm II. His valiant efforts as a vice president helped him to win his 1968 presidential election. Throughout Nixon's presidency instances of corruption were brought to the publics attention by the press, furthering Nixon's paranoia. After previously loosing the presidency for the Republicans in 1960 to John F. Kennedy, Nixon was inaugurated as President of the United States on Jmiuary 21st, 1969. Nixon cmne into his presidency with the focus of ending the on going war in Vietnam. On June 13, 1971, The New York Times began publishing the Pentagon Papers. These papers were classified Defense Department documents about the history of the

Wiedenmayer 8 United States' decisions in the Vietnam War. It revealed that the government was guilty of miscalculation, bureaucratic arrogance, and deception. The document weakened the public's faith in Nixon, consequently hurting the wm effort. The Nixon administration attempted to persuade the Supreme Court to end further publishing of these papers, however the Supreme Court said it would be unconstitutional to freedom of press if they forced publishing to cease (Zinn 360). Attorney General John Mitchell immediately sent a telegram to The New York Times urging them to cease publishing the Pentagon Papers. Soon after, the Justice Department went to court and issued an injunction, this prevented The New York Times from further publishing the Pentagon Papers. The White House for the first time in history tried and successfully suppressed freedom of the press about an international issue. However, the press would continue to dig deeper and harder into underground White House activities and this time would not be silenced. On June 17th, 1972, just two months before Nixon's re-election, five men were found at 2:30 a.m. in the Democratic Offices at the Watergate Hotel. They were found with a walkietalkie, surgical gloves, cameras, tear gas guns, bugging devices and $2,300 in cash. They at first gave false names, but when brought before a court with their own personal lawyers they revealed their identities. James W. McCord Jr. was a recently retired security consultant at the CIA. He was also, which was not revealed in court, an ex-FBI agent, mid a former Chief of Physical Security for the CIA, as well as working full-time for the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) as an office security Assistmit to the Director of Security. The other four were all from Miami: Bernard L. Barker was a former member of the FBI mid a former CIA agent who had worked under Howard Hunt (White House Consultant). Frank A. Sturgis, the only non-Cuban among the four, was described by a Cuban leader as a "former CIA type intended to use paid provocateurs to fight anti-war demonstrators in the streets during the national political

Wiedenmayer 9 conventions" (Bernstein 20). Virgilio R. Gonzalez mid Eugenio R. Martinez were said to have CIA connections as well. The connections of these men created overwhelming suspicions amongst the press. The President was notified immediately of the break in and the connections made by the press. He immediately made a statement to the public, "The White House has had no involvement whatever in this pmlicular incident" (Bernstein 29). The Watergate break-in created much turmoil for the White House; it also tainted Nixon's reputation in the up-coming re-election. At The Washington Post Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward were assigned to work on the Watergate story. Bernstein traced through Barkers phone records and found that Barker had made fifteen calls from Miami, Florida to the CREEP (Bernstein 35). Looking through the phone books of Barker and the other buglers, Bernstein repeatedly found Howard Hunt's name in correspondence with the White House and immediately drew a connection from the burglars to Howard Hunt who was a CIA retiree and now worked at the White House as a consultant to Charles W. Colson, Special Counsel to the President. Hunt had also worked as a paid White House Consultant in declassifying the Pentagon Papers, and the FBI had also listed him as a prime suspect in the Watergate investigation. The next day after a confirmative phone conversation with Hunt, The Washington Post headlined "White House Consultant Linked to Bugging Figure" (Bachinski Al). Due to the press' fast moving investigation, the White House immediately began a cover-up. Ken W. Clawson, the White House deputy director of communications, stated with, "I am convinced that neither Mr. Colson nor anyone else at the White House had any knowledge of, or participated in, this deplorable incident at the Democratic National Committee" (Bernstein 25). This was just one of the mmiy statements the White House and various other officials made to create the long mid elaborate cover up. However, on

Wiedenmayer 10 September 15, 1972, Howard Hunt, Gordon Liddy (CREEP finmice counselor and a former aide on the staff of the Assistant the President, John Ehrichman), and the five Watergate buglers were indicted on federal charges for burglary, conspiracy and illegal wiretapping (Woodward, The Final Days 458). Woodwmd and Bernstein along with vmious other Washington Post reporters went into intensive research on the Watergate Scandal. After calling Howard Hunt and his attorney, they found that there had been five checks totaling $114,000, that had been deposited into the
CREEP'S

campaign budget allocated as "Convention Security". Bernstein also found out, that

four of the checks, adding up to $89,000, had been moved from Mexico City, Mexico to the CREEP account in Miami, Florida. The fifth check was for $25,000 written by Kenneth H. Dahlberg, who worked as a fund-raiser on the committee to re-elect. Dahlberg told Woodward that he knew nothing about what the check was for except that he had given the check to Hugh W. Slomi Jr., CREEP Treasurer mid former aide to Haldeman, who gave the check to Gordon Liddy. After, Liddy then "exchanged the check with someone else for $25,000 in cash, which was deposited in the Nixon campaign treasury" (Woodward Al). That someone was later revealed to be Maurice Stans, Nixon's chief fund-raiser and the CREEP'S finmice chairmmi. In light of this new evidence, Woodwmd and Bernstein were able to directly connect the buglers to the CREEP. They continued to find a series of other CREEP agents connected to Stan's fund, which became know as the "slush fund". The slush fund consisted of hundreds of thousmids of unaccounted for money totaling up to at least $350,000 that was used for bribes, pay-offs and other politically corrupt intentions. The CREEP ignored reporting over $500,000 of campaign contributions, breaking the new laws requiring a report of campaign funds spent mid restricting the amount of campaign contributions, as well as donations from corporations (Feinberg 31-32).

Wiedenmayer 11 All this money, up to $750,000, had been laundered through Mexico to guarmitee anonymity. The money was taken across the border and sent through a random bank in Mexico City. From there it was sent to Washington to the cmnpaign fund. All the records of previous transactions were destroyed along with other evidence. It was later discovered that in the days following the bre^-in Robert Mardian (cmnpaign coordinator and assistant director for the CREEP), Fredrick LaRue (White House aide and assistant to John Mitchell), and other members of the committee removed and destroyed documents along with memos about the bugged conversations in the Democratic Party (Bernstein 87-90). After, the money was laundered it was doled out to the long list of politicians involved. As Woodward and Bernstein investigated a list of White House and CREEP members in order to find out who exactly was involved, it became evident that "Their [the White House and CREEP members'] fright, more than anything else, was persuading Woodward and Bernstein that the stakes were higher than they had originally perceived" (Bernstein 60). One woman's interview, who was a bookkeeper, started out like all the rest, "you're from The Washington Post. You'll have to go, I'm sorry" (Bernstein 64). The bookkeeper along with may other White House subordinates had been scared into keeping secret any facts concerning White House affairs and the Watergate break-in. Woodwmd mid Bernstein were able to get inconclusive bits and pieces out of every person they interviewed. However, none of the people would go on record or fully explain the story. However, as the bookkeeper became more comfortable and urgent to reveal what was behind her fear, she told Bernstein, "There are a lot of things that are wrong and a lot of things that are bad at the committee... I was called by the grmid jury very emly, but nobody knew what questions to ask. People had already lied to them" (Bernstein 65). She eventually, hesitantly confirmed that Stan's slush fund contained over $700,000 and revealed that Jeb Stumt

Wiedenmayer 12 Magruder (CREEP Deputy Cmnpaign Director and former White House aide to Haldemen), Herbert Porter (CREEP Scheduling Director and also a former aide to Haldemen), and Gordon Liddy all had received over $50,000 in payment from the slush fund (Bernstein 75). The payments to these three men drew a direct line to the President. Gordon Liddy had worked for John Ehrichman, who was the Assistmit to the President for Domestic Affairs. Also Magruder and Porter had been aides to Haldemen, who was the White House Chief of Staff mid Assistmit to the President. In light of all the new, mnbitious evidence the reporters had to be very sure that the facts were correct, and their sources were valid. Almost none of the interviewees would go on record, so Woodward and Bernstein promised absolute confidentiality mid that they would only be quoted but not identified in The Washington Post. Due to the delicate subject that they were dealing with, ultimately accusing the president of laundering money. The Washington Post made it imperative that in order for a criminal charge to be published in the newspaper, two sources had to confirm it first. This is where Woodward's infamous source known as "Deep Throat" came into play. The White House had been hard at work covering up their paper trail by laundering money, shredding documents, and denying association. As more information from sources came in the buglers connection kept going higher up the chain of commmid. Woodward's secret source, "Deep Throat", "was the FBI's second ranking official; He could never be quoted - even as an mionymous source and he would not provide information. He would 'confirm information that had been obtained elsewhere mid . . . add some perspective'" (Drehle Al). Despite the White House's constant cover up "Deep Throat" "urged Woodward to follow the case to the top: to Nixon's former attorney general, John N. Mitchell; to Nixon's inner brace of aides, H.R. 'Bob' Haldeman and John H. Ehrlichman; mid even to Nixon himself (Drehle Al).

Wiedenmayer 13 It was revealed on July 13, 1973 that Nixon had a secret recording system in the Oval Office that was voice activated. Haldeman claimed that Nixon "was worried that in private, head-to-head meetings, he did not want the burden on himself of having to be the only recorder of that meeting" (Matthews 299). On April 11, 1973 the House Judicimy Committee voted, "thirty -three to three, to issue a subpoena for forty two additional tapes" (Woodward, The Final Days 124). The White House tried to reason by offering abridged transcripts, but on August 29, 1873 Judge Sirica, the judge appointed to the Watergate trial, ruled that the President must turn over the subpoenaed tapes. However, the tapes had been altered. In a conversation on June 20, three days after the break-in, held between the President and Haldeman about the burglary, there was found to be a suspicious 18-_ min gap. Finally on March 1, 1974 the grand jury indicted "Haldeman, Ehrlichmmi, Mitchell, Robert Mardian, Charles W. Colson, Gordon Strachan mid Kenneth W. Parkinson in the cover-up. Richard Nixon is named an unindicted co-conspirator by the grand jury" (Woodward, The Final Days 460). On August 9, 1974, ten days after the House passed the final mticle of impeachment for obstruction of justice in attempting to cover-up Watergate, Nixon resigned. Before Watergate the press turned their heads away from suspicious activity protecting the president from scandal, but after Watergate their attention turned to reveal the scandals and corruption underneath mi administration. During Kennedy's presidency "reporters dined out on rumors of Kennedy's adultery as they made sure those stories were kept out of the newspapers" (Yoffe Al). Emily Yoffe of Slate magazine wrote, "if John F. Kennedy were president today, he wouldn't be". Kennedy in comparison to Nixon, "had done more wire taps, Kennedy had conducted more illegal surveillance" however, in the Watergate Scandal the media changed the way the presidency was viewed with an "all-out attack" on Nixon (Matthews 325). He was first

Wiedenmayer 14 accused of involvement in illegal activities, and then his criminal affairs escalated to his coverup consisting of void statements and wiretaps. The coverage of presidential scmidals has changed due to the change in the rules of the press, as Ben Bradlee states, "For almost two hundred years the sex lives of politicimis- especially presidents mid presidential candidates- were left to the historians. However, the old rules have changed, and the new rules guaranteed scrutiny by the press if they god wind of miy ongoing extra curricular sexual escapades" (Bradlee 479). "Today "people like to see the king fall", and the press will go to that extent to dig up information to make that happen (Kurtz CI). Most recently, the rumors of Bill Clinton's affairs with Monica Lewinsky, unlike Kennedy's affairs, turned into his impeachment trial. During Kennedy's administration, the stature of a president was something to aspire to, a role model. It was "extremely difficult to turn suspicion into confirmation, especially if you don't want to" (Bradlee 483). However, after Watergate that changed, and the press was willing to and exercised their full right to freedom of press by going at an investigation with full force. The jumbled details of what actually happened have caused controversy among historians. Paul Johnson's conservative point of view diverges from other historians on the motivation behind Watergate. He concludes that the Democrats who were upset and frightened by the Nixon's triumph in the 1972 election planned the whole scandal. He believes that "the aim was to use publicity to reverse the electoral verdict of 1972, which was felt to be, in some metaphorical sense illegitimate - rather as conservative Germans had regarded Weimm as illegitimate" (Johnson, Modem Times 650). In order to reverse the verdict the whole break-in and coverage was controlled by the pro "amnesty, pot, abortion confiscation of wealth (unless it is theirs)" Democrats (Johnson, Modem Times 649). However, Howmd Zinn views the scmidal differently, he affirms that because of the "unforeseen arrest by police unaware of the high-level

Wiedenmayer 15 connections of the burglars, the information was out to the public before anyone could stop it" (Zinn 398). Thus immediately forcing the President and Mitchell to lie to the public about their involvement. Therefore, if it was not for the unawmeness of the police the whole scmidal would not have been so widely covered, ultimately leading to infractions committed by the president and his officials. Watergate left a legacy in the media, changing the way that presidencies would be viewed for generations to come. The investigation of the Watergate Scandal was unprecedented. For centuries corruption in the White House was overlooked, giving the country a false sense of security. However, the news and media has drastically chmiged, unafraid of revealing the truth, and possibly leading to impeachment. Since Watergate, reporters fully exercised their right to freedom of press, mid their right has not been denied since.

TRANSCRIPTION Interviewee/Narrator: Benjamin Bradlee Interviewer: Jill Wiedenmayer

Wiedenmayer 16 Location: The Washington Post, Washington D.C. Date: December 12, 2005

Jill Wiedenmayer: This is Jill Wiedenmayer and I mn interviewing Ben Bradlee as a part of the American Century Oral History Project. The interview took place on December 12, 2005 at The Washington Post.

Benjamin Bradlee: ... And who's husband ran it for a while until he... well he was a manic depressive it turns out, and took his life. And so suddenly in her [Katherine Grahmn ] early in her emly forties she he had to decide what she was going to do when she grew up and whether she was going to sell the paper or take it over and try to run it. And she, in the first six or eight months she began to hear that it wasn't quiet as good as she thought it was mid by this time I'd had something to do with The Washington Post buying Newsweek. I had worked at Newsweek. And so she asked me to lunch, after fussing around about where the hell should she t ^ e me so that I wouldn't have to pay. So she took me to some dreadful club that she belonged to mid we became very involved with each other, very good friends, mid dependent on each other in a real sense. Luck pays a big role in all of this. We had a story called the Pentagon Papers in which The Post was able to play mi important role. Not as important as The New York Times in that case, but important. And then thmiks to President Nixon, we had Watergate mid that really put us on the map really big. And the rest of it seems to just happen.

JW: Would you say that Katherine Graham gave you the biggest opportunities?

After Graham's father's death she acquired control of The Washington Post. She became President of r/;ePo5? and then was Chairman of the Executive Committee until her death on July 17, 2001.

Wiedenmayer 17

BB: Sure. Hands down. The other opportunities, a lot of them were forced. Like WWII was forced and that seems so far back in history to you, but that was a big deal to me. I mean I was your age perhaps. How old are you now?

JW: I'm seventeen.

BB: Well, I was twenty, when I went off to war. I hadn't made any choices at that, I went mid had a very interesting time in the Pacific Ocean on a destroyer for three and half years. I couldn't find ajob afterwards if you want the truth, because there was a law that said all veterans were entitled to their jobs, job that they had held when they went off to war. Well I didn't have ajob when I went off to wm I just graduated from college, mid I didn't want to go back to college, I had my degree. So I couldn't find ajob. So I finally heard of a bunch of younger people who were starting a paper in New Hmnpshire and I went with them mid I had a marvelous time with them. But we went broke and the paper was sold. And it was then that I hooked up with The Washington Post. I god ajob here, and I stayed here. I was very inexperienced despite two years spent with the Weekly in New Hampshire. I was very inexperienced to be a reporter, but I had people who helped me a lot.

JW: at Harvard did you know what you wmited to do?

BB: Oh at Harvard. You know at Harvard I screwed up at Harvard because I arrived at Harvard the day that Hitler moved into Polmid and the Sudetenland and so as freshman we were

Wiedenmayer 18 confronted with the fact that we were going to war. Sure as God made apples and that was not terribly conducive to... You know, I didn't study all day long and I goofed, I didn't goof, I had an interesting time at college, but I would of loved to have gone to college when I was a serious student but I went when I was a not very serious young, probably young for my age, about to go to war. So that fouled that experience up. It made it interesting but I didn't learn a hell of a lot.

JW: Who or what gave you your greatest opportunity?

BB: Well, I guess Uncle Smn. Very soon in the war I was, I had been in the ROTC at Harvmd, and it wasn't very long before, we were. I was just twenty-one years old, I was driving that thing around, it was twenty-one hundred tons, it went thirty-eight miles and hour, it was three hundred feet long and thirty feet wide and it had a lot of guns and torpedoes mid stuff like that, its not what I was trained for but there I was doing it. And by the time I got out of there I was only... twenty-four I guess. I felt that I had accomplished certain things that made me... gave me a real shot at success or whatever I did.

JW: Would you say that being in the navy changed the way you felt about reporting on certain topics?

BB: I don't know about that. Because if you went to cover a murder trial or to question a slum landlord, which is my early assignments. The fact is it didn't have miything to do with the navy. I might of had something to do with giving me confidence, and stuff like that. No, it was a very maturing experience lets say that for the war. It made me a grown up fairly fast.

Wiedenmayer 19

JW: Well, what about the papers?

BB: Well, Pentagon Papers, yeah that was such an interesting story. Because the government rather foolishly made it top secret. And it described things that had happened between 1951 or 1952 and 1967. And this was '69, so what the hell was the great secret about it. But they wanted to make it a secrete. And as you know, you've studied this; The New York Times got a hold of the report. Classified, top secret, mid all that stuff. And they stmled to print it and we died, we died, we just didn't have it mid it was very importmit that The New York Times was not going to be as good as we were, and yet they were better than we were for a while, and then we got our own copy. And then the big problem was will the federal government allow us to print it. And a federal judge in New York had ruled that New York Times couldn't print it. And so when the editors and the lawyers mid the owners here were confronted with a problem. Okay you've got it now you want to print it, but hasn't this judge decided that it's against the law? And our problem was to convince Katherine Graham that she was not bound by a New York judge, that it was a New York judge that could tell her that she couldn't print what ever the hell she wanted to print. The District of Columbia judge could. So we had some pushing and shoving over that. And she finally one day she just said, "Okay, the hell with it. Let's do it, I'm going to do it". And that was a marvelous point in the history of this paper. It made everyone super cohesive and it gave her great confidence in us. And we were thrilled by her. She behaved with an enormous mnount of guts.

JW: Would you say this tenacious style of reporting was typical at the time?

Wiedenmayer 20

BB: Oh yeah, that's a little bit personality it think, its mine. I get motivated by finding the answer to things that I don't know the answer to. But I also get doubly motivated when people tell me I cant do it, your not aloud to, or your not good enough to, or something like that. It m ^ e s me put my nose down and my arse up and push ^ e a d even more.

JW: Do you think that same motivation helped Woodward and Bernstein?

BB: Yeah, well yeah. Woodward especially. I see things in Woodwmd that embarrass me, that were so me, I think in the early days. Carl Bernstein is different, he's sort of a hippie. And I came along to late to be a hippie, but they were a wonderful pair together. They complimented each other in a good way.

JW: What was your relationship with them before Watergate?

BB: Well, I memi they were young, they were in their twenties, I was in my forties. So they were really young enough... Well I guess they were in their late twenties. And I was forty... four, so they were a lot younger. Well not young enough to be my children, but they were very young and very new in the business. And that gave me some problems here, because the veterans here said, "Well they did find, starting the story, but now why don't you give it to us, and let us do it". Which I didn't do, because they were going so great, they were right.

JW: Them being so young mid inexperienced, did that change your trust with them?

Wiedenmayer 21

BB: It took them longer to earn it probably, but on the other hand, with people telling me I shouldn't trust them and when I did and they turned out to be right and the other people turned out to be wrong, I think we locked into each other more than natural. I mean they made one mistake in four hundred stories for god s^es, its just appalling.

JW: Could you recall the driving force behind the investigation, like what motivated it do you think?

BB: Well I think very very soon we realized that people in the highest reaches of government, including the president were lying. You know that's pretty series.

JW: On June 22, 1972, The Washington Post headlined, "Employer of 2 Tied to Bugging raised Money for Nixon" (see Appendix 3). And connecting Nixon very early to the scandal. Did that make you nervous?

BB: Not nervous, excited.

JW: Really?

BB: Well it made me doubly or triply if that were possible, to be sure that we were right. If you're lucky enough to have the President of the United States as the object of your inquiry mid he's lying mid your find out about it and you prove it, you have mi awful lot going for you. That

Wiedenmayer 22 was a fabulous time. You don't remember it because you weren't there, that story had this town by the throat, I mean people talked about nothing else, in my crowd. You get on the bus or you get on the subway or you get in cab, they were talking about it, the radio had it on. And I've never seen it happen again.

JW: How did you feel about making those connections so early on in the investigation?

BB: Well, we felt unbelievably excited the first three or four weeks because we found that it involved the White House, the money that was in the pockets of the burglars, we knew where that came from, and that was the Committee to Re-elect the President. We all of a sudden we went so far so soon. It took us right up to the White House. But, it was an election year, and a lot of people were saying, "Oh that's just The Post they're all commies down there". And President Nixon was re-elected with an enormous majority, and so we were very discouraged soon after that. But then Judge Sirica came in and it went in to the courts, and from the courts into the Senate, it just turned out that we were right and they were wrong.

JW: How did you overcome the excessive denials from the White House?

BB: Well, I'd gotten use to people lying to me. I think reporters get use to that early on. When Nixon... I mean I can still see that face, the first time he went on the television to talk about Watergate. He said that he couldn't tell all the details because it involved-1 can hem his voice "matters of national security" (Nixon impersonation). And that was bullshit. It didn't, it didn't. If the President of the United States to tell this country, war, the Russimis were coming and the

Wiedenmayer 23 atomic bombs were coming, if he told the truth. Bologna. And it's hard to understand, it was hmd for me to understand that President of the United States could lie to you like that.

JW: And you could just tell by...?

BB: Well we began to prove that his statements, to find evidence that his statements were wrong, that it didn't involve national security, it involved other things. It was just so obvious, it was obvious to everybody, the whole country knew he was lying in the end.

JW: What do you think of Charles Rangel's assumption, "That some people would say it was a great moment for the press, but others would say not it created this whole tribe of little Woodwmds and Bemsteins trying to bring down Presidents"?

BB: (laughs) Well I don't know where Chmlie Rangel said that. But sure, it was just a story. But it was right and it involved the President of the United States and it forced the President out of office for the first time in the history of our country. So it made alot of young journalist, would be journalists eager to share some of the glamour and glory that Woodward mid Bernstein were facing. But there are editors who can control those journalists. If you were a young journalist and you said, "Boy I know how to do this, I'm going to right a story that says, 'despite overwhelming evidence to country, the president today lied in front of the...'" you know, editors wouldn't you do that.

JW: Do you think it made journalism more popular?

Wiedenmayer 24

BB: Yes, a lot more popular, and a lot more popular, the stunning things to me was the number of people your age who got swept up into it. And the number, especially women who came into journalism, and rode that wave through college and into journalism. People who got out of college in the early seventies, seventy-five, seventy-six, it attracted a very good class of congressmen. The congressmen who were elected at that time were all highly motivated and highly patriotic, and moral people.

JW: You said it created a wave of women journalists?

BB: Well there weren't many women journalist before that. Again, I'm talking only about The Post. There was a wave of women journalists who came into The Post in fhe forties. Because the guys all had gone to war. And they needed reporters and they couldn't find reporters, so there were a handful, not a wave, but there was a hmidful, six or seven, in this newspaper, which had about maybe a hundred reporters, eight or ten percent of them were women. Because it wasn't a profession that women considered. But as a result of Watergate, the younger women that were in college during Watergate and then were joining the job core, the job pool, in seventy-four, seventy-five. There was a lot of women. They were very good writers. I have to admit that young women seemed to be better writers than young men at that stage of their lives.

JW: In your book you said that you thought the words, "according to sources" weren't good enough for citations.

Wiedenmayer 25 BB: No, its bad. You take what you can get. If somebody is giving you really important vital information, and for reasons best know to him that you know and understmid, you are faced with a problem, but you can do better that "according to sources". You can often amplify that. Is the source male or female? Is he... if it's a he, is he military or civilian? Is he navy or army? Is he a democrat or republicmi? Is he obvious from the south? Is he white or black? Is he, if he's talking about Israel; is he Jewish or not Jewish? There are all sorts of things that you can say. According to a source that works in the state department, verses a source that works in the defense department.

JW: Did you feel that smne way with Deep Throat?

BB: Deep Throat was a source that talked to Woodward only on the condition that he'd never be identified. And so this is a case when we inherited a restriction given by a post reporter, to protection, to a source. I mean, I didn't give it to him. And I probably would of, I know I would of given it to him eventually, but I probably would of tried to say, "Can't you do better than just a source". You can do better.

JW: On July 12, 1972, The Washington Post headlined. "A Mysterious 'Mr. X' Enters 'Bugging' Probe" (see Appendix 1-2). Are there...

BB: I don't even remember that story. June '72? July?

JW: July 12, 1972

Wiedenmayer 26

BB: Yeah that was right after the break in.

JW: Yeah, and well "Mr. X", the court had to keep him secret from the public. How did you feel about not revealing who people were to the public?

BB: Well, I don't like that. And I don't remember that pmticular story. I remember quoting somebody, a source that was known inside The Post as Deep Throat, but as I said, you try to give as much specificity as you can to the source. If you can't you cmi't. You've got to then decide, will I go in totally blind like that. Say just a source.

JW: In your opinion, how do you think Deep Throat's secrecy was kept so long?

BB: So few people knew it.

JW: Were you surprised when he was revealed?

BB: I think we were all surprised that it stayed as long. But for yems it was... I didn't know until after the president resigned, I didn't know until '74. And I was the third person to know. Well maybe I was the forth, because Woodwmd told his wife. And for years it was the first three, and when I knew four. But I knew in '74 and I was the last one until it all came out, I never told my wife.

Wiedenmayer 27

JW: Were there any close calls?

BB: Well it was so tight, four people know, two of them are living together, and there is absolutely know interest in my part in telling. Woodward and Bernstein, they made a career of Deep Throat. Deep Throat made them much more interesting, to have this mystery source like this and let everybody guess. My god books were written. Books. Many books written identifying different people as Deep Throat.

JW: What do you think of Michael Beschloss' statement that, "every President since Richard Nixon has been overshadowed by at least the possibility of a political scandal, sometimes used by their opponents"?

BB: Well there have been a lot of political scmidals. That's for sure. I don't know, the question that I wrestle with is, how mmiy scandals were there in the Roosevelt administration? He was president when I was your age, and I didn't learn a whole lot of scandals about him. And there was some scmidals... There was the Teapot Dome story, and that was a big scandal. That probably was not because there were no scandals, we just didn't know about them, and the reason we didn't know about them is that there was no culture in which journalists were interested in scandal. And there weren't that mmiy journalists. When president Roosevelt gave a press conference there were thirteen White House correspondents. Twelve men mid one woman. Mary Craig was the woman. She cmi from Portland. She had a big round hat with all sorts of frills on it (motioning the size and the frills with his hands). And she was (laughs)... Sort of a frumpy

Wiedenmayer 28 looking dame (laughing). It's so funny to think of it. Now you go to a press conference and there's a thousand people there.

JW: Do you think it was that they didn't know about the scandals, or they just didn't want to reveal them?

BB: Well nobody wants to reveal scandals if it's going to really cost them. God knows, think if Nixon could take all of that back he'd still be president today for god sakes. No, I mean I think... there is this great phrase in the bible that says, "the truth shall set you free", and I believe that. If you do believe in that, you believe in maximum disclosure. And there are a lot of people who don't wmit maximum disclosure in this town. Are you a native Washingtonian?

JW: Yeah, I was bom in D.C.

BB: When where you bom?

JW: 1988

BB: Yeah okay. Well there are a lot of people who don't wmit the truth out. They think they do, they say they do. But they certain don't want the truth about them out.

JW: There have been a lot of -gates since Watergate. Well there was Clinton. Do you think Watergate made it so journalists want to reveal all these scandals?

Wiedenmayer 29

BB: Certainly journalists are more awme if you have a role in uncovering a role in a major scandal, it's going to make you more famous than otherwise. I mean you're here because of the Watergate Scmidal. And your mother wasn't going around talking to editors, probably. Certainly mine wasn't. I think there's a danger that goes with that. That young reporters think that they can take a short cut to that. And so to create a scandal. And write a story as if it was totally scandalous, when maybe it isn't scandalous, or they cmi't prove it's scmidalous. So I think it behooved editors to pay even more attention to the copy, to be sure that the sources were good, and that the stories were really true.

JW: So you think that certain journalists are more focused on scandals mid not the exact details and wmit to make a scandal?

BB: I think they are awfully receptive to stories of scandal. But what's one person's scandal is another person's crime. If somebody is robbing a bank, it isn't really a scmidal, it's a crime. It becomes scandalous if the guy is the chairman of the board of his church or something like that. Or has a reputation for great probity. The President of the United States had that.

JW: What do you think of Paul Johnson's belief that "the imperial presidency was replaced by the imperial press"?

BB: Oh I don't know. I think there are people that me saying that the press got full of itself, and is swaging around town. But I don't know if that's true. The press did get more important. And

Wiedenmayer 30 there's programs now like Meet the Press. In the first place you've added television to it all, you've added thousands of hours of "news". It's so much more than it use to be. And the public is so much better educated. I think that's an excuse in itself for being for all of the new openness.

JW: What are a few things that you think have chmiged the most about journalism?

BB: Well, I'm going to surprise you (interviewer laughs). One of the things that is the most new is the design of newspapers. Newspapers are now quite easy to read. I mean the front pages of newspapers (looking around). The front pages of the sports section (picks up the sports section of The New York Times). They're really good looking and they're well designed. A lot of them are designed by women incidentally (shuffling through papers). And in the old days the newspapers (holding up the first page of The New York Times), The New York Times especially. This is six columns, there me six different columns, it use to be eight columns, so they were jammed in together. And there were no pictures at all on page one. You looked at it you, "Oh my god it will take me a month to read that". And so I think that's a big thing. The other thing is that I think the reporters are infinitely better educated. Fifty years ago, as many reporters never went to college, as went to college. I think that the young people, first place as I said there are a lot more women than before, I think that the writing is much better. The writing in some of the old newspapers that you read is unintelligible. And I think that people don't like newspapers all that much more. And people don't like to say that they like newspapers, but they really do (interviewer laughs). When no one is looking they like to read it. I remember, we've all go anecdotes on how important; there came a time when all news radio started in Washington. There was a station, two I think, that just nothing but news, around the clock news. It used to

Wiedenmayer 31 fascinate me, because I am such news junkie, that I would listen to this. These programs, WTOP, had all news radio. And in the early morning, I would listen to them, and then suddenly you could hear something. And what you heard was this (turns a newspaper page). And the guy was reading the newspaper. And the reason he was reading the newspapers was that the reporters for the all news radio station didn't come in until ten o'clock. And they went on the radio at six o'clock, so they had four hours to fill. That's just were they got their news, and that's still where they get their news. There's a conference everyday, for CBS news for instmice, it's a ten o'clock. And they decide what they're going to run on the nightly news show. Which is only twenty minutes, it isn't all that big a goddamn deal. But what stories they're going to work on. And what they start with is the morning The New York Times and the morning The Post. And that in other words, right there those two newspapers, in this town those two newspapers set the agenda for what's going to be discussed on radio, on television news, in congress, on the streets. You got a good sexy crime going on here, mid the town is talking about it. They're getting the news, in the first instance, from the papers. So the papers are doing fine.

JW: Do you think the newspapers have a bigger role now because of all the television?

BB: Well I don't go that far. I think they're better; the good newspapers are better than they've ever been. Now there are a few of them. But that isn't all that damn bad if you think of it. Why does there have to be seventy-five hundred daily newspapers in the country. When at a time, when there are seventy-five hundred say television radio newscasts all day. Back in the time when there were seventy-five hundred newspapers there weren't any television mid radio. So I think a hmid full of good newspapers me better than they've ever been. Specifically The Times,

Wiedenmayer 32 The Post, I fhmkBoston Global has become a very good paper, L.A. Times a little bit less.

JW: If you could write a high school history text book...

BB: God no.

JW: Well...

BB:IfI could. Okay.

JW: If you could write a section on Watergate what would you say?

BB: Watergate was the purposeful lying to the public about events by American leaders. I don't know how to boil it down to a sentence. Just 'cause the president says its so doesn't mean its so is one way of doing it. Just 'cause the bank says its so doesn't mean its so. Or just because just because all of these big shots with position mid access to newspapers. I taught a course at Georgetown, called "How to read a Newspaper" once. I said that I thought I could read a story in a newspaper and find a lie on page one. Something that the reporter was saying mid he was quoting somebody who didn't know the truth, or his was misquoting somebody. And I god these kids, no much older than you, they just loved that game. And they went through the papers this way, and they could find one or two lies on the front page of The New York Times or The Post everyday. Even though the lie might be the President of the United States saying, "I can't tell you about Watergate because it involves matters of national security", that was a lie. It generally

Wiedenmayer 33 takes a little bit longer than over night to prove it's a lie. People are talking about things they don't know anything about. People don't want the truth out because it involves a scandal, so they lie about that. Think of Clinton's lies about Monica Lewinsky, my god. Looks the world in the eyes mid say, "I did not have sexual relations with that"... And poor Monica Lewinsky, there she is, I must say I feel sorry for her. I mean so she was flirting with the President of the United States that's pretty heady stuff. But she (laughs) had no right to expect it. That she'd get in that kind of trouble.

JW: About "How to Read a Newspaper", and finding the lies, do you think you could have been able to find the same amount of lies in the front page thirty years ago?

BB: I don't know if I can answer that. I certainly wasn't motivated to do it. Because thirty years ago I was more trusting of authority than I am now. I mean I really didn't encompass the possibility that the President of the United States would lie.

JW: Well no so much the president, but journalist. Like miss-citing things or...

BB: Well if they misquote and it's a mistake that's why correction columns are so prevalent now [Holds up the second page of The New York Times]. This space here, corrections for the record, never existed. Newspapers never admitted they were wrong. And normally, that's only two in today's paper; normally they have eight or ten. Some of them me little bullshit things like misspellings. And the age given wasn't nineteen it was twenty, or something like that, that's silly.

Wiedenmayer 34

JW: Is there anything that you think I missed that you think would help me?

BB: Oh god you missed eighty-three years of my life (both laugh). No, I memi sure. I'm sure there's things that both of us missed. But you have a sense of how I feel generally about the subject.

JW: Well could you tell me a little more about yourself, like about your childhood?

BB: I was bom in Boston. My father was an All-Americmi football player. And a banker who went broke in the depression. And my mother had a little dress shop in Boston. And I went to college on a scholarship, and I went to war. And I went to New Hampshire. And I got ajob at The Post. And then I wanted to be a foreign correspondent because I thought that was so cool. I thought that was a great... There were great movies written about foreign correspondents and their adventures were very glamorous. And then I went to Europe. So I went to Europe first to work for Newsweek. And then I had a child who started to s p e ^ American with a French accent (both laugh). So I said "We got to get this little sucker home" (laugher). And cmne back and got ajob here at The Post. And I've been here ever since.

JW: What exactly did you do as a foreign correspondent?

BB: Well I was lucky in one sense because I worked for Newsweek. Newsweek was then the resolutely number two-news magazine. It wasn't like Time. You didn't say time you said Time

Wiedenmayer 35 Life. So whatever news event you went to cover they went six or seven strong. And they always had, which I envied more than anything else, was they had somebody which in... Do you speak French at all? They had somebody called a "gar^on on des eux", who was an older man generally, but he did all the little stuff. He got the hotel reservations and he got the, where did you file your copy, rent the cars and do all of that stuff that takes so long. And if you were doing it yourself, as I was, because I was the only person for Newsweek, So we had to work a lot hmder. But history happens on everyday of the week, but news magazines come out on the same day every week. So often we would fly into Alger, say if there was something there, and you land on the Friday morning and you would have to file the story Friday night. Because the deadline was Friday night. So that was doubly exciting to have to do it under the pressure of a deadline. Deadlines are very interesting things. There are five of them per day. Here there are five issues of every paper. So as soon as you get up in the morning you're facing a deadline that's twelve hours away. And then another one thirteen hours away. And then another, there just an hour apmt all night. It's exciting, it is very exciting. And I've been excited by it for a long time (both laugh).

INTERVIEW ANALYSIS

Journalist Mmk Feldstein believed that, "As important as Watergate was in political history, it was perhaps equally so in journalism history" (Feldstein Al). Watergate has been remembered in history as the scandal that brought down the President of the United States for the first time in American history. However, less noticeably it has been remembered as an example of journalism working at its best. Although documentation of the events that took place during

Wiedenmayer 36 the Nixon administration me importmit historical facts, the opinions and views of people who lived during that time is even more important. Oral history is an important component of documenting history because it contributes a personal perspective to historical events. The insight of the interviewee gives opinions and views that normal textbooks cannot express. In addition, oral history reveals interesting inside stories not revealed in normal historic documents. While history books "provide the who, what, when, and where of history; interviews can offer better insights into the how and why" (Ritchie 36). The oral history interview with Mr. Bradlee is a good exmnple of an in depth personal analysis that is revealed through his first hand experience. Mr. Bradlee's position at The Washington Post as Vice President at Lmge puts him at a higher status, and giving him more knowledge of the events during the Nixon Administration than most people who lived during that time. However, due to Mr. Bradlee's point of view from The Washington Post, he is inclined to have a different opinion of the meaning of the Watergate Scandal and role of the press. Personal opinions add mi interesting twist to otherwise historical fact, not all opinions are valid. Arthur Schlesinger believes that a historian's goal is to objectively record history, but objective history is unattainable due to unconscious preconceptions and background factors such as race, gender, age, and nationalism. (Schlesinger 53). Mr. Bradlee has been working at The Washington Post for over forty years, which makes his opinions on the subject valid, therefore adding more value to his interview. Mr. Bradlee has lived the majority of his life in direct contact with the press, for that reason he is able to accurately portray the progression of journalism and describe the effects the Watergate Scmidal has had on the press today. Therefore the historical significance of Mr. Bradlee's interview is to give an accurate opinion on how the Watergate Scandal changed the role of the press, thus dictating how the public views presidents today.

Wiedenmayer 37 The seventies were a very interesting time for journalism and the evolution of the journalist's duties. Vmious scandals had begun to surface during the Nixon administration. Mr. Bradlee had a deep involvement and interest in journalism. Beginning the journey in his job at a small newspaper in New Hampshire to his current position as The Washington Posts Vice President at Large. At the beginning of the interview, Mr. Bradlee immediately began talking about Katherine Grahmn, the former owner of The Washington Post at the time. They had a very close relationship and to this day he admires her courage mid strength in difficult political situations. He felt that Katherine Graham was a pioneer in the Pentagon Papers story, printing the classified files against the order of a New York Judge. Mr. Bradlee said that this dogmatism was typical at the time for reporters, however it is more centered in personality. He saw that same motivation in Woodward and Bernstein and feels the same way when he is driving investigations. What drove the Watergate investigation was the prompt revelation that senior officials of the executive branch were lying. Mr. Bradlee explained how the story took off within a couple of weeks, discovering that the White House mid the Committee to Re-elect the President were involved, and proving that the president's statements were lies. Mr. Bradlee felt that this was an important historical event because for the first time in history the diligent work of a journalist forced the President to resign. The investigation of the Watergate story inspired the press in covering politics. Mr. Bradlee believed that since Watergate, journalism has become increasingly popular. Many people went straight into journalism right out of college. This wave of interest in journalism also brought many great women journalists. This was in contrast to the forties when only about 6% of journalists were women. The revelation of the identity Deep Throat and the use of secret sources has recently

Wiedenmayer 38 spmked the interest of the public and the press. However some question whether reporters should rely as much they do on the words "according to sources". Mr. Bradlee believes that the words "according to sources" are not enough; because there are so many other ways a source can be specified, such as nationality or profession. However, in the special case of Deep Throat, absolute secrecy was needed. The protection of the Deep Throat's identity was imperative to conceal his high position in the FBI, which gave him the ability to reveal secret information about the Watergate story. Since the Watergate Scandal, there have been more White House scandals revealed then ever before. It was not until twenty years after Kennedy died that his sexual affairs were revealed (Wiedenmayer 6). Michael Beschloss believes that Watergate has changed the media as well as the political world in that, "ever President since Richard Nixon has been overshadowed by at least the possibility of a political scandal" (Wiedenmayer 27). Watergate has triggered a whole serious of -gates since, such as Filegate and Irangate . However, Mr. Bradlee argues that there were many scandals before Nixon. There were numerous scandals during the Roosevelt administration and the Hmding administration," Well there have been a lot of political scandals. That's for sure. I don't know, the question that I wrestle with is, how mmiy scandals were there in the Roosevelt administration" (Wiedenmayer 27). Therefore, Beschloss is right that there have been more scandals revealed, but what Bradlee argues is that there were just as many scandals before, but they just were kept secret. Before Watergate, journalists were not as interested in scandals. Only about thirteen journalists would attend at press conferences. While now there are

The illegal possession and scrutiny of 300 to 900 FBI files by the Clinton Administration without the file's subjects jermission permission Refers Iran-Contra affair. Uni Refers to to the the Iran-Contra affair. The The United States sold weapons to Iran and diverted the proceeds to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. (A.K.A. Contragate)

Wiedenmayer 39 thousands of people at President Roosevelt's' press conferences. Mr. Bradlee came to the conclusion that journalists today dictate what they want in the newspaper. Today Journalists are more aware of scandals, in hopes of becoming famous, like Woodwmd and Bernstein. Mr. Bradlee feels that many people masquerade by saying that they want the truth, but in reality they are against "maximum disclosure" (Wiedenmayer 28). This statement agrees with historian Eric Alterman's view. He believes that, "Dishonesty has become so pervasive a part of our public discourse that in some cases, the very same people who pose as defenders of the absolute truth feel no compunction about relying on deception to do so" (Wiedenmayer 5). Mr. Bradlee says that journalists me more aware of the consequences of certain actions; therefore they may stretch a crime into a scandal in hopes of the possibility of fame. However, Mr. Bradlee believes that "the truth shall set you free", and today journalists do not seem to be as concerned with the truth, but more about what story could become a scandal (Wiedenmayer 28). Although the public would like to believe that everything printed in the newspaper is true, the newspapers have the power to "write a story as if it was totally scandalous, when maybe it isn't scandalous, or they cmi't prove it's scmidalous" (Wiedenmayer 29). Mr. Bradlee therefore believes that people should be more skeptical of what they read or hem. Everyday there are lies, though not major ones, on the front page of the newspaper. For example, Watergate and recent presidencies, such as the Clinton presidency, have proven that presidents don't always tell the truth. However, Zinn believes that the press has other motives for printing scandalous stories. Zinn believes that the "Mass circulation of magazines fostered mi atmosphere of revenge" (Zinn 519). Although this may be proven true through the numerous attacks on Nixon, such as by the Pentagon Papers and Watergate, Mr. Bradlee believes that this power the press has acquired has only made the newspapers more careful, "So I think it behooved editors to

Wiedenmayer 40 pay even more attention to the copy, to be sure that the sources were good, and that the stories were really true" (Bradlee 29). Therefore the progression of journalism has changed the power of the press. The press is more powerful, as exemplified in Nixon and Clinton's presidencies, to the extent where the press can bring down a president. Along with the role of the press, many other elements of the media have chmiged. Mr. Bradlee believes that the print press has become more extensive and more imperative to educating the public. Therefore, other media, such as radio mid television, has become dependent on newspapers, increasing the role of newspapers mid the importance of good reporting. Bradlee believes that there are a few good newspapers that "set the agenda for what's going to be discussed on radio, on television news, in Congress, on the streets" (Wiedenmayer 31). Even though it is not evident, radio and television rely heavily on the newspapers and the wire services. Paul Johnson agrees that the media industry has become increasingly more powerful. He believes that Watergate only became a big scandal because, "the Post had Watergate stories on its front page seventy-nine times during the election and from October 10th began a publication of series of 'investigative' mticles seeking to make the Watergate burglmy a more moral issue" (Johnson, A History of the American People 900). This means that the power of the press has changed. Due to the formatting of the newspaper and the stories printed the front page, newspapers can dictate which crimes are more serious, and can ultimately turn into a presidential scmidal. The cause of the growing number of scandals in presidential administrations is debatable. It has been revealed that numerous presidents such as Roosevelt and Kennedy had sexual affairs while in the White House. However, during that time these scandals were not revealed. Paul Johnson believes that, "working journalists protected Roosevelt on a large number of occasions.

Wiedenmayer 41 over his love affairs and many other matters. They did the same - mid more - for Kennedy" (Johnson, A History of the American People 898). Although Mr. Bradlee acknowledges the unrevealed scandals of past presidents he claims, "there was no culture for journalists to be interested in scandal" (Wiedenmayer 27). He goes on to explain that during the Roosevelt administration there were fewer journalists, and even fewer concerned with presidential matters. Although these two opinions contrast on the reported scandal of former presidents, they both agree that the Watergate investigation was the catalyst in the transformation of journalism. The oral history project has taught me the difference between historical text and oral history. A person's personal experience is a vital in addition to historical fact. Mr. Bradlee lived through the Depression, WWII, the Vietnmn War, and hundreds of stories that went in and out of the newspaper headlines. His interview gave first hand accounts of the power of the press mid personal stories that would not be found in any other archive. He explained the lack of journalists prior to Watergate, and their lack of interest in political scandals. He believes that the weakness of journalists today is that they are too thirsty for a scandal to achieve recognition. On the other hmid, Mr. Bradlee pointed out that the writing and organization of journalism currently is better than ever before. During Mr. Bradlee's interview he said that his favorite quote to live by is, "the truth shall set you free" (Wiedenmayer 16). That biblical reference stands true when judging the progress the journalism. The truth about the past is validated by oral history, which bears witness by the participmits in history.

Wiedenmayer 42

Wiedenmayer 43
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A Mysterious "Mr. X' Enters ^Bugging' Probe

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Govenuneiit prosecutors. have revealed that tbey are asldng questions about a person t h e ; identify only as "Hr. X' In a grand jury invesUgAtion of alleged buggLng of OemocratJc Paxty headquart e n fit the Watergate Hotel. In papers Illed In U.S. District Court here, the prosecttlors List Mr. X only as a cloK friend ot K Howsrd Hunt Jr, the former Central InteUlgence Agency employee and lonner White House conmltsnt who has been songbt for questioning in the esse. According to the court papers, an important witness be-^ fore the grand jury, attorney M. Douglas Caddy, is refUslne to answer questions about Ur. X an groands that he is the n u n ' s attorney and that be therefore Is protected by a socalled "attorney-client privllege." Caddy, 34, Is a mystenotts fieure in the Watergate affair. He first appeared at the arrMgnnient of the ftve defendants on the day they were arrested Inside Deoiocratic beadquorten.
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Since that time, according t o tie court papers, Caddy has asserted to the grand h a y that h e represents not only B&. X but also Hunt, Hunt's wife, and each of the five arrested defendants. He has so far refOsed to answer more than S5 different questions before the grand }ury on grounds that he has an attoniey-cUcnt privilege with sU of thcoe persons, according to the couK p e p e n . The papers were filed by U S . Attorney Harold H. Titua Jr. and other federal prosecutors as part of a motion to compel Caddy to answer questions before the grand jury. It was the second time the government has moved to have Csddy ordered to testify before the grand jury. On June 30 the govemment said Caddy had refused to answer wlwther he knew Hunt and v b e t h e r he bad bnown Bunt before 1&7D, at the time wneu Caddy was admitted to practice law here. , See INCIDENT, C t , Oel, 2
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Wiedenmayer 44

Mysterious "Mr. X' Enters "Bug" Prohe

INCIDENT, F n n n C I At that time. Sirica ordered Caddy to answer. According to the court papers, Caddy answ^^d those two specific qnestlons about Hunt but then invoked the attorney-dlent privilege in response to more than 30 other questions asked of him. The paper* say .that "about 50 times" during the grand jury proceed logs. Cadet? reyiftdftA. mrt. was. Wanted permission to leave the room and talk with his attorneys, Caddy's actions have "delayed, disrupted and frustrated orderly investigative proceedings of the grand jury." Titus alleges in the papctsI U-S. District Court Chief iJudge John J. Sirica Is expected to bear arguments and to rule on Titus's motion ItodB)-. Caddy, 34, a graduEte of Georgetown University and New York University Law School, was the first executive director of the conservative Young Americans for Freeidom and was a leader In the .early 1960's of the Youth for Gold water organl2aljon. In their papers, the proseeutors say they are wlUiholding the identity of Mr. X during the grand jury proceedings. The papers include a list of questions that Caddy was asked and refused to answer. Those questions only serve to heighten the mystery regarding the identity ol Xob toinamed person. For example. Caddy was! asked, "To your knowledge,! has Mr. X ever used any names other than his own name of Mr. X?" I Caddy was also asked when fc laf uuF and SDOke with Mr. X, wftat fee o r tt^aiaer arrangement be had as Hr. XTa attorney, and whether he received any telephone calls from Mr. X in the early morning hours t)l June 17at the time the five arrests were made at the Watergate. The court papers indicate that much of the quesUonlog of Caddy has been an effort to establish how Culdy was retained BS an attorney in. the case, under what drcum-guarter-niile of the Watergate on those days, he invoked the attorney-client privilege, according to the papers. No one interviewed yesterday would disclose the Identity of Mr. X. "This Is one of the most incredible bits of absurdity I've ever witnessed. Obviously the BaO Reform Act means nothing." Defense attorneys dtting in the courtroom called Greene's Suspect Post3 Batti ruling unusual. Judge Delays ftelease Eothhlatt said he hopes to D.C Superior Court Chief have the remaining two deJudge Harold H. Greene refendant% Bernard Barker and fused yesterday to speed up Frank Sturgla, released the release of a defendant who had posted bond In the Demo"vrltMn a few days." Both are cratic ftaftonai t-omnitttee hniflii tuOrt. n. URH- of- ^ . p o o I bugging case despite the | bonds. "notoriety" of the case.

fjaiicas. VIA. h^ whfun..

Caddy origlnaUy told reporters that he had been called by the wife o( Bernard L. Barker, one of the Sve arrested men, shortly after 3 a m, on June 17. -She said that her husband i told her to call me if he hadn't! called her by 3 autn,, that It' might mean trouble," Caddysaid. The arrests at the Watergate were made shortly after 2:30 ajn. The papers reveal tluti Caddy has admitted receiving! approximately a half-dozen telephone calls and making a ha!f.dozen others between I midnight and 8:30 a.ni. on the j day of the arrests. He reportedly refused to answer questions about those I phore calls for the grand jury. | According to the court papers,; p r o s e c u t o r s asked himi Wnfccftfer-ut-i eceeJeo'^-fcj'^c'iUf from Hunt, Blrs. Barker, or Mr.X. The court papers also disclose that Csddy denied seeing Hunt at the Watergate or within three blocks of the' Watergate oa Jnne IS or June 17. But when he was nskedi whether he saw Hunt within a

The defendant. 'Virgilio B-' {Gonzalez, posted $4,00010 1 per cent of a SW.OOo bondat a 5 p.m. hearing before Judge ' Greene, but the iuiage said he .was declining to release bimi due to the lateness of the hour and because other prisoners in court bad already been re' turned to Jail lor the night. Ignoring defen requests that a U.S. marshal make a ^ e d a l trip to bring Gonzalez from the jail to the court during the hearing, Greene said, "This case may have all Idnds I of notoriety, but to me it's like i any other case. He's going to | be treated like any other de-| fendant." ] Gonialez"s sttoraey, Hemyj B. Rothblatt, saW, "A person; .RhQwW.oot_b*',oenaljiied Jiy the I mechanics of incarceration.") . He urged Greene to order! ;Gonialez's immediate release,] and said the defendant had already signed a court paper . stating he was aware of the. penalties for bond jumping. Rothblatt told reporters 'after GreeQ s I'lniQ runng,

I Suspect Held In Methadone Clinic Slaying

Metropolitan police yesterday arrested Cedl Romero Curry. 30. and charged him with murder in the Monday Shooting death of a Northwest man waiting in line at a methadone maintenance center. I Curry was arrested at lUs 'home, 11516th St. SE at 6 a.m., 'police reported. 1 He was charged in the death lof Norman Tate, 30, of 133fl jMIssourl Ave- NW. Tate was jshot by a man who cut In frobC of htm in line at a methadone maintenance center ot 45S C St. NW. The shooUng followed an argument betvfeen Tate and the gunman. Tale was employed by a private contractor as a Job developer for a D.C halfway roouse.

Wiedenmayer 45

Wiedenmayer 46

Employer of 2 Tied To Bugging Raised Money for Nixon

. By Carl Bernstein WuiucKwn roH s u n wiiur Robert F. Bennett, president of t h e Washington public relations firm in whose office two fignres mentiimed in t h e Democratic National Commltr tee bogginB ease have worked, acknowledged yesterday that he was t h e principal organiier of dnmmy campaign cofnmittees to raise m<mey for the reelection of P r e s i d o i t Niz<Mi. Douglas Caddy, a lawyer originaQy retained by Ave suspects arrested in the incident Saturday, worked In one of Bennett's offices while he was liaison lietween Bennett's firm and General Foods, a major client of the Urm. He shared t h e office with Howard E. Hunt Jr., a Central InteilJgence Agency employee for 23 years who has been employed as a writer for Bennett. Hunt*s name was found in address books !>elonging to two of the five men arrested, along, with a stamped, onmailed envelope containing Hunt's personal check for S6 to a local country club. T h e fnnd-ralsing committees that Bennett formedbearing names such as Supporters of the American Dream were esUhllshed in ISTl as a means of legally collecting .Vlxon campaign conUibutionB with-. out reporting them under the,* Federa] Corrupt Practices .^ct, according to Bennett. BennelL said he shut the committees d o w n s e v e r a l months ago. however, "when we became front page news and a lot of people got scared" that they might be making illegal contrtbntion.^ Committees like those established by Benneu reportedly raised a portion of $10 million collected for t h e Presulent's reelection before A p r i l 7.! when the C o r m p t ^ a e t i c e s Act was supplanted by a new campaign reporting law t h a t requires full disdosiire o aD contntntlo&s. F o r m e r Attorney General John N. MitchcH, now Nixon's campaign cbairman, has refused Demofiatic demands and requests from newsmen that the contributors of t h e $10 million be Identified. .^.mong contributions sent to^ the organizatltHiE was a total] of S32S,000 given 68 different | committees by the poliUcalj arm of t h e Associated Milki Producers, I n c , a cooperative with more than 30,000 member fkrms in 20 states. The contributions led to a suit filed by Ralph Nader's Public CitiKns. I n c . whidi chained that the Nixoo adminlstratioB raise government milk support prices as a payoff for the donations. In all, from 75 to 90 committees were established by Bennett and "people who told me they would set them up for me . . . i t was a sort of a chain-reaction thing," he said. Bennett is the son of conservative Bepuhiican Sen. I Wallace F. BenneU of Utah. !He beads t h e firm of Robert B. Mullen & Co. Ben not I said yesterday that Hunt has failed to re|>ort to work since bis name vas mentioned In connection with Ihc invesliuation of tlic bugging incident, and thai he has suiipended Hunt "uniil he comes to work." "I don't really know what' will happen when he comes back to work." Bennolt said yesterrlay- "I am as interested in rinding out what involvementif anybe may have had as anybody else. "Tbe only comment I have from him is a flat denial that he was anywhere near t h e Watergate (the location of the Democratic National Committee offices) Saturday night and I take that a t face lotue."

Wiedenmayer 47 TIME INDEXING LOG

0:00 - 9: 04 -World War II & Early Years at The Washington Post 9:05- 16: 15-Watergate 16:20 - 19:40 - Progression of Journalism 19:40 - 24:55 - Newspaper Sources 24:55-30:15-Scandals 30:15 - 36:40 - Power of the Press 36:40 - 41: 13 - Lies in the Newspaper 41:15-45:15-Early Life

Wiedenmayer 48 WORKS CONSULTED

1. Alterman, Eric. When Presidents Lie. New York: the Penguin Group, 2004. 2. Bernstein, Carl. "Employer of 2 Tied to Bugging Raised Money for Nixon." The Washington Post 22 June 1972: A9. 3. Bachinski, E.J. and Bob Woodward. "White House Consultant Tied to Bugging Figure." The Washington Post 20 June 1972: Al. 4. Bernstein, Carl and Bob Woodward. All the President's Men. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1974. 5. Bradlee, Ben. A Good Life:Newspapering and Other Adventures. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1995. 6.Cook, Blanche . Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol. 1: 1884-1933 . New York: Viking Adult, 1993. 7. Drehle, David. "FBI's No. 2 Was 'Deep Throat': Mark Felt Ends 30-Year Mystery of the Post's Watergate Source." The Washington Post 1 June 2005: Al. 8. The Editorial Staf^ of The Washington Post. "Mr. Woodward's Sources." The Washington Post 19 November 2005: A24. 9. Emery, Fred. Watergate: the Corruption of Americmi Politics and the fall of Richard Nixon. New York: Times Books, 1994. 10. Feinberg, Barbara. Watergate: Scandal in the White House. U.S.A.: Twentieth Century American History, 1990. 11. Feldstein, Mm^k. "Watergate Revisited." American Journalism Review 08 2004. 06 Feb 2006 <http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3735> 12. Flynn, John. The Roosevelt Myth. New York: Fox & Wilkes, 1948. 13. Greenberg, David. Nixon's Shadows. New York: Norton & Company Inc., 2003. 14. Johnson, Paul. A History of the American People. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1998. 15. Johnson, Paul. Modem Times: The World from the Twenties to the Eighties. New York: Harper & Row Inc., 1983. 16. Mmin, Jim. "A Mysterious 'Mr. X' Enters 'Bugging' Probe." The Washington Post 12 July

Wiedenmayer 49 1972: CI. 17. Matthews, Christopher. Kennedy & Nixon. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1996. 18. Muzzio, Douglas. Watergate Gmiies. New York: New York University, 1982. 19. Ritchie, Donald A. Doing Oral History: a Practical Guide. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 20. Thomdike, Joseph. "Historical Perspective: The Unhappy History of Private Tax Collection." Tax History Project 20 Sept 2004. 06 Feb 2006 <http ://www.taxhistory. org/thp/readings.nsf/( Articles)/FD 1F76 A4AF1313 5185256F 17005D0A57?OpenDocument> 21. Witcher, Russ. After Watergate: Nixon and the Newsweeklies. Laham: University Press of America Inc., 2000. 22. Woodwmd, Bob, and Cmi Bernstein. "Stans Denies GOP Money Funded Watergate Break-In." The Washington Post 27 Aug 1972: Al 23. Woodwmd, Bob, and Cmi Bernstein. The Final Days. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1976. 24. Yoffe, Emily. "Fiddling Around: How the Media (reluctmitly) cmiie to report on Clinton's sexual behavior." Slate 28 Feb 1998. 05 Dec 2005 <http://www.slate.com/id/2491/> 25. Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States. New York: The New Press, 1997.