Bernstein, Carl 1944- and Woodward, Bob 1943-

BERNSTEIN, CARL 1944- AND WOODWARD, BOB 1943-

Newspaper journalists

From Newspaper Reporters to Media Stars

Between the 1972 Watergate break-in and the 1974 resignation of President Richard M. Nixon, two reporters for the Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, were acclaimed for their investigative journalism. As a result of their exposure of the Watergate affair, they became subjects of media attention themselves, and their success spurred a revival of investigative reporting in the United States. As Ben Bradlee, their editor, observed in 1975, "They're part of American folklore now. Everybody knows their names." Their book All the President's Men (1974) was a best-seller and became the basis for a well-known film two years later in which they were portrayed, respectively, by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.

Different Backgrounds

Bob Woodward grew up the son of a lawyer in conservative Wheaton, Illinois, and attended Yale University on a Naval ROTC scholarship. The son of liberal Jewish parents, Carl Bernstein grew up in the greater Washington, D.C., area and began working after high school as a copyboy for the Washington Star. During the 1960s Bernstein worked his way up to reporter, beginning work for the Washington Post in 1966, while Woodward completed his education at Yale, served on an aircraft carrier after graduation, and worked in communications at the Pentagon. In 1970 Woodward started working as a reporter for the Montgomery County Sentinel of Rockville, Maryland. He was hired by the Washington Post a year later.

"Woodstein."

Woodward, unlike the volatile Bernstein, soon earned the confidence of executive editor Bradlee, who assigned Woodward to help on the story about the 17 June 1972 break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate complex. Bernstein was also working on the story, and they were mentioned, with six other reporters, at the end of the first Watergate story, written by Alfred Lewis, that appeared in the Washington Post on 18 June. The following day their first joint story was published, beginning a long series of collaborative investigative reporting in which they tenaciously tracked down sources and worked seven days a week, twelve to eighteen hours a day, to build an obscure story into a national obsession. Bit by bit, "Woodstein" (as the team became known at the newspaper), with the assistance of city editor Barry Sussman, linked the burglary to members of the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP), revealing in the process that the organization had received approval from White House officials. In 1972 Woodward and Bernstein were among the recipients of the prestigious George Polk Memorial Award for outstanding achievements in journalism. They also won the Pulitzer Prize.

Fame and Fortune

The pair worked on writing All the President's Men in the latter half of 1973. They received a $55,000 advance from Simon & Schuster, $25,000 for a serialization in Playboy in May and June 1974, and $30,000 from the Book-of-the-Month Club. Released exactly two years after the Watergate break-in, it remained on The New York Times best-seller list for fifteen weeks. Avon Books paid $1 million for paperback rights, the most paid for a nonfiction paperback book at the time. While a popular and critical success, some critics have argued that the book took creative license with the actual events. Others believe the critically acclaimed and commercially successful movie went even further. In 1974 Robert Redford's production company paid nearly half a million dollars for the film rights to All the President's Men, which featured Jason Robards as Bradlee, Hal Holbrook as Woodward's anonymous source "Deep Throat," Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein, and Redford as Woodward.

Separate Ways

The two reporters wrote a less successful 1976 book on Nixon's fall, The Final Days, whose title accurately describes their own professional relationship. Bernstein resigned from the Washington Post in 1976 to write books and freelance articles for periodicals such as Rolling Stone; he also worked for ABC from 1979 to 1983. Woodward also worked on books but remained at the newspaper, becoming assistant managing editor of the metro section in 1979. Woodward aided Bernstein in the latter's book about his youth, called Loyalties (1989).

Sources:

Adrian Havill, Deep Truth: The Lives of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (New York: Birch Lane Press, 1993);

Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, All the President's Men (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974).