A prize-winning science reporter, Simons had become the number-two editor at the Post a year before. An intent, sensitive man with a large nose, thin face and deep-set eyes, he looks like the kind of...

Deep Throat stamped his foot. ‘A conspiracy like this…a conspiracy investigation…the rope has to tighten slowly around everyone’s neck. You build convincingly from the outer edges in, you get ten times the evidence you need...

The managing editor shared Bernstein’s fondness for doping things out on the basis of sketchy information. At the same time, he was cautious about what eventually went into print. On more than one occasion, he...

It was 9:30 P.M., just an hour from deadline for the second edition. Woodward began typing:A $25,000 cashier’s check, apparently earmarked for the campaign chest of President Nixon, was deposited in April in the bank...

Aware that much of the story was out of his hands, he tried to exercise what control he could: he hovered around the reporters’ typewriters as they wrote, passed them questions as they talked on...

The August 1 story had carried their joint byline; the day afterward, Woodward asked Sussman if Bernstein’s name could appear with his on the follow-up story – though Bernstein was still in Miami and had...

Rosenfeld went to work for the Herald Tribune after his graduation from Syracuse University and has always been an editor, never a reporter. He was inclined to worry that too many reporters on the metropolitan...

Sussman had the ability to seize facts and lock them in his memory, where they remained poised for instants recall. More than any other editor at the Post, or Bernstein and Woodward, Sussman became a...

Rosenfeld runs the metropolitan staff, the Post’s largest, like a football coach. He prods his players, letting them know that he has promised the front office results, pleading, yelling, cajoling, pacing, working his facial expressions...

Hardly unaware of his image, Bradlee even cultivated it. He delighted in displaying his street savvy, telling a reporter to get his ass moving and talk to some real cops, not lieutenants and captains behind...

But you’re absolutely sure we’re right?’ The question carried an intensity absent from the previous conversation. ‘I remember talking with Henry Kissinger,’ she continued, ‘and he came up and said ‘What’s the matter, don’t you...

The invariable question, asked only half-mockingly of reporters by editors at the Post (and then up the hierarchical line of editors) was ‘What have you done for me today?’ Yesterday was for the history books,...

We are in the process of creating what deserves to be called the idiot culture. Not an idiot sub-culture, which every society has bubbling beneath the surface and which can provide harmless fun; but the...

Woodward said that he had told no one the name of Deep Throat.Mrs. Graham paused. ‘Tell me,’ she said.Woodward froze. He said he would give her the name if she wanted. He was praying she...

Bradlee had been recruited with the idea that the New York Times need nod exercise absolute preeminence in American journalism.That vision had suffered a setback in 1971 when the Times published the Pentagon Papers. Though...

To those who will decide if he should be tried for ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ -the House of Representatives-And to those who would sit in judgment at such a trial if the House impeaches -the...

Soon, challenges against the Post’s ownership of two television stations in Florida were filed with the Federal Communications Commission. The price of Post stock on the American Exchange dropped by almost 50 percent. Among the...

During discussions in his office, Bradlee frequently picked up an undersize sponge-rubber basketball from the table and tossed it toward a hoop attached by suction cups to the picture window. The gesture was indicative both...

June 17, 1972. Nine o’clock Saturday morning. Early for the telephone. Woodward fumbled for the receiver and snapped awake. The city editor of the Washington Post was on the line. Five men had been arrested...

Woodward, a registered Republican, did not vote. He couldn’t decide whether he was more uneasy with the disorganization and naïve idealism of McGovern’s campaign or with Richard Nixon’s conduct. And he believed that not voting...

At heart, Sussman was a theoretician. In another age, he might have been a Talmudic scholar. He had cultivated a Socratic method, zinging question after question at the reporters: Who moved over from Commerce to...

They walked across 15th Street to the Madison Hotel’s Montpelier Room, an opulent French restaurant. Bradlee asked for a corner table, and began the conversation. ‘You’d better bring me up to date because…’ He turned...

Bernstein looked like one of those counterculture journalists that Woodward despised. Bernstein thought that Woodward’s rapid rise at the Post had less to do with his ability than his Establishment credentials.They had never worked on...

Simons, as restrained as Bradlee could be hard-charging and obstreperous, liked to tell of watching Bradlee grind his cigarrettes out in a demitasse cup during a formal dinner party. Bradlee was one of the few...

Until the August 1 story about the Dahlberg check, the working relationship between Bernstein and Woodward was more competitive than anything else. Each had worried that the other might walk off with the remainder of...