Katharine Graham

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article does not cite any references or sources. (March 2008)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Katharine Meyer Graham (June 16, 1917 – July 17, 2001) was an American publisher. She led her family's newspaper, The Washington Post, for more than two decades, overseeing its most famous period, the Watergate coverage that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Graham's father, Eugene Meyer, was a financier and, later, a public official. He bought The Washington Post in 1933 at a bankruptcy auction. Her mother, Agnes Ernst, was a bohemian intellectual, art lover and political activist in the Republican Party, who shared friendships with people as diverse as Auguste Rodin, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt, and worked as a newspaper reporter at a time when journalism was an uncommon profession among women.

Graham lived a privileged childhood. Her parents owned several homes across the country, but primarily lived between a veritable 'castle' in Mount Kisco, New York and a smaller home in Washington, D.C. Graham often did not see much of her parents during her childhood, as both traveled and socialized extensively, and was raised in part by nannies, governesses and tutors. As a young adult, Graham felt she had been sheltered by such privilege.

Her elder sister Florence Meyer (1911-1962) was a successful photographer and wife of actor Oscar Homolka.

Graham was an alumna of The Madeira School (to which her father had donated much land) and attended Vassar College before transferring to the University of Chicago. In Chicago, she became quite interested in labor issues and shared friendships with people from walks of life very different from her own. After graduation, she worked for a short period at a San Francisco newspaper where, among other things, she helped cover a major strike by wharf workers.

Graham began working for the Post in 1938. While in Washington D.C., Kay met an old schoolmate, Will Lang Jr. The two dated, but broke off the relationship due to conflicting interests.

[edit] Family

On June 5, 1940 she married Philip Graham, a graduate of Harvard Law School and a clerk for Stanley Reed.

[edit] Leadership of The Washington Post

Philip Graham became publisher of the Post in 1946, when Meyer left that position to become head of the World Bank. Meyer left that position only six months later; he was Chairman of the Washington Post Company until his death in 1959, when Philip Graham took that position and the company expanded with the purchases of television stations and Newsweek magazine.

[edit] Social life and friends

The Grahams were important members of the Washington social scene, becoming friends with John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Bobby Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, and Nancy Reagan among many others.

In her 1997 autobiography, Graham comments several times about how close her husband was to politicians of his day (he was instrumental, for example, in getting Johnson to be the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee in 1960), and how such personal closeness with politicians later became unacceptable in journalism.

[edit] Philip Graham's illness and death

After several years of suffering from bipolar disorder, Philip Graham had a nervous breakdown. Around this time, Katharine discovered her husband had been cheating on her with Robin Webb, an Australian stringer for Newsweek. Her husband declared that he would divorce Katharine for Robin and he made motions to divide up the couple's assets.

At a newspaper conference in Phoenix, Arizona, Philip Graham had a nervous breakdown. Katharine flew to Arizona to retrieve him by private jet, and her sedated husband was flown back to Washington. Philip was taken to the private Chestnut Lodge psychiatric facility near Washington, D.C. He was released after a short stay; subsequently suffered a major depression; and then returned to the facility. In 1963, during a weekend release from Chestnut Lodge, while at the couple's Glen Welby home, he committed suicide.

[edit] Ascension to power

Katharine Graham assumed the reins of the company, and of the Post, after Philip Graham's suicide. Graham was de facto publisher of the newspaper from 1963 onward, formally assuming the title in 1979, and chairman of the board from 1973 to 1991. As the only woman to be in such a high position at a publishing company, she had no female role models and had difficulty being taken seriously by a many of her male colleagues and employees. Graham outlined in her memoir her lack of confidence and distrust in her own knowledge. The convergence of the women's movement with Graham's ascension to power at the Post brought about changes in Graham's attitude, and also led her to promote gender equality within her company.

Graham hired Benjamin Bradlee as editor and cultivated Warren Buffett for his financial advice; he became a major shareholder and something of an eminence grise in the company. Her son Donald was publisher from 1979 to 2000.

[edit] Watergate

Graham presided over the Post at a crucial time in its history. The Post played an integral role in unveiling the Watergate conspiracy, and ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Graham and editor Bradlee first experienced challenges when they published the content of the Pentagon Papers. When Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein brought the Watergate story to Bradlee, Graham supported their investigative reporting, and Bradlee ran stories about Watergate when few other news outlets were reporting on the matter.

In conjunction with the Watergate scandal, Graham was the subject of one of the best-known threats in American journalistic history. It occurred in 1972, when Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, warned reporter Carl Bernstein about a forthcoming article: "Katie Graham's gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that's published." The two words "her tit" were cut on publication.

[edit] Other accomplishments and recognition

Graham had strong links to the Rockefeller family, serving both as a member of the Rockefeller University council and as a close friend of the Museum of Modern Art, where she was honored as a recipient of the David Rockefeller Award for enlightened generosity and advocacy of cultural and civic endeavors (see External links below).

In 1973, Graham received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Colby College.

In 1997, Graham published her memoirs, Personal History. The book was praised for its honest portrayal of Philip Graham's mental illness, and received rave reviews for her depiction of her life, as well as a glimpse into how the roles of women have changed over the course of Graham's life. The book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998.

[edit] Death

In 2001, Graham suffered a fall while visiting Sun Valley, Idaho. She died three days after the fall, due to trauma resulting from her fall-related head injury. Her funeral took place at the Washington National Cathedral.

[edit] Trivia

The character of newspaper owner Margaret Pynchon (played by Nancy Marchand) on the TV drama Lou Grant was said to have been loosely based on Graham.[1]

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

  • Katharine the Great, an unauthorized biography of Katharine Graham that was recalled by the publisher just a couple of weeks after its release, then later released.

[edit] External links