Bob Woodward

Bob Woodward

Woodward in 2002
Born Robert Upshur Woodward
March 26, 1943
Geneva, Illinois, U.S.
Status married
Education Yale University, BA, 1965
Occupation Journalist
Notable credit(s) The Washington Post
Spouse(s) Elsa Walsh
Children Taliesin (b. Nov. 10, 1976)[1]
Diana (born 1996)
Website
bobwoodward.com

Robert Upshur "Bob" Woodward (born March 26, 1943) is an American investigative journalist and non-fiction author. He has worked for The Washington Post since 1971 as a reporter, and is now an associate editor of the Post.

While a young reporter for The Washington Post in 1972, Woodward was teamed up with Carl Bernstein; the two did much of the original news reporting on the Watergate scandal. These scandals led to numerous government investigations and the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon. Gene Roberts, the former executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and former managing editor of The New York Times, has called the work of Woodward and Bernstein "maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time".[2]

Woodward continued to work for The Washington Post after his reporting on Watergate. He has since written 16 books on American politics, 12 of which have been bestsellers.

Early life and career

Woodward was born in Geneva, Illinois, the son of Jane (née Upshur) and Alfred Eno Woodward II, chief judge of the 18th Judicial Circuit Court. He was a resident of Wheaton, Illinois. He enrolled in Yale University with a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) scholarship, and studied history and English literature. While at Yale, Woodward joined the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity and was a member of the prestigious secret society Book and Snake.[3][4] He received his B.A. degree in 1965, and began a five-year tour of duty in the United States Navy. In his navy career Woodward served in the Office of Naval Intelligence, where he was a part of a group which briefed top intelligence officials; at one time he was close to Admiral Robert O. Welander, being communications officer on the USS Fox under Welander's command.[5][6]

After being discharged as a lieutenant in August 1970, Woodward considered attending law school but applied for a job as a reporter for The Washington Post, while taking graduate courses at The George Washington University. Harry M. Rosenfeld, the Post's metropolitan editor, gave him a two-week trial but did not hire him because of his lack of journalistic experience. After a year at the Montgomery Sentinel, a weekly newspaper in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, Woodward was hired as a Post reporter in 1971 where he was promptly introduced to the CIA's Mockingbird network.[7]

Career recognition and awards

Woodward made crucial contributions to two Pulitzer Prizes won by The Washington Post. First he and Bernstein were the lead reporters on Watergate and the Post won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1973.[8] He was also the main reporter for the Post's coverage of the September 11 attacks in 2001. The Post won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for ten of its stories on the subject.[9]

Woodward himself has been a recipient of nearly every major American journalism award, including the Heywood Broun award (1972), Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Reporting (1972 and 1986), Sigma Delta Chi Award (1973), George Polk Award (1972), William Allen White Medal (2000), and the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Reporting on the Presidency (2002). In 2012, Colby College presented Woodward with the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for courageous journalism as well as an honorary doctorate.[10]

Woodward has authored or co-authored 16 nonfiction books in the last 35 years. All 16 have been national bestsellers and 12 of them have been No. 1 national nonfiction bestsellers—more No. 1 national nonfiction bestsellers than any contemporary author. He has written multiple No. 1 national nonfiction bestsellers on a wide range of subjects in each of the four decades he has been active as an author, from 1974 to 2009.

In his 1995 memoir, A Good Life, former Post executive editor Ben Bradlee singled out Woodward in the foreword. "It would be hard to overestimate the contributions to my newspaper and to my time as editor of that extraordinary reporter, Bob Woodward—surely the best of his generation at investigative reporting, the best I've ever seen.... And Woodward has maintained the same position on top of journalism's ladder ever since Watergate."[11]

David Gergen, who had worked in the White House during the Richard Nixon and three subsequent administrations, said in his 2000 memoir, Eyewitness to Power, of Woodward's reporting, "I don't accept everything he writes as gospel—he can get details wrong—but generally, his accounts in both his books and in the Post are remarkably reliable and demand serious attention. I am convinced he writes only what he believes to be true or has been reliably told to be true. And he is certainly a force for keeping the government honest."[12]

Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard called Woodward "the best pure reporter of his generation, perhaps ever."[13] In 2003, Albert Hunt of The Wall Street Journal called Woodward "the most celebrated journalist of our age." In 2004, Bob Schieffer of CBS News said, "Woodward has established himself as the best reporter of our time. He may be the best reporter of all time."[14]

Career

Watergate

Main article: Watergate scandal

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were assigned to report on the June 17, 1972, burglary of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in a Washington, D.C., office building called Watergate. Their work, under editor Benjamin C. Bradlee, became known for being the first to report on a number of political "dirty tricks" used by the Nixon re-election committee during his campaign for reelection. Their book about the scandal, All the President's Men, became a No. 1 bestseller and was later turned into a movie. The 1976 film, starring Robert Redford as Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein, transformed the reporters into celebrities and inspired a wave of interest in investigative journalism.

The book and movie also led to the enduring mystery of the identity of Woodward's secret Watergate informant known as Deep Throat, a reference to the title of a popular pornographic movie at the time. Woodward said he would protect Deep Throat's identity until the man died or allowed his name to be revealed. For over 30 years, only Woodward, Bernstein, and a handful of others knew the informant's identity until it was claimed by his family to Vanity Fair magazine to be former Federal Bureau of Investigation Associate Director W. Mark Felt in May 2005. Woodward has confirmed this claim and published a book, titled The Secret Man, that detailed his relationship with Felt.

Woodward and Bernstein followed up with a second book on Watergate, entitled The Final Days (Simon and Schuster 1976), covering in extensive depth the period from November 1973 until President Nixon resigned in August 1974.

The Woodward and Bernstein Watergate Papers are housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

George W. Bush administration

Woodward spent more time than any other journalist with former president George W. Bush, interviewing him six times for close to 11 hours total.[15] Woodward's four books, Bush at War (2002), Plan of Attack (2004), State of Denial (2006), and The War Within: A Secret White House History (2006–2008) (2008) are detailed accounts of the Bush presidency, including the response to the September 11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In a series of articles published in January 2002, he and Dan Balz described the events at Camp David in the aftermath of September 11 and discussed the Worldwide Attack Matrix.

Woodward believed the Bush administration's claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction prior to the war. During an appearance on Larry King Live, he was asked by a telephone caller, "Suppose we go to war and go into Iraq and there are no weapons of mass destruction", Woodward responded "I think the chance of that happening is about zero. There's just too much there."[16] Woodward later admitted his error saying, "I think I dropped the ball here. I should have pushed much, much harder on the skepticism about the reality of WMD; in other words, [I should have] said, 'Hey, look, the evidence is not as strong as they were claiming.'"[17]

In 2008, as a part of the Google Talks series, Woodward, who was interviewed by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, said that he had a fourth book in his Bush at War series in the making. He then added jokingly that his wife told him that she would kill him if he decides to write a fifth in the series.[18]

Involvement in the Plame scandal

Main article: Plame affair

On November 14, 2005, Woodward gave a two-hour deposition to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. He testified that a senior administration official told him in June 2003 that Iraq war critic Joe Wilson's wife (later identified as Valerie Plame), worked for the CIA. Woodward appears to have been the first reporter to learn about her employment (albeit not her name) from a government source. The deposition was reported in The Washington Post on November 16, 2005, and was the first time Woodward revealed publicly that he had any special knowledge about the case. Woodward testified the information was given to him in a "casual" and "offhand" manner, and said that he does not believe it was part of any coordinated effort to "out" Plame as a CIA employee.[19] Later, Woodward's source identified himself. It was Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's deputy and an internal critic of the Iraq War and the White House inner circle.

Woodward said the revelation came at the end of a long, confidential background interview for his 2004 book Plan of Attack. He did not reveal the official's disclosure at the time because it did not strike him as important. Later, he kept it to himself because it came as part of a confidential conversation with a source.

In his deposition, Woodward also said that he had conversations with Scooter Libby after the June 2003 conversation with his confidential administration source, and testified that it is possible that he might have asked Libby further questions about Joe Wilson's wife before her employment at the CIA and her identity were publicly known.

Woodward apologized to Leonard Downie Jr., editor of The Washington Post, for not informing him earlier of the June 2003 conversation. Downie accepted the apology and said even had the paper known it would not have changed its reporting.

New York University professor Jay Rosen severely criticized Woodward for allegedly being co-opted by the Bush White House and also for not telling the truth about his role in the Plame affair, writing: "Not only is Woodward not in the hunt, but he is slowly turning into the hunted. Part of what remains to be uncovered is how Woodward was played by the Bush team, and what they thought they were doing by leaking to him, as well as what he did with the dubious information he got."[20]

Other professional activities

Woodward has continued to write books and report stories for The Washington Post, and serves as an associate editor at the paper. He focuses on the presidency, intelligence, and Washington institutions such as the U.S. Supreme Court, The Pentagon, and the Federal Reserve. He also wrote the book Wired, about the Hollywood drug culture and the death of comic John Belushi.

Sequester dispute with Obama administration

On February 22, 2013, shortly before the United States federal budget sequester took effect, The Washington Post published a column by Woodward in which he criticized the Obama administration for their statements in 2012 and 2013 that the sequester had been proposed by Republicans in Congress; Woodward said his research showed that the sequester proposal had originated with the White House.[21][22]

On February 27, Woodward told Politico that before the column was published, Woodward had called a senior White House official, later identified by reporters as economic adviser Gene Sperling, to discuss the piece, and that the official had "yelled at [Woodward] for about a half-hour" before sending him a page-long email that included the sentence, "I think you will regret staking out that claim." In Politico's reporting, Woodward's focus on that line was described as "making clear he saw [that sentence] as a veiled threat", although Woodward did not use the word "threat" or "threatened".[23] Several other sources also indicated that Woodward had expressed the line as an intended threat.[24][25][26]

The next day, Politico published the complete email exchange between Woodward and Sperling. Sperling's statements leading up to the "regret" line read: "But I do truly believe you should rethink your comment about saying saying that Potus asking for revenues is moving the goal post. I know you may not believe this, but as a friend, I think you will regret staking out that claim."[27] The White House subsequently released a statement that "of course no threat was intended...The note suggested that Mr. Woodward would regret the observation he made regarding the sequester because that observation was inaccurate, nothing more."[28] Upon release of the emails, several conservative commentators indicated they no longer agreed with characterizing the "regret" statement as a threat.[29]

In a February 28 Fox News Channel interview, Woodward said he had never used the word "threat" but said Sperling's conduct was "not the way to operate in a White House". He also said: "I've been flooded with emails from people in the press saying this is exactly the way the White House works, they are trying to control and they don't want to be challenged or crossed".[30] National Journal editor Ron Fournier, conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin, and Fox News contributor and former Clinton adviser Lanny Davis expressed support for Woodward; Fournier and Davis described similar experiences with Obama administration officials.[31][32][33]

Criticism

Criticisms of style

Woodward often uses unnamed sources in his reporting for the Post and in his books. Using extensive interviews with firsthand witnesses, documents, meeting notes, diaries, calendars, and other documentation, Woodward attempts to construct a seamless narrative of events, most often told through the eyes of the key participants.

Nicholas von Hoffman has made the criticism that "arrestingly irrelevant detail is [often] used",[34] while Michael Massing believes Woodward's books are "filled with long, at times tedious passages with no evident direction."[35]

Joan Didion has leveled the most comprehensive criticism of Woodward, in a lengthy September 1996 essay in The New York Review of Books.[36] Though "Woodward is a widely trusted reporter, even an American icon", she says that he assembles reams of often irrelevant detail, fails to draw conclusions, and make judgments. "Measurable cerebral activity is virtually absent" from his books after Watergate from 1979 to 1996, she said. She said the books are notable for "a scrupulous passivity, an agreement to cover the story not as it is occurring but as it is presented, which is to say as it is manufactured." She ridicules "fairness" as "a familiar newsroom piety, the excuse in practice for a good deal of autopilot reporting and lazy thinking." All this focus on what people said and thought—their "decent intentions"—circumscribes "possible discussion or speculation", resulting in what she called "political pornography".

The Post's Richard Harwood defended Woodward in a September 6, 1996, column, arguing that Woodward's method is that of a reporter—"talking to people you write about, checking and cross-checking their versions of contemporary history," and collecting documentary evidence in notes, letters, and records."[37]

Criticisms of content

Commentator David Frum has said, perhaps partly tongue-in-cheek, that Washington officials can learn something about the way Washington works from Woodward's books: "From his books, you can draw a composite profile of the powerful Washington player. That person is highly circumspect, highly risk averse, eschews new ideas, flatters his colleagues to their face (while trashing them to Woodward behind their backs), and is always careful to avoid career-threatening confrontation. We all admire heroes, but Woodward's books teach us that those who rise to leadership are precisely those who take care to abjure heroism for themselves."[51]

Despite these criticisms and challenges, Woodward has been praised as an authoritative and balanced journalist. The New York Times Book Review said in 2004 that "No reporter has more talent for getting Washington's inside story and telling it cogently."[52]

Lecture circuit

Bob Woodward regularly gives speeches on the "lecture circuit" to industry lobbying groups, such as the American Bankruptcy Institute, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, and the Mortgage Bankers Association.[53] Woodward commands speaking fees "rang[ing] from $15,000 to $60,000" and donates them to his personal foundation, the Woodward Walsh Foundation, which donates to charities including Sidwell Friends School.[54] Washington Post policy prohibits "speaking engagements without permission from department heads" but Woodward insists that the policy is "fuzzy and ambiguous".[55]

Woodward also frequently lectures at colleges and universities. He gave the 2001 Robert C. Vance Distinguished Lecture at Central Connecticut State University,[56] and has spoken at the University of Arkansas,[57] University of Alabama,[58] Eastern Connecticut State University,[59] and West Texas A&M University.[60]

Personal

Woodward now lives in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. He has been married three times. His first marriage (1974-1979) was to Frances Kuper.[1] In 1989, he married for a third time to Elsa Walsh (b. August 25, 1957), a writer for The New Yorker and the author of Divided Lives: The Public and Private Struggles of Three American Women.[61] He has two daughters - Taliesin (born 1976) [1] and Diana (born 1996).

Woodward maintains a listed number in the Washington, D.C., phone directory.[62]

Books

Woodward has co-authored or authored twelve No. 1 national bestselling non-fiction books, They are:

Other books, which have also been bestsellers but not No. 1, are

Newsweek has excerpted five of Woodward's books in cover stories; 60 Minutes has done segments on five; and three have been made into movies.

His latest book, The Price of Politics, went on sale September 11, 2012. It shows how close President Barack Obama and Speaker of the United States House of Representatives John Boehner were to defying Washington odds and establishing a spending framework that included both new revenues and major changes to long-sacred entitlement programs.[63]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 http://bostoncoop.net/lcd/emancipation/dist._of_columbia.html
  2. ↑ Roy J. Harris, Jr., Pulitzer's Gold, 2007, p. 233, Columbia: University of Missouri Press, ISBN 9780826217684.
  3. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/fashion/jeff-himmelmans-new-biography-of-ben-bradlee.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
  4. ↑ "Phi Gamma Delta – Famous Fijis – education". Phigam.org. Retrieved March 7, 2010.
  5. ↑ Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America, University of California Press, 2007. p48
  6. ↑ Jack Williams, U-T San Diego, July 29, 2005, Adm. Robert O. Welander, 80; flotilla CO and Joint Chiefs aide
  7. ↑ Woodward, Bob, The Secret Man, pp. 17-20, 27-35, Simon and Schuster, 2005
  8. ↑ James Thomas Flexner. "The Pulitzer Prizes | Awards". Pulitzer.org. Retrieved March 7, 2010.
  9. ↑ "The Pulitzer Prizes | Citation". Pulitzer.org. March 3, 2010. Retrieved March 7, 2010.
  10. ↑ Strachota, Madeline. "Woodward to receive 2012 Lovejoy award". The Colby Echo. Retrieved November 11, 2012.
  11. ↑ Ben Bradlee, A Good Life, 1995, pp. 12–13, New York: Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-684-80894-3. See also pp. 324–384.
  12. ↑ David Gergen, Eyewitness to Power, 2000, p. 71, New York: Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-684-82663-1.
  13. ↑ Fred Barnes, "The White House at War," The Weekly Standard, December 12, 9002,
  14. ↑ Bob Schieffer, "The Best Reporter of All Time," CBS News, April 18, 2004,
  15. ↑ "The War Within" page 443
  16. ↑ Mitchell, Greg (March 7, 2013). "Bob Woodward's Biggest Failure: Iraq". The Nation. Retrieved March 8, 2003.
  17. ↑ "Interview with Bob Woodward". PBS Frontline. February 21, 2007. Retrieved September 16, 2008.
  18. ↑ Authors@Google: Bob Woodward on YouTube
  19. ↑ "Testifying in the CIA Leak Case". washingtonpost.com. November 16, 2005. Retrieved March 7, 2010.
  20. ↑ Jay Rosen, "Murray Waas Is Our Woodward Now", PressThink (blog), April 9, 2006, accessed June 21, 2007
  21. ↑ Woodward, Bob (February 28, 2013). "Obama's sequester deal-changer". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
  22. ↑ "Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney, 2/19/2013". The White House. February 19, 2013. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
  23. ↑ Allen, Mike; Vandehei, Jim (February 27, 2013). "Behind the Curtain: Bob Woodward at war". Politico.com. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
  24. ↑ "Watergate journalist Bob Woodward 'threatened' by White House". The Telegraph. February 28, 2013. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
  25. ↑ "Bob Woodward says he was threatened by White House". CNN. February 27, 2013. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
  26. ↑ Blake, Aaron (February 28, 2013). "Bob Woodward: White House said I would 'regret' it if I pursued the story". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
  27. ↑ Allen, Mike; Vandehei, Jim (February 28, 2013). "Exclusive: The Woodward, Sperling emails revealed". Politico.com. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
  28. ↑ Neuman, Scott (February 28, 2013). "The Meaning Of 'Regret': Journalist Bob Woodward, White House Disagree". NPR. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
  29. ↑ Taintor, David (February 28, 2013). "Conservatives Regret Taking Woodward's 'Threat' Story Seriously". Talking Points Memo. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
  30. ↑ "'Hannity' Exclusive — Bob Woodward Speaks Out on Threat From the White House: 'It's Not the Way to Operate in a White House'". Fox News. February 28, 2013. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
  31. ↑ Fournier, Ron (February 28, 2013). "Why Bob Woodward's Fight With The White House Matters to You". National Journal. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
  32. ↑ "WMAL EXCLUSIVE: Woodward's Not Alone - Fmr. Clinton Aide Davis Says He Received White House Threat". WMAL. February 28, 2013. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
  33. ↑ Rubin, Jennifer (February 28, 2013). "The Obama White House and the media". The Washington Post. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
  34. ↑ Nicholas von Hoffman, "Unasked Questions," The New York Review of Books, June 10, 1976, Vol. 23, Number 10.
  35. ↑ Michael Massing, "Sitting on Top of the News," The New York Review of Books, June 27, 1991, Vol. 38, Number 12.
  36. ↑ Joan Didion, "The Deferential Spirit," The New York Review of Books, September 19, 1996, Vol. 43, Number 14.
  37. ↑ Richard Harwood, "Deconstructing Bob Woodward," The Washington Post, September 6, 1996, P.A23.
  38. ↑ "FindLaw's Writ – Dean: Why The Revelation of the Identity Of Deep Throat Has Only Created Another Mystery". Writ.news.findlaw.com. Retrieved March 7, 2010.
  39. ↑ http://www.lpatrickgrayiii.com/watergate.html
  40. ↑ http://www.lpatrickgrayiii.com/watergate03.html
  41. ↑ "Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (Yet Another New Republic Edition) – Grasping Reality with All Six Feet". Delong.typepad.com. October 1, 2006. Retrieved March 7, 2010.
  42. ↑ Frum, David (February 13, 2003). "On the West Wing – The New York Review of Books". Nybooks.com. Retrieved March 7, 2010.
  43. ↑ "Bob Woodward". Salon. Retrieved March 7, 2010.
  44. ↑ Colby, Tanner (March 12, 2013). "Regrettable: The troubling things I learned when I re-reported Bob Woodward’s book on John Belushi". Slate Magazine.
  45. ↑ Letter From Washington: Woodward vs. Tenet: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker
  46. ↑ Roberts, Steven (October 1, 1987). "Reagan Sees 'Fiction' in Book on CIA Chief". New York Times. Retrieved April 25, 2011.
  47. ↑ McManus, Doyle (October 11, 1987). "Casey and Woodward: Who Used Whom?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 25, 2011.
  48. ↑ Kinkaid, Cliff (June 3, 2005). "Was Mark Felt Really Deep Throat?". Accuracy In Media. Retrieved April 25, 2011.
  49. ↑ Black, Conrad (April 21, 2011). "The Long History of Media Bias". National Review Online. Retrieved April 25, 2011.
  50. ↑ Kurtz, Howard (May 2, 2007). "Ronald Reagan, In His Own Words". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 26, 2010.
  51. ↑ Frum, David, "David Frum's Diary" blog, at the National Review Online Web site, October 5, 2006, 11:07 a.m. post "Blogging Woodward (4)", accessed same day
  52. ↑ Widmer, Ted (April 28, 2004). "'Plan of Attack': All the President's Mentors". The New York Times. Retrieved September 25, 2009.
  53. ↑ Bob Woodward’s Moonlighting – By Ken Silverstein (Harper's Magazine)
  54. ↑ David Broder’s and Bob Woodward’s Lame Alibis – By Ken Silverstein (Harper's Magazine)
  55. ↑ Howell, Deborah (June 22, 2008). "When Speech Isn't Free". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 26, 2010.
  56. ↑ Fillo, Maryellen. (2001, April 19). Writer Enthralls Audiences: Woodward Gives 2 Speeches In State. Hartford Courant, p. A9. Retrieved on 2013-5-29,
  57. ↑ Bob Woodward to Speak at U of A, Fayetteville Public Library (2015, April 9). UA News.
  58. ↑ Bob Woodward to Deliver Blackburn Lecture at UA (2013, February 15). UA News.
  59. ↑ Bob Woodward: March 12, 2013. ECSU Arts and Lecture Series
  60. ↑ McDonald, Rana (2013, April 1). Bob Woodward to Speak at WTAMU Distinguished Lecture SeriesWTAMU News.
  61. ↑ http://articles.philly.com/1989-11-28/news/26138967_1_national-park-service-tree-tree-worker-yule-tree
  62. ↑ http://www.whitepages.com/search/FindPerson?firstname_begins_with=1&firstname=Bob&name=Woodward&where=Washington,+D.C.
  63. ↑ Green, Miranda. "Speed Read: Juiciest Bits From Bob Woodward’s Book ‘Price of Politics’". The Daily Beast. Retrieved September 6, 2012.

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