Two men about to hit the state. Former publisher of the Washington Post phil gramm once said journalism is the first rough draft of history. Bob woodward and Carl Bernstein wrote their first draft of the story and their second and under the guidance of legendary editor brett ben bradley who sadly is not with us today the support of publisher Katharine Graham whose son don is with us exposed a tale of corruption at the highest levels of government. Some quality of their work changed journalism politics. Recognition from around the world and led the Washington Post to be honored with a Pulitzer Prize or Public Service but the significance of their work extends beyond committee accolades. Through their relentless painstaking efforts to bring the truth about the Nixon Administration to life bob and carl epitomized the Founding Fathers vision ofthe free press. There could be no such thing as selfgovernance the founders understood if there were no independent scrutiny of government officials and no way for the americans all those powers to account. And is precisely what the watergate story was about. Men in power who thought they were beyondaccountability. Bob and carl journalism, their reporting fueled a Massive Senate investigation that led to 48 criminal prosecutions and Richard Nixons registry resignation showing the world our democracy even the most powerful person in the land is not above thelaw. Washington post are incredibly proud of the reporters who work every day to uphold this legacy and provide transparency and accountability democracy requires. It is now my pleasure to introduce you to three journalists to represent the best of the Washington Post, woodward and Carl Bernstein. The story started on a saturday so that means that your shop reporters like their weekends off and also you had the youngsters are generally in their saturdays and sundays that was true for this story. Woodward and bernstein were too young metropolitan reporters who were working that day. That is how they got the assignment. What they did when it was something else. Therefore, i shall resign the presidency affected at noon tomorrow. Vice president for will be sworn in as president at that hour in this office. It had little to do with the break it. It was for toprotect covert operations involving the us committee. And what did he say . He said everyone is involved. The results of the latest gallup poll half the country never even heard of the word watergate. I guess you think you should be tired. You should be. Why at home, get a nice hot bath, rest up 15 minutesand get your asses back in gear. Youre under a lot of pressure and you put us there. Nothings riding on this except the First Amendment of the constitution, freedom of the press and maybe the future of the country. [applause] hello and welcome to Washington Post life. Washington correspondent at the post. Before we get into the program want to say how nice it is to see a real life human beings Washington Post live event. Our life team has done a spectacular work over the course of the pandemic to provide remotely an amazing array of programming and they will continue to do that but to see everybody here in the seats for this moment is incredibly gratifying and i can think of no better day and no better guest that we have here today. This is the first third of three sessions we have done marking the 50th anniversary of the watergate breakin. And today we have to to reporters whose names are synonymous with that story. Bob woodward and Carl Bernstein. They obviously need no introduction. Theyve been rather well exposed recently. To go over the history but we are thrilled to have them here today and i want to say both our longtime friends of mine and so for me its a double pleasure to have both of you so gentlemen, welcome and thank you. One other note, remember you can if you want to hear from those of you in the audience you can tweet to Washington Post live and if we can we will try to get to some of the questions. So i want to start by reading something and then get you to respond to it. Bernstein looked across the newsroom. He thought woodward was a prima donna. Yale, a veteran of the navy officer corps. Lawns, greens word, state rooms and class tennis courts. But probably not enough pavement for him to be good at investigative reporting. Bernstein thought woodwards rise, rapid rise of the post and less to do with his ability and his establishment credentials. Woodward new bernstein occasionally wrote about rock music and that figured. Bernstein looked like one of those countercultural journalists that woodward despised. So this was obviously taken from the pages of thebook all the president s men that you wrote. Carl, lets start with you. What made this journalistic marriage work . Almost immediately i think each of us came to recognize that what the other brought to the story. Experience in different areas of life. Id worked for 12 years in the newspaper business. I started when i was 16 across town at the washington star but woodward also brought a lot of journalistic experience i kind of drive that i thought i had drive, ive never seen any like it. And almost immediately and i think incidentally the skepticism we had of each other i think helped motivate us certainly early in the coverage of the story but then we both came to realize and you tell me if you think im wrong. Youre wrong. I rest my case. But we both came to realize that we would flip roles. The expected role i was supposed to be the better writer. Often he could write amazing paragraphs. Im supposed to be the guy who was persevering all the time that we know what kind ofperseverance woodward had so it worked. Today theres that overused word seamless and is. I think there was a kind of seamlessness and yet there was that tension always an element even now when we wrote the 50th anniversary forward for the book theres a little bit of the old stuff going on. Let me ask you this. You guys were covering a story where the stakes were enormous. Not just for you personally but for the Washington Post. How have you in those early days did you to learn to trust one another, trust one anothers reporting. You never Work Together and thisstory had such great consequence. First of all you got to establish the environment that we work in and it was crucial. Catherine graham was the owner and publisher of this newspaper and she was a large presence in everyones life even if you didnt have much interaction with her. It turned out that we did but i think its best illustrated by her candor and her willingness to push. For instance after next and resigned and we got a personal letter from catherine. I think you have the original and it was on yellow legal paper. She has more stationary in any 500 people in washington. But she chose to write and i think it was a spontaneous thought that said dear carl and bob, now that nixon has resigned you did some of the stories fine and i want to close. Dont start thinking of yourself to highly. And let me give you some advice. And the advice is be where the demon pop pomposity. And at lunch earlier we were just talking about that and her son the great publisher don graham said to me, he said you know she was talking to herself also. I want to add one thing since were talking about Catherine Graham and the legacy which goes on here at the newspaper but the best example i think of during all our reporting of catherine was that there had been a day with a subpoena server, the guard at the desk on 15th street called up to me and said theres a subpoena server here with a subpoena for allyour notes. I said keep them downstairs. I dont want him up in the newsroom. And i went to ben bradley and i said look, i got a call from theguard. They got a subpoena for our notes. Downstairs, the subpoena is from the nixon reelection committee. What do we do . Bradley says the short stays down there. Im going to go see catherine. So he goes upstairs to Catherine Grahams office and comes back to me five minutes later and he says catherine says theyre not your notes. There her notes and if anybodys going to go to jail its going to be her. And to me its one of the historic moments in american journalism history. And it told you everything about her and the institution that we work for. And the kind of backing that we had. Therunning room that we had throughout the two years. After that happened of course been at a natural sense for the theatrics of the moment. And he said wow. Catherines going to goto jail. So we thought visually he said can you see that picture of her limousine pulling up to the womens Detention Center and out our gal gets to go to jail to protect the First Amendment and then and never thought small. That will be a picture that will run on the front page of every newspaper in the United States and the world. Of course, the subpoena people backed down since they didnt really want to confront Catherine Graham and the people who didnt get subpoenas, bradley again was referred to this as subpoena and the. I want to show everybody another clip from the movie all the president s men. Theres a scene in which redford and Dustin Hoffman playing you guys give us a sense of the tension in the relationship. Lets take a look at that. What are you doing . Publishing. Whats wrong with it . Nothing,its good. Then what areyou doing just building it, its a little fuzzy. You know exactly what i need. Not tell, close it works for hunt. Can i have it . Im not looking for a fight. Im not looking for afight either. Youve only been here nine months. Whats that got to do with it . Ive been in the business 16. If you read mine and then read yours. I walked by, gave your cigarettes and it didnt look right. The first paragraph as tohave more clarity. You dont mention colsons name until the thirdparagraph. I think mine is go ahead, i colsons name upfront. Hes a white house consultant and nobody knows him. Yours is better. If youre going to do it, do it right. I dont mind what youdid, i mind the way you did it. I wanted him to answer this question as opposed to him but go ahead. I think its love at first sight. I wondered about that. Next question. I think that literally happened. Over a period of time. Sounds like it happens when you did the new forward for the book. A bit. That collaboration goes on with the same dynamicexcept 50 years of doing things together and a lot more love. How did that improve what youre doing . If youreworking in a tense environment how did that improve it . First of all you know somebody is checking everything you do and is it right . Have we tried hard enough . Have you thought of something i havent thought of . At the time the reporting was not anything standard like it is today. I think we discovered very fast at the idea of two of us working together really was to add up to three. It gave a solidity and confidence i think that each of us had in where the story was going. How it was being reported and i said earlier when we were at lunch one of the most important things if not the most important things a reporter or editor does is to decide what is news. And even that was a question we asked of eachother. Every day. So what you see their is this tense beginning and then it relaxes some and yet there always is an element that maybe you want to take another look at what im doing here etc. But the theme here is you asked the question of what can you bring to a partnership but you also have to ask the question what is it you cant bring to the partnership . What is your weakness . And you got to understand that in nine months at the Washington Post. Carl had been here since 1817 i think. But 12 years and in your wonderful book chasing history about working at the star and learning and becoming who you are as somebody who never wants to surface. We were answering questions earliertoday. Digitally with the Washington Post readers and so forth and were going through and im saying thats fine,thats fine. Carl says wait a minute, im going to be myself here and himself is lets read it, lets check it,lets be careful. I want to show one more clip from the movie which in my mind its cinematically a brilliant shot. Journalistically its utterly prosaic. Lets look at this and i want to ask you about. [ somber piano music] so robert caro in his book called working said one of the first lessons he learned as an Investigative Reporter was to turn every page and what you guys were doing here was turning literally every page every slip of paper looking for evidence that the white house had requested information about ted kennedy as i recall. It seems to me that this so well describes the tedium of investigative reporting. The degree to which you can drill and drill and wait a long time until you get a gusher. Talk a little bit about how you learned those techniques, how you apply them to watergate and when they began to pay off. My answer is again, the environment which you know well dan. That you have bradley, what have you got for metomorrow . What goes next . Calling a meeting on watergate, where are we on it . Barry sussman, the city editor was the most handson editor. A brilliant conceptualize her and agitator and you know, it is such an important lesson. One he taught us. We work all day, work sometimes until nine or 10 00 on a story and then sussman would say lets meet and wed say you want to meet and he said we have to meet and think about the next day. We just dont go blindly into the next day. Where are you going, what are the leads . Whats the story . And that ability to kind of get attempt to wind and say lets meet was really important to the story and the sense of pacing the story and making sure he was involved in directing us but also we were self directing in many ways. Particularly you. Youre the most selfdirected person i ever met. Let me ask you this and that is of all the stories you did and that early stretch when you guys were basically out alone on the story are there a couple that stand out in your mind either for the significance of the revelation or the sheer shoe leather that wentinto producing them . There are two stories. We had discovered early on by going to the person, we knocked on doors at night. That was the basic methodology and its what i had learned at the star. The people in their offices when theyre under pressure, you go see them in your their homes, get them to go to a restaurant but dont go to their offices so we started knocking on doors at night and i found the bookkeeper as she called in the book. She knew where the money was dispensed. I didnt know that when i got there but i managed to get in the door and Start Talking to her and it all started to become apparent and from the introduction, it is the basis of follow the money. And she started telling us that there were five people that controlled the secret fund that the four watergate and she wouldnt name them. And it took us a while to get it but we click quickly lord John Mitchell the former attorney general of the United States, nixons campaign manager, former law partner had been among the five people who control that fund. So we got ready to report the story and told bradley and he said youre sure youre right . Were going to call the attorney general and theres never been a story like this. So we put it in the paper and so thats the first. Thats took it and put watergate and all other realm and then on october 10 we did a story that said that the watergate breakin was just part of a vast campaign of political espionage and sabotage aimed by the white house at nixons democratic opponents. Again, his method if i may what happened four on october 9 i had gone to see deep throat, mark felt in the underground parking garage and he was agitated and he was pushing me and he said youve got to look at the overall and it was kind of, dont you understand what you have here . This is not just the watergate burglary. Its dirty tricks. Carl had tracked down cigarette he who was the dirty trickster and mark felt laid it out and said this is a much bigger thing. Are you dumb . Dont you understand what you have . I typed up my notes and ive been up all night on this and we came into the office that day and you looked at the notes and i remember this is one of those. Sometimes there are activities in journalism and you had one and you said because no one knew except us that mark felt was the Deputy Director of the fbi. So you typed out and you said fbi files show there was this Massive Campaign of sabotage andespionage. And people for 35 years wondered who was deep throat and there it was in the headline. Of the Washington Post. The fbi. But the amalgam of the information and your sense of lets not hide the fbi. Was not only that, it was picking the worst political espionage and sabotage raised this things will. The white house kept talking about a thirdrate burglary. Both the contents of the story and language of the lead including the fbi but this notion of a vast conspiracy took it to a whole other level. So every reporter like to be ahead of the pack which you guys were. Every News Organization likes to say were setting the pace on the story can be lonely and when nobody else is following up it can be especially lonely and a little bit nerveracking and we know from memoirs mrs. Graham was wondering if this is such a great story what are other peoplereporting it . There was a moment in october i think just after you published this story where there was an enormous boost post that was when Walter Cronkite devoted a significant part of 2 broadcast to the watergate story. Bob, talk about what the significance of that was to the reporting you were doing and to the post. What cronkite did was utterly amazing. They did a 15 minute segment and essentially its put our stories in the front page of the Washington Post and it was the whole basis for the 15 minute part and then we had a second 15 minute part prepared was down to seven minutes because what bill bailey. Had been approached by colson. And an approach by colson means i hammer andscrewdriver and he folded a little bit but not completely. And sally quinn was saying that was just ecstatic about that story Catherine Brown and her memoirs says at that point the Washington Post is this local paper. Walter put us on the map. And shes right. It was a local paper. You couldnt buy the Washington Post in new york for a period only in washington. You could get it inrockville, you could get hundreds of copies in rockville. Its still sitting there. None in new york. So that sense of that cbs validated and sally again was telling the story about the cvs people were saying where are the documents and said documents, we dont have any documents. There are no documents. We are counting on the trust of our sources and reporters. And are too young reporters. So thats october. A month later nixon wins in a landslide and the story kind of, the trail goes cold for you guys. Not just for a few days but for a couple of months you guys are scraping and youre under a lot of pressure talk about this aspect of it which is you had this story. You kept italive and suddenly theres nothing there to keep moving forward. Whats the pressure youre feeling and overall, what were the pressures you felt about the need for absolute accuracy whenever possible and to keep the story moving to demonstrate that wasnt going to go away . It was really difficult. Just this enormous victory, part of it with what the nixon strategy was to make the conduct of the press as you can watergate particularly hours at the Washington Post and bradley, Catherine Graham, woodward and myself added to the pressure because almost daily one of the things that again its so good to have two of us doing this is the danger of trying to overreach and desperately thinking i got get something in the paper and we didnt do that. We waited but i would take two scenes together. That first scene that you played we go to bradleys house in the middle of the night. And we tell bradley he stopped, outside, youre under surveillance. Come on outside at three in the morning in your bathroom. And then in that clip bradley a little bit of hyperbole in the movie but bradley lines the states and then he says nobody gives a damn. You saw in the auction. I want to go today. I want to go to this most important story perhaps since watergate. A seditious criminal president of the United States. That who also almost won reelection. Who won election to the presidency. Who continues to attempt to cover up. Who staged an attempted coup such as you would see in a Banana Republic or somewhere in the middle east. The president of the United States refusing to allow the orderly transition of a free election, the most important thing we do in a democracy. So we have a situation today where something similar has happened to what bradley is describing. I want to come back tothis. So what do we as reporters do in this situation . People in the country by and large the Republican Party which really the heroes in watergate to some extent are to a large extent were republicans on the House Committee in the senate who insisted that nixon be held accountable and at the same time we have to situation today, keep doing the reporting. The fact that the country, half the country doesnt give a damn perhaps doesnt matter. The lesson in there is you keep doing the recording and you get the facts out. Your next question. Just in case theres mystery carl is talking about trump. [laughter] i was a little confused. I could see the confusion in the audience. Sometimes carl is alittle opaque. And has been for as long as ive known you. So the next question is unanswered questions. We have a question that you are sending. Andy barr from washington dc and he says what is the one question about watergate you still want the answer to . Bob . The unanswered question that pulses through all this is why. Why would nixon who was president. Who you know, he worked to attain a loss to john kennedy in 60 and lost a run for governor of california and then rehabilitated himself. Reengineer himself and one in 1968 and he had you know, the brass ring. He found it. And so what is that psychology which i think we never cracked really somebody who is attained their goal and fails to ask the question which i think is the question president s need to ask is what did the people need . Whats the next stage of the goodfor the majority of people in the country. Its not hard to get an answer to that. But for nixon, it really didnt come up. It was always, i mean, can i read a thing . He loves it when i get paper out to read. But this is so relevant. This is from nixons tapes after six weeks after the one that reelection and stuck it to everyone. To the democrats, to the Washington Post, to the press so hes in the oval office with his eight. Remember, were going to be around and outlive our enemies nixon said also never forget the press is the enemy. The press is the enemy. The press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy. The professors are the enemy the professors are the enemy. Write that on a blackboard 100 times and never forget it. Thats somebody who cant let go of his grievances. Who has, i mean, here the press we were on the cold air show and i was tempted to read that and asked stephen you know, you were there at the time in 73 but of the latenight Television Hosts were upset that theydidnt make the cut . The people who were enemies but. Well, the enemies list. Nixon maintained the white house at an enemies list of people as aromatase to be screwed. To have their tax returns audited, etc. So the story turned in the summer of 73 when sam can Watergate Committee startedtheir hearings. We have a clip of the opening of those hearings and then ill follow up after that. Lets take a listen. We are beginning these hearings today in an atmosphere of utmost tragedy. The questions raised in the wake of the breakin strike at the underpinning of our democracy. If the many allegations made this they are true then the breakin watergate were in effect breaking into the home of every citizen in the United States. If these allegations prove to be true what they were seeking to steal is not tools, money or other parts of american citizens but something much more valuable. There most wrestlers heritage, the right to vote in every election. Carl, did he become harder or easier for you to report this story once the watergate hearings were underway . How did that affect whatyou guys were doing . I dont know if it was a question of ardor or easier. In some ways it became possible for us to be a little more interpretive and what we were doing because they were now getting true subpoena power and throw witnesses at the great witness john dean a picture was coming together such as had never existed before. And we were able to expand on that. We also were able to get to john deans lawyers and so we do that dean was going to implicate the president before it happened so that knowledge again, what was being developed by the committee was almost as if there was a source out in the open enabled us to perhaps go to the next step. Also i think it got harder not because of what we had to do but i think a little bit we were exhausted. We were going to write a book aboutthis. It wasnt clear and so we knocked on fewer doors than we used to and i think the lesson always is never stop knocking on doors. You mentioned deed. We have a clip of his testimony i want to show and then talk about his role in all of this. Lets watch that and then ill turn toyou bob. I began by telling the president there was a cancer growing on the presidency and if the cancer was not removed the president himself would be killed by. I also told him it was important that this cancer be removed immediately because it was growing more deadly every day. How should we think about john dean in history. The role he played, the pros and cons of what he did long before he got to that moment and then that moment . He was the orchestrator. Nixon really was the orchestrator of the coverup but he was playing many instruments in the orchestra, dean was. And as carl said we got to his lawyers and we had the story the day before his testimony saying that he would implicate the president in the coverup and from i think 20 or 25 meetings and discussions and the only thing that broke our hearts that day is that Seymour Hurst and Thenew York Times had the exact same story. But dean was critical here. But the real break was the nixon tapes and Alexander Butterfield losing. And carl, if butterfield had never been asked and answered the question of was there a white house tape, if those dates were buried to history throughout the administration would nixon have served up his full term . Were they the factor that drove him out of office . We dont know, its history and at the same time you have to think without those tapes its the tapes that ultimately made it impossible for Richard Nixon not to be held accountable. And one of the things, i think one of the awful legacies of watergate and there are too many awful legacies is the notion of the smoking gun. The idea that it was necessary to have a smoking gun when in fact there was so much evidence without that tape, that last tape from john deans testimony, from some of the stuff we had reported. From what the Watergate Committee was able to do from the saturday night massacre was called. You didnt need the smoking gun and also goes to today. So i think this idea that you raise about did you really need it . He might well have escaped and yet the Supreme Court of the United States in a unanimous decision said the president of the United States must turn these tapes over. Lets look at todays situation with the Supreme Court. In this bob will talk about this investigation on january 6. It is a magnificent investigation in which this committee has gotten the and were going to see a lot more of one of the things thats developing thats very different that happened in watergate is that the wife of a Supreme Court justice is now part of the story and it looks very much like and certainly it is the opinion of a number of people on that committee that she is caught up in the conspiracy and very likely is a coconspirator. So its raised all kinds of questions about the justice and self and what has she told justice thomas. If i may, theres the possibility of that this is Clarence Thomass wife jenny thomas and there are indeed questions and bob costa and i did a story in the post and cbs about those 29 emails or im sorry, Text Messages which were stunning because mark meadows, trumps chief of staff texts back and says we are in a war. It is good versus evil. That is our starting point in all of this but i think we just dont know about this and we need to keep an open mind. She says shes happyto cooperate or will answer questions and so forth. And so the question mark is there. Ask tender territory to somebodys life was on the Supreme Court and so forth and the New York Times has a story about the letter the committee wrote to her in saying wed be happy to talk to you about july 6, seventh or eighth but if that isnt convenient so there treading very carefully and i think wisely. On what carl was alluding to which is your kind of analysis of the january 6 Committee Investigation and the degree to which, how you analyze the work that they have done and what they might produce . I think its in terms of material is amazing. And at the same time as has been pointed out nixon, what he did was concealed and is open from his secret tape recordings but a lot of what trump does is out in the open. He said the election was stolen. It turns out weve all spent a lot of time looking for the evidence to suggest that this was a stolen election and i spent a lot of time with robert costa looking at is there evidence and it turns out to my phones biggest supporters, Lindsey Graham senator from south carolina, mike lee from utah conducted independent investigations and went to the senate floor as Lindsey Graham said county out. Theres no evidence. There is no evidence. So the real marker here is what are they going to be able to show and they demonstrated it is a crime to subvert a legitimate function of government according to a usc 371 Supreme Court decisions going back 100 years and this is a clear laydown case of obstructing an essential and necessary function of government and whats more necessary than certifying who is the next president . This is, hiding, the diabolical genius of trump and his associates arethey found a weak point in the system. January 6, the votes are presented and counted in 1000 people violently descended on the capital. We learn during the Trump Administration at the main instrument for holding a president accountable which is impeachment no longer seems to work because it is now a purely political enterprise with partyline votes. A constitutional system work during watergate. The press played its role, investigators play their role. House Judiciary Committee play its role, elders went to nixon and said you dont have any supporthere, he ultimately resigned. Impeachment doesnt work. All of you have said in recent days this is not, the Trump Presidency is not just a criminal presidency is a seditious presidency so what is the solution to a seditious president . Is it through strictly legal system . I want you to answer this first is through the ballot box in which the public will render an ultimate judgment . First of all bob just pointed out about title 18 in the section in the law in which trump clearly as bob had said has committed a crime but the next level as you suggest is sedation. What is sedation . It is to encourage, foment an insurrection against the government of the United States. We have the first president in history who has attempted to engage and produce an insurrection. So what do you do with that . One would hope that yes, we fail impeachment before. There ought to be i think. Merrick garland has a huge decision to make. Is donald trump going to be prosecuted as the leader of this conspiracy and in the question of sedition comes into it i think we need to look at what has happened in the Trump Presidency just as we look at in the next presidency. This is just about the press. Is not a president , not just about the senate and house. About the people of the country and one of the things that happened in watergate was by the time of nixons impeachment is approval rating, the number of people presented to people who wanted to see nixon either convicted in the senate or resign from office icon from 19 percent a few months earlier to 57 percent if we believe the polls there somewhere in that. We donthave that situation today. Not just the politicians, not just media. Its about the people of the country. We have a media situation which entirely unlike the time of watergate so many people are not open to the best obtainable version of the truth which is for 50 years we call the objective of reporting. People in this country today are looking for information in the media particularly to reinforce what they already believe. And to buttress their prejudices, their religious beliefs, their political beliefs so we have a different country today the question in my mind is is the country, people of this country are they willing insufficient numbers to say look, we do not want an authoritarian government, etc. We do not want to see this past president given kid gloves. But dan, your beach if i can describe your beat is really leadership isnt it . In congress, in the executive branch and the leadership beat is a big one now and the question is going to be, has to be put in context. I remember for the series, 10 hours of interviews with trump in 2020. He would call any hour or i could call him at any hour my wife also the first time picked up the phone theres a voice that says is bob there . May i ask you calling . Donald trump. Nobody from the switchboard, nothing. I think no one in the white house. He spends 10 hours on the phone with me. I remember sitting in the oval office interviewing him for this and we were talking about this, what happens to the country in 2016. What was going on and my summary of it was that you know, President Trump the old order was dying and the Republican Party. And in the democratic party. And i think 2016 thats exactly right. The old order, the old way of doing things was dying or being phased out theres the grandfather clock in the oval office. You see is is reese clock trump i wish i had a video of it. Said yes, thats exactlyright. Historians talk about is reese clock. He doesnt think that way. But it stones me and he said ill do it in 2020 and of course he didnt. 47,000 votes changed in three states as you well know that he selected but somehow a leader or group of leaders or a redefinition of leadership has got to emerge to fix this problem because it is a giant problem and the divisions in this country are such, i made this list of 13 problems in the country and carl had one race but if i get out the card and read it, if you read the testimony from jay michaels yesterday before the january 6 committee and clariion call about the risks for democracy. This is a very conservative distinguished jurists that written statement is stark in its warning. We have a twitter question from emily in minneapolis i was asking carl if you go back and give yourself one piece of advice in 1972 what would it be . The good listener. I think theres a big problem with too many reporters that theyre not good listeners. Goes to someone who is the subject of the story, and says what about this . Why did you do that . And goes to someone on the opposing end and says what do you think about what he said . Why did you do this . Why did you do that . Doesnt go deeper. The idea is to produce a story that make it on the front page or lead the news rather than find out and listening, look at the movie of all the president s men. We listen, we see weve got somebody who knows somebody and then we listen. I think its a terrible failure. It goes way back i think today especially in the age of social media you cant look at social media in isolation from methodology patient listening, right on the blackboard 100 times and never forget it. Ill make one reference to a project bob and i worked on after the attacks on 9 11, and its the closest ive ever worked with bob. And one of the things, i learned to make things during that. One is that bob as ultimate patients. If you go into an interview with bob, it doesnt matter how many handlers are there saying last question last question. Bob will continue to ask more and more questions. He wont get up. He has an iron rear end. [laughing] and the second is he always asks for documents. Do you have memos . Do you have journals . Do you have files . Thats the technique. I want to close on a couple of questions about watergate characters. One, start with you, bob. The obvious question about mark felt as deep throat. How essential was he in the reporting that you did . In other words, the question, would nixon have survived without the case being revealed . What wouldve happened if there was no mark felt or deep throat . And was he as maddeningly cryptic in real life as he was on the screen . Oh, yes. Definitely. Carl and i went to see them after and he was elderly and using a red sport jacket, remember, but you know, one of the things carl and i learned about this partnership, and we only framed it this way recently, each of us did 60 of the work. [laughing] its like a good marriage. You have to both give 60 . Felt was somebody people say he was the key, some people say e was irrelevant. He was another source. But what was important as i mentioned if you read the memoirs or ben bradlee, a new, they did not ask for that identity. They knew we had a secret source in the government, in a sense of imposition in the executive branch and that gave them great comfort. And i think its quite possible some of these stories wouldnt have got in the paper or wouldnt have got in the papers as soon as they did. So it was 6060, was a net . It was. The instance of it deep throat i think, tell me if you agree, more often than not his importance was not in giving us original information but confirming things, maybe taking a little farther than we dont relearn from other sources here that we knew where he worked and what information he had access to. So if you said thats right, it gave the story it was the over all but kind of egeland is involved, everyone is involved, their lives are in danger. You know, you cant so you know, it happened the way it happened and sometimes i look back on it, i think karl looks back on it and i wish we had been smarter and realized that where it was going because we didnt know where it was going. Carl did early on. I mean, you had an instinct for this, going the whole way. I didnt. I was more reluctant to reach that conclusion. But that conclusion was whether right or wrong, its a great structure for doing the rough work. Other words, we are not here, when i i went on vacation durg the summer of 72, mr. Elbows here called me and said what the hell are you doing on vacation . Theres a story to work on here. Its true, its true. Carl, who was frank wills . And what is this doorknob doing here on the stage . [laughing] none of us would be on the stage if it were not for frank wills. Rank wills was the Security Guard at the watergate the night of the breakin. And he noticed something that the door in the Watergate Office building had been left ajar and there was a piece of tape. And on that lock, that is the real lock. And he is an unsung hero of watergate because he then realized that there had been something amiss because of that piece of tape on that lock. What happened is he took it off and then they came back again, and the tape was gone. Any said wait a minute, something is up here. So what happened is, we were just add a little ceremony at lunch with fred ryan, publisher of Washington Post and he had a sheet over this thing. What the hell it was. It was going to be some kind of unveiling i just hope nobody was dead. [laughing] he very ceremoniously went like that. And that is the lock from the night of the burglary that frank wills put, took the piece of tape jeff bezos bought it at an auction and were trying to find out how much he paid. Come back next week and we will have ryan is taking the fifth and saying he doesnt know. This is the last great unanswered question from watergate. We are going to have to leave it there. Sadly, were out of time. We could go on for a long time. I want to thank both Carl Bernstein and bob woodward for typos conversation. Thank you very much. Thank you. [applause]
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