closest to richard nixon. >> what was ben's reaction to this? >> bradley? >> stand by the boys. he sat there and he typed out his own nondenial denial. we called what the nixon white house did the nondenial denial. he said let's stand by the boys. he typed out this thing saying we stand by the story and, in fact, substantively, the story was right but we had made a serious error of attribution. >> when he did that statement, let's stand by the boys, he didn't come in and waterboard us or hold us upside down. he just said what happened? and we explained, as best we can. and, you know, goddamn it. >> there was a lot more than that. >> no kind of -- maybe even something worse. >> yeah.

>> but instead of -- he believed in the empirical method. okay. go find out where you screwed up, which we did. and we found out. and we corrected it in the newspaper. and went on. and that was -- you know, i mean, we weren't happy that we screwed up but we were happy we weren't fired. >> what pressure -- what pressure did you feel when you were building the story? >> i think this story was like getting into a warm bath and then it got hotter and hotter and hotter. so, you were able to withstand the heat. i think the most remarkable thing was early on, about eight week weeks after the break-in, we found out john mitchell, nixon's campaign manager, former law partner, former general of the united states control this had

secret fund. we were having coffee off a vending machine room. i put a dime in and i felt this chill go down my neck and said to woodward, oh, my god, this president is going to be impeached and woodward looked at me and said, oh, my god, you were right. and we can never use that word impeach around this newspaper, lest ben bradley or someone else thinks we have an agenda and we don't. and i think there was awe at that moment and some fear, that the stakes became so obviously huge. we're 28, 29 years old. every day the spokesman for the leader of the free world is getting up and making the conduct of the press the issue in watergate, our conduct specifically that of "washington post." bradley, bob, myself. >> and did you feel the pressure that was being put in terms of the paper itself and journalism

itself and katherine graham and ben bradley? >> no, because we were kind of operating in a bubble. >> that's right. >> go get the story. what's the next story? and there was an absence of that pressure. we knew -- we could turn on the television and see ziegler, for 15 minutes, scream and denounce us and the campaign manager for nixon and so forth. there was a point in october, october 10th, 1972, when we did a story that essentially was the dna of watergate. it said, look, it was part of a basic campaign, spying and sabotage, directed at the democrats. and if you look at what, in all of these five wars of watergate, the most insidious one was nixon and his people saying we're going to hire saboteurs and

we're going to pick who nixon runs again. they derailed and helped destroy senator muskgee and pat buchanan wrote a memo saying this is great. our strategy paid off. so, the idea -- you think about this. we've talked at some length about it's really an attack on the free electoral process to say, oh, i'm running against somebody in your -- let me pick who i think will be the weakest candidate. and the idea that somebody is going to do that who is president of the united states in all of these people around him is pretty horrifying. >> you come back in a piece saying was nixon the central factor in all of this, in all of the wars, in all of the execution. >> that's what's so astonishing

about the tapes. always, it's nixon saying bring me the dead mouse. and he is the one that says break in, break in, break in. i want those files. he comes back to it time and time again. and it's he that is insistent about getting ted kennedy's tax returns, about saying let's get my old secret service agent from when i was vice president, put him in ted kennedy's secret service detail, get him to report back and maybe we'll catch the son of a bitch in a compromising position and ruin him so he can't run in '76. that's what this was about. that's what's so brazen and horrifying. >> how important was deep throat? >> deep throat helped us a lot. he was confirming -- >> confirming is the word? >> basically. like the october story, it started out as carl had found three people who were recruited

to do this sabotage and spying and none of them had done it. i went to meet with mark feld and it's one of the times where he said, no, this is much bigger. and that's when he said there are 50 who did this. and that's been a number that was disputed for a long time. all you have to do is read the senate watergate committee and their report. and it's astonishing. they had 22 people that the chief saboteur paid. they had spies named ruby one, ruby two, sedan chair one, sedan chair two, chapman's friend and on and on. they hired infiltrators. they threw stink bombs at campaigns. there was nothing off limits. >> why do you think people persist in asking questions about deep throat?

for example, on a plane coming from new york to washington, a diplomat that i know came over and said where are you going? i said i'm going down to interview carl and bob as the watergate's 40th anniversary, and there's a big conference to talk about it. and he said ask him how many deep throats there were. curiosity about deep throat. >> one, there was one. >> people didn't believe there was one for a long time. they thought it was -- i think we have a problem, cultural problem to some extent that revisionism -- revisionism can be a great thing if you're open minded and open things up and say let's enlarge the record. but if the person is to merely discredit or to merely debunk, i think there's been an awful lot of that with watergate and particularly because -- here, to me, is the most important thing about this anniversary. that it not be seen as in the

cultural landscape and world fair of ideological conflict that goes on today. one of the things that happen heerd -- you heard it from bill cohen and the others. decision to work in that democrats, republicans voted 77-0 to create the watergate committee. nixon's appointees to the supreme court, three of them, including the chief justice of the united states, said you have to turn over these tapes, mr. president, because you're not above the law. this was not an ideological exercise, partisan exercise. it was not about the republican party. it was about nixon. >> that's true. we should answer the question about -- we should be accountable. >> yes. >> when we wrote "all the president's men," we sat down and said we went to grand injurerinjure jurors. we need to acknowledge that. carl got phone records from private people. we need to acknowledge that.

we need to acknowledge and deal with the genuine emotions when we screwed up on the haldeman story, so on and so forth. we should have no objection to people saying how many deep throats there were. happily seven years ago, mark feld, on his own, decided to come out and unmask himself. that day, carl and i were in the newsroom and bradley and len downey are saying, you've got to confirm it. and we weren't worried that he's being taken advantage of. he's over 90, demeantia. they're saying, looks this is reality. we need to confirm it and disclose it. we did. happily, then people started checking and felt wrote another book with his lawyer and so forth. all the details are laid out. so there's not a mystery about this. quite frankly, if he had died before that happened or we were

able to write the book "the secret man" to tell about that story, you would have had more doubters. >> did you go to him at any point in the process before it was disclosed and he acknowledged that he was deep throat to ask him to consider coming forward? >> yes. when we were writing "all the president's men" i called him up and said how about coming clean? click. i know what that meant. >> and who conceived the idea of how you would meet? >> he started out -- >> plant, flower and all that? >> he said open the drapes. i said now wait a minute. i'm maybe going to let the sun in. so i said this flower pot, which was sitting out there, said i'll move it back. and again it's come out, fbi people have said they were working with him somehow, it's not clear to me, to see that this signal could be observed.

i was living in an area where there are all kinds of foreign embassies and the fbi was very active. and having informants in the embassies and so forth. so, it worked. now, i was 29 and i thought this was the way you always met people. >> when he told me this is what was going on, i looked at him like he was out of his mind. what the hell? you know, every once in a while you go to a fire, put on a fireman's running coat but i never heard of this. >> neither did i. but, you know, you do these things -- doing a second book on obama now. and working on the white house and so forth. and out of the blue, one of the key people in the white house that i wanted to talk to e-mailed me and said let's meet. and i didn't come back and say why do you want to meet? i just said, fine. tell me when and where.

let's do it. so you don't set those terms of engagement with the source. and this was a source early on who told us when gene -- bless him, the night police reporter who found the entries in the notebook, h hunt w house. when carl heard that w house he said it could only be one of two thing things. >> true story. >> yeah, true story. so it calls it the whore house and i call it the white house. >> that's right. >> it was -- you know, mark felt -- i have your name in my address book and go commit a crime, that doesn't mean -- >> that i knew anything about it. >> exactly, in the least. so you have what's called a link that may mean something, may

not. i call up mark felt. he said don't worry. howard hunt is up to his ears in this. so the word stage is when he helped us but the real, quite frankly, turning point in watergate is when carl found the bookkeeper. the bookkeeper had the details on the money and who controlled it and who got the money. if you look at "all the president's men" i think the bookkeeper is the key source on money and then that led to all of the other -- >> i don't want to -- >> this one question. could you have discovered the story? could you have uncovered the story without mark felt? >> without his -- >> i think that we had uncovered the story. more than anything, he did contribute key details at various points.

but, really what he did that was so terrific is he gave us his assurance that we knew we were right, that he confirmed these things and it eliminated a lot of doubt that i think we might have had. >> and i think in the end it was very -- even though ben never asked for the name of the source while we were doing the coverage, i think it was very comforting to bradley to know that there was something high up in the justice department who was saying, you know, this -- yeah, this is exactly right. this all fits together. >> bradley never asked? >> he never asked. and he wrote in his memoirs, didn't quite understand why he didn't ask, but he never did. he later did, believe me. >> meaning? >> meaning, i think it was -- i

told him. when we wrote "the secret man," which was the whole story of the relationship with him, ben came over to my house in 2002 and read it and said really i wanted to make sure that it conformed with all of his memory and what he said and, interestingly enough, ben said -- because we were thinking of writing this story before mark felt died. and he had dementia. i had been in touch with him. and ben said look, the guy you made the deal with about not naming him is now different. and you can't unilaterally decide you're going to break that agreement. so, we didn't break the agreement until felt came out all to our surprise. >> after 33 years. >> and you were an associate editor. >> they didn't tell me they were working on this story.

>> bob hasn't changed, has he, carl, in terms of the willingness to go out? he was on with me about a year ago, i think it was. you had gone out to see somebody and knocked on their door at 8:30 at night, because they had refused to see you. and getting their story was important. you still do that shoe leather thing occasionally? >> this was a general. this was a general. i guess i can -- and he just wouldn't talk. and i needed detail. there's a perfect time to visit a general at home, that's about 8:15. if they're home, they've eaten. that's kind of their down time. i knocked on the door. he opened the door and looked at me and i'll quote him. he said, are you still doing this shit? and i just kind of learned how to look innocent from carl. i looked innocent and he said, come on in.

>> and told you everything you wanted to? >> not everything. no one ever tells everything. he told enough. >> the technique is to go find other people that can build on the story so that you have the whole thing? and you can go back to him and ask questions because somebody else has told you something that he didn't tell you and then you have reason for him to add more? >> you get notes and memos and you get -- and you try to get an authentic -- >> suppose you had the the internet and e-mail and twitter and all that we have today. would it have made covering watergate different? >> yeah. two things. one, i think that the tally of information would be received by readers and viewers would be very different, because there's so much inclination to look at information from a partisan or ideological source and use that information to reinforce

preconceived prejudices and beliefs. different in the way it's received. but in terms of going out and getting the information, there's no substitute whatsoever for the basic methodology. i mean, i went to work when i was 16 at "the washington star." and that's what you learned to do. that's what we still do. you need to talk to people. you got to -- you know, you know this this, charlie. one thing that's happened in journalism and a lot of us, there a there's a lot of manufactured controversy when people throw a microphone in front of you or come in with a notebook. tell me what this is all about and they leave the room. you learn things by sitting and listening and really learning and being open minded. preconceived notion of a story that you have when you go out is never the same as what the story turns out to be. it's because you're there in person. >> human sources are the key. >> human sources. >> to answer your question, i

think the internet could have helped with connections and so forth. but we've talked to some journalism students at schools and they somehow think that the internet is a magic lantern and that you could just google secret fund and out would come all the data you need. >> yeah. >> and, you know they're just not true. the good stuff is not on the internet. >> the night that we found the check that established that the burglars, that the nixon money had gone into the burglars -- nixon campaign fund had gone into the burglars account, i called woodward back in the office. he went back to the library and found about a dozen city directories and we had a name. kenneth h. dahlburg. we thought he was from minnesota. we found the minnesota guide. and found the guy. the difference is that you would

find him quicker through google but the basic methodology remains. >> was there anything about covering this story that you could not confirm, even though you found it fascinating and interesting and -- but you coul nail it down so you couldn't report it? >> there are lots that come to mind. i'll tell one real quick one. and this is not confirmed. it's not a crime or anything. but there are people in the nixon white house in the last days that said nixon left the white house and just kind of walked out for an hour or two walking around washington and ordered the secret service not to come with him and so forth. people have told us that, but lots of other people denied it. i don't think it's true. but it's, you know, one of those stories. what did nixon do on the eve he resigned? one of the things did he is he prayed with henry kissinger. there were more hours and, you know, maybe he went wandering.

who knows? >> now 40 years later, peck are talking about the leaks in the white house. how do you feel about that? >> it's important to not get at reporters sources and to haul report nears court. more often than not the claim that national security has been violated by newspaper or the press as ben bradley said many, many years ago. it's almost always bogus. at the same time, people in government take an oath that they are not going to disclose national security information. and you can have a legitimate jury, it seems to me. but you have to be very, very careful that this does not turn into something that's totally

unjustified. president obama the other day made a statement that his white house is not responsible for leaking national security information. and it seems to me that he's going to have to find out if what he said is really true. >> "the new york times" is concerned that people will assume that somehow this information was all laid out to them rather than the benefit of a lot of hard -- >> the other thing is, you know, every white house, every day discloses national security information. i mean it's the way the place works. and so the question now is there anything really detrimental to the interest of the united states that has been disclosed in "the new york times," "the washington post," "time" magazine, on the air, whatever, that really justifies finding out who leaked something? >> i just hate the word leaks. >> yeah. >> because, i mean, it makes it sound like reporters are passive and just waiting to get the

gusher. and the rule at the "washington post" is when we have a good story, it's because of aggressive thorough reporting and "the new york times" or somebody else has a story it's -- >> it's a walk. >> but, you know, you have to be in a position where you're open and you are unfeddered in a way as a reporter so people will come to you if that's what they decide. because there are lots of things, there were lots of things in watergate where people would come to us not with big stories but with supporting information and the newspaper has to be an environment where we say to people come and tell us the truth. and if you need to be protected, we will protect you. >> what do you say to people that say wootwa waroodward is a

reporter and bernstein is a better writer? >> brilliant sentences, brilliant paragraphs. then there is time i come up with the information. i think it really -- that's -- >> is that your favorite question, bradley? >> yeah. >> the collaboration, yeah, but there is real collaboration. you have to -- i mean in the end when you work with somebody like carl who is so resourceful and so aggressive and so tough minded, you are humbled because you see -- i mean i quite honestly come into the office at 8:00 or 9:00 and carl would be there. didn't eat dinner. was just churning on the story. there is, you know, we love reporting. i mean there's definitely no question he's the better writer than i am.

>> again, there's a lot of reversal. >> okay. finally, so this was when you were 29, 30 years old. you'll never see a story this good again. >> who knows? who knows? >> you know, i go out and i move that flower pot in the backyard every now and then just hoping that there is somebody in the back. >> bob is lonely. contact me. there is also this. i found this in a letter that a series of things about ben. i read this bring introduce jim. this is a letter dated may 30th, 1973 from badly saying as long as a journalist tells the truth in conscious and fairness it is not his job to worry about consequences. the truth is never as dangerous as a lie in the long run. i truly believe that the truth sets men free. thank you both. [ applause ]

>> and so finally tonight, a few words and thoughts about the man for whom nothing good said about him could ever be too much or over the top. he is, of course, my hero and the hero of so many others in this room and elsewhere, the e

one -- bradley, i'm about to call your name. i'm talking about you. the one, the only, benjamin crownenshield, bradley! >> yeah, but it doesn't matter. otherwise known as bradley of "the post." to call ben a hero is almost an

understatement. there has to be another word that goes before and after hero maybe super, super hero, super ben bradley. that worked for me and i suspect it does for everyone else who knows him. and watergate context, as we all heard tonight, my god, super hero ben from beginning to end. with respect for all others who were involved and i know they would agree with me, i would ask only rhetorically i'd only ask one question rhetorically, what might have happened or not happened in "the washington post" newsroom if ben had not been there? super hero, super ben, i dare say that every person who entered journalism the last 40 years prayed, dreamed about going to work for ben bradley. on a simple goodness of a human

being scale, super hero, super ben. and without any doubt in that special world of friendship, ben is super hero, super to the highest possible power. he is without a caught the ultimate fox hole buddy. i speak from my own experience and others that are lucky enough to say with truth and pride, ben bradley is a friend of mine. and i would wear that and might wear that on my t-shirt and on my forehead now and forever more. [ applause ]