the money and how it went for more than just the balking at watergate, aouple days earlier, we were discussingow to write this story. we met at a vending machine room off of the newsroom floor. i felt this chill go down my spine, literally. it is the only time i really felt a chill. >> and john mitchell jumped out of the vending machine. [laughter] >> i said oh, my god, this president is coburn to be impeached. this is about eight weeks after the break-in. you said you are right. i do not know where it came from.

woodward said we can never use that word impeachment around this newsroom, lest anybody think we have some sort of agenda. awe of that moment stays with me. one of the rsons is, and bob can talk about this, watergate was not a keeper. it was about a fundamental attempt by the president of the ited states to misused and abused the constitution, obstruct justice, and more than anything, to try to underme the very electoral process of our government. >> this is the important part. there were dirty tricks. there were all kinds of things aimed at t democrats who were going to run against nixonnd they wanted what they perceived, i think accurately, they wanted

the democratic nominee to be george mcgovern. they really went after senator muskie who was the front rner and spied on him. they had 50 spies out in the campaigns writing false press releases. they literally had the gas fort senator muskie's chauffeur who would drive him around and bring documents from his senate office over to his campaign headquarters. there were so many documents that the nixon campaign wanted copies of the chauffeur called and said rented an apartment full-time and bought a xerox machinend in trs between but photographed documents for the nixon campaign so they knew about speeches, strategic plans, personnel shakeups, and

everything. if you were to list the things they did to him, they threw him off e raill by getting the weaker candidate. if you really look at it, they tampered with everybody's vote by saying this was not just something done, have fun, or it was not just dirty tricks. it was a strategic plan aimed at giving the weakest nominee and they did it. >> iis hard to imagine how different that time is and yet, we are asked continually, could this story happen again? my answer always is could reporters do this story again?

absolutely. really what good reporting is is the best obtainable version of the truth. it is a very simple phrase and a complex process but the basic element of the process are reallynocking on doors. it is really about the reporter's going toothe sources. very early in the game, we got a hold of a list of the employees of president nixon's reelection committee. it was a couple hundred people. it was treated almost like a classified document. it had their phone numbers, their room numbers, and we were able by transposing the phone numbers and the room numbers and the names to almost make a chart of who worked for home and we went out at night, we knocked on

ors and tried to see these people and their homes. one of the first things that happened is we encountered their fear. they told us more than many of them were telling us with their information that something momentous was here. >> what is interesting is we were gathering facts, supported by the editors at the post, she had a lot on the line. what is really important to understand is the institution of "the washington post." some truly independent newspaper d voice. we could have found out these

things and editors and publisher could have said we are not calling to publish this. they said that we have this responsibility. they are really turned us loose and were able to work full- time on this. very unusual for to particularly young reporters like ourselves. i remember in january of 1973, we had written all of these stories essentially saying there is a major criminal cspiracy beingun and conducted in the nixon white house. this was not believed to a level that i think we did not it knowledge between ourselves. over on the national staff, people were kind of looking at us as some kind of kooks. >> telling the editor of the paper that he should assign this story to the national political

reporters because real were endangering the future of the newspaper. >> catherine graham back to us and ask us for lunch. i remember this much. we knew her a little bit. t very well. this is really an important management story. she blew my mind and with the question she asked about watergate. she had read everything we had written. she knew henry kissing who was the national security adviser for nixon. she even read sothing in the "chica tribune." i wder what she was reading the damn "chicago tribune." nobody does and wash -- nobody does in chicago. she was sweeping all of this in. i waseally stunned and later we described it as this capacity

to manage mind on, hands off. intellectually involved but not telling us how to report or at it. at the end, she had the killer question. like a good ceo, which is when is the whole story goingo come out? when do we find out the whole truth? i said that we felt very strongly that the burglars were being paid, criminal conspiracy, they come are -- the compartmentalized information people were frightened, truly fearful to talk to us about this. my answer was never. she had this really awful to go probably never. >> i said never.

she looked at me with a pained look on her face and said never? do not tell me never. i left lunch in motivated employees. [laughter] it was not a threat. it was a statement of purpose. what she said is used all of your resources. or have an obligation to journalism, to ourselves, but it goes beyond that. if we have a truly, as we believed, a criminal conspir being run out of the white house, we have to validate that. we have to get the full story. what is important about that for a newaper, or any

organization, what business are you in? she realized the business we are in is really digging and digging to the bottom of things. not kind of just ping the daily press release. that support that added, that fortitude, quite frankly, tt was the x factor. >> i think this gets to where we are today perhaps in some ways. i went to work 50 years ago this year. i spent the first four years at the washington star which was also a great newspaper. this notio of theest obtainable version of the truth really being what we do, what we are about, we have comics. but everything goes into this

idea of we are trying to look at the world in countries around us, the community and describ it in terms of what is really goinon. that is our responsibility and there is public trust that comes with that. i do not wanto be nostalgic about another age. great journalism is the exception, not the rule. sometimes even good journalism might be the exception. this notion of what newspapers and whathe press was about, there was an elent commonly believed about our basic function. >> i think it is there. the problem is the business model. newspapers are not making money. >> >> i would argue with you on that. i think it is there imuch less regard because in fact, while

newspapers were still making 19% of the margin of profit four years ago, i think that was still thaverage. >> even fo years ago, i think we have lost chains accumulated more and more newspapers. the best obtainable version of the truth became less and less the ideal in our business. happily, we have had several newspapers, where that has remained the case. those newspapers in many regards are better than they were at the time of watergate. >> sir you agree with me? >>ever.

when it came, but the nixon people then did was the washington post had just become a public company. the nixonhite house made it clear that if we pursued this story any further and continued to do this kind of reporting, that it intended, the white house, to see that the television licence which was the economic life blood of the country -- of the company would be revoked by the sec. the response to that was we are going to continue doing what we do and when our records were subpoenaed by the re-election committee and a lawsuit, mrs. graham tos i am going to take possession of your notes.

>> can you see the picture of furred getting out for limousine going into the d.c. jail? e point is, she was willing to take the responsibility for the institution. does that situation exist tay? i think much less so. i think also we have a media environment in which we are losing to some extent because of the pressu of speed, manufactured controversy, gossip, the web partly, which i think is a great reporting platform but we also need as removed to these platforms to bring to them the standards of the desk of the old jrnalism. >> very quickly in rebuttal, i am saying they're very good examples of journalism and t

spirit is there. if you -- if you used to have a staff of 200 and you now have a staff of 100 which is what happens to a lot of newspapers, they cannot do the digging and in-depth reporting but i think the vitality is their and my argument is that the people on the business side need to find that business model and things will get better. but i agree with you, there is not enough of this and the culture of impatience and speed. >> we have set a tone here that will now enable you to go at us. >> our guest will be pleased to take your questions. if you have a question, we ask you to come to a microphone so that everybody can hear. who would like to ask the first question? if you do not get up at the

microphone, i will go ask carl a question. >> it might happen. >> somebody has to go first. i guess i will. in the movie "all th president's men" there's a scene when the editor shouted across the room woodstein. is that te? >> yes. >> thank you. >> that was a no-brainer [laughter] editor who did not like what we were doing for a long time used to call a the gold dust twins. i am not sure what that meant. >> with 40,000 journalists bng laid off this past year alone, what d.c. the future of journalism being? >> what was the first part? >> 40,000 journalists have be

id off in the past year. >> 40,000 journalists have been laid off at traditional journalistic institutions. my guess their air thamany more that call themsels journalists who are doing work the web. by think that we are in a new era in which there is movement all over the place. i think some of the great journalistic institutions are going to persevere and put out most of their product on the web. but let me ask a question here. of those of you who are students, how many get most of your news from the web? and of those of you who are students, how many of you read a daily newspaper in newspaper form? there is part of the answer to your question.

>> a statement first. my firm belief is that this country will never say you're lis again. that may be pessimistic in nature but it leads into my question. in a country that is concerned about whether theresident of the united states is a citizen, is there room for investigative journalism that makes any sense any more? we have people that no lonr to concentrate on the importance of being american citizens and the essence of bng americans. where are your foes? the only investigative reporter i can think of todayand he is a force in the wilderness. he comes up with things and nobody cares. >> i disagree with your

characterization. here is why. >> i think there is no question that we havead, particularly in the last 20 years, a dumbing down of our political cture to some extent and also of our cultur in general. particularly of our media culture. the idea that we have been uninterrupted, a nation inhich the service during -- the are handed the paradigm, i am not sure what we are seeing is anomalous. that there has always been a tendency in our politics whether we're talking about power moved between left and right, and

also, i think gat journalism that has always been the exception. even good journalism has been somewhat of an exception. i think we get a bit too nostgic about a golden age. my question is, if you remember when we had done t pronderant of our reporting, nobody in this country paid much attention to it. the information was there to connect the nixon white hse. >> he is going to disagree me. >> know. i would not disagree with me. we asked the question and trying to recount some anecdotes from working on the watergate story, how do we go about it? it is empirical. still think there is a lot of

empirical recording and it really is the key. i did four books on president bush and his wars. i had the luxury to spend a year or to getting documentation, getting memos, beginning minute notes that would describe exactly what wentn. for three of those books, bush allowed me to come and interview him for hours about what he did and how he made theseecisions. i think it kind of got lost. some not my fault. the extent to which he and knowledge to, particularly in the last two years, the extent to which he became disengaged from the presidency. let me just give you an example. and we published it in the post

and in the last bush book cause it shows something and i think it applies or may apply to the presidency in general and at is the fatigue factor. you'd just get tired. when i interviewed bh for the last book, the big question was how did you decide on sending 30,000 troops with the rge in iraq? it was kind of the key strategic decision he made in the last two years on the iraq war. his national security advir intervened, a very self effacing man, very unusual for him to intervene,e said that was worked out between me and the chairman of the jointhiefs of staff. you know what wtf means, do you

not? where is the president? i turn to bush in this is what he said. ok, i do not know that. wtf moment two. then, he sd i am not at those meetings, you will be happy to hear. i was just delighted. [laughter] why shod the predent bother himself? then he said got other things to do. >> ride the bike. [laughter] right out of his own uth. right out of his own mouth is an acknowledgement that he disengaged from the presidency. i think peopl to not want to deal with that. he is going out of office.

he was leaving. when i interviewed him he had seven months more in the office. i pt looking around his chair to see if he had a suitcase packed. [laughter] he was out of there. i am trying to connect this to the point that there are a lot of ways to find out what really went on. this i out of the president's own mouth. people read it and asked if it was a confession. to a certain extent, it was. >> it is very revealing about the bush. i think in the answer to an important question that you just raised, what happens when the knowledge is o there, as in this case, and the people of the country do not resnd we think

they ought to or the way that one might reasonably expect people to react to a group of circumstances or fax? the same thing happened in watergate is what i am getting at. there was no uprising against nixon until very late. there was, finally. i believe that really the last time that we saw the america system really worked was watergate. the press did its job. a great judge and the judiciary did his job and compelled some answers from the burglars. the congress of the united states did its job and initiated an investigaon the president of the campaign activities, including the president's watergate committee, congress

en went on to have a house impeachment committee which continued to investigate and the commite voted aicles of impeachment against the president. the supreme court of the u.s., led by t chief justice pointed by the preside of the united states, decided the president was not above the l and had to turn over his tapes to a special prosecutor and the president of the united states resigned with bipartisan impetus and desire for that to happen. thati think, is a significant difference in terms of what we have today. i think our political system is not functioning -- >> what i am saying ii think that the idea that you could get

a supreme court decision is questionable. the tapes. i do not know. the notion that you would have impeachment proceedings and an investigation during the bush years, it seems to me, i am not suggesting that he should or should not have been impeached, but certainly there was cause for congressional oversight and investigation of how we had gone into ts war and many of the things. >> having spent eight years of my life on this, the problem with that is, the congress of the united states passed resolutions authorizing the iraq war 3-1 in the senate and house. how are they going to launch some sort of investigation or impeachment of bush for doing --

>> of the condt of the war. i think there is plenty of room for congressional investigation. >> what i think that we allnow and see how the congress of the united states is hamstrung today in gridlock. >> >> with the internet and average and everyday people getting more of a voice and people turning to the internet for the new the you think that journalism is being compromised at all by people getting news who are notecessarily trained or held accountable? with people blogging about the

news were not trained journalists, do you think journalism is beg compromised. >> do we think it is being compromised by people who are not trained i do not. think there is a different problem. we do not he enough news institutions, whether they are on the web or whether they are print, in whi staff of journalists are encouraged to do the hard work of good reporting and knock on doors and be good listeners and go out in search of the best obtainable veron of the truth. i think that is the problem and the web has made it a greater problem rather than a lesser problem. at the same time, i think that there is far more information available today. it is a question of sorting i

out on the web. you can do great things like you want to know about what is going on in the middle east and you do not want to rely on amecan newspape. you go to with the arab point of view is. it is a different environment. again, i think there is a tendency for nostalgia. somebody ask earlier about you did not used have rush limbaugh and this one are that onand all of these loud voices. i would say that in other areas, you had the trumpets of columnists that we have a continuation of a noisy politics. and a noisy and opinionated journalism. that conforms to some extent a

process of commentary in this country that has been on going through our history. >> it may be different now. next question. [laughter] >> i want to see why. my question is mostly geared toward mr. woodward. i have read many of the books you have written since watergate. can you tell me how you get these high-ranking officials to tell you things that could probably have them lose their jobs? >> a good question. the whole reason we're here today. we know it is not charm. we can eliminate that.

i have time to work on these things. i can get the detail from somebody who took notes at a national security council meeting. i can then talk to somebody else and fined them five other people who were at the meeting. i would send bush and 20 pitch memos sang this is what i have found out. i would like to talk to you. my colleagues at the post, once said you sent george bush a 20 page memo. you are crazy. don't you know from his biography and all those years it yale, there is no evidence that he ever read anything that long? what makes you think he will start w? but he did. i spent hours to win over with him and other people involved. this empirical method. i want to find out what

happened i think ather technique that works is to take people as seriously as they take themselves. to know who they are. if somebody has written a foreign affairs article 20 years ago, i will redid and ask them about it. i am working on a book on president obama which will be out in the fall which wilhave the exact kind of cinema verite of this is what happened in this is what people said. it is just reporting and knocking on doors at night. i told the story earlier. when i was working on the last bush book, there was a general who wouldot talk to me. i sent e-mails, i left messages, nothing. i found out where he lived. in the old technique we would

not on their door. the best time is 8:18 at night. people have even if they are at home. they have not launched another activity. it is really psychologically the perfect time. i knocked on this general's door. he opened the door and looked at me and you know what he said? he said are you still doing this shit? [laughter] i nodded. you know what he did? come on in. why did he do that? i am serious about it. i wanted to understand his point of view. ihink there is a little bit of the secret shiver mostin people

inhis auditorium. >> people tell the truth. reporters tend to be, and thi is something that telision made much worse, television reporting, where reporters come in through a microphone in front of your face and have an idea that their purpose is to manufacture ntroversy, not to learn what is actually happening. in fact, we need to be good listeners. that is the other thing. give people a chance to tell thr story. our sources and wergate were not democrats opposed to richard nixon. there were people who worked for nixon and for most part believed him. if you afford people a certain respect. common sense goes a long way in being a reporter. figure outho the right people are to see. go see them and listen to them.

next question. in one of my classes on campus, we were discussing the to review and how the white house press corps h a deep- seated hatred for you because you broke the grid is story ever ofhe presidency of today. my question is how you rate currently the white house press corps? but the informing the voters or is it to scripted? >> it is a reallhard job. carl has made this point. back during watergate, they had this apparatus to keep us from talking to people and t defend, it is even a better and more professional group of pr people, spin doctors, who are there. you have to penetrate that. i think covering the white house daily is a job and they have already and then tfind a way to get behind the scenes -- behind-the-scenes is difficult for the course it is nust

the white house press corps. certainly, the run up or whatever you want to call it to the war was an awful moment for the american press with the w md story, missing it, and the most important thinge do as reporters as decide what is news. leading up to the war, i think we did a pretty terrible job about deciding what is news. >> to confess, i knew as much as anyone about it and i fault myself mightily for not being more aggressive in asking the questions. carl talks about common sense. it was ingrained there are wmd's in iraq. people asserted i had some clues about it. i agree with that.

that does not mean the cia and white house did not screw up. >> there is a larger point here. once the war startedo go badly, i believe that the reporting on the bush presidency by a good number of reporters, partly by bob but reportg by thenew york times" and oer news organizations, the reporting on the bush presidency, which was a highly secretive presidency, was an awful lot of mendacity. a real dislike for the press. it is almost everything we know for about theush psidency is we know from the press. we do not note from congressional hearings. we do not know from anything candid that the bush white house ever put out. we know it fr the press. i think the reporting on the bush presidency after the first

six months of the war is a pretty hon. history of washington reporting. >> you mentioned there needs to be an adjusted business model. i am wondering what your thoughts are on what that might be. " how old are you? >> 22. >> i am 67. you figure it out. [laughter] its ur job. [applause] >> seriously. the people who did theoogle and facebook and so forth, it is the new generation. it is a big problem. i am counting on you. what is your name? >> meredith. >> go to it. [applause] you have your assignment. >> let me follow up on that.

what advice would you have for somebody starting out in inveigative reporting? >> how old are you? >> we have talked about this. we do not thinknvestigative reporting a special category. it is in-depth reporting. it is reporting. go find in newspaper or organization and did in and enjoy it. when you get on to something, whatever it is, do not let up. >> i have a question. how many people here voted for barack obama? how many voted for john mccain? how many of you are pleased with the job that obama is doing? how many of you would like to see a different precedent?

-- president. i am just curious. when know who we are talking with. [laughter] now we can pander a little more. [laughter] should have asked that in the beginning. >> it is a great job being a journalist. you make money -- momentary entries into peoe's lives. guess what? you get to get out when they cease to be interesting. doctors, lawyers, you are stuck with the appendixes and pains. you go into a newsroom and i thinthis is one of the reasons we love the new it is

electric. whats going on? what is happening? what do we not know about it. what is our approach and methods to find out? >> the most amazing moment of my life, i was 16 years old and i walked into a newsroom. i remember that to this day. i did not get the job. i was going to apply for the job. i was a copy boy. the guy who gave me the tour and rer,was my perspective highe took me over to a cart or the newspapers had just come. he said take one. they were born from just having been printed. i will ner forget that. >> it sounds almost sexual. [laughter] >> it almost was. >> the warm newspaper. >> coming on to your web site.

next question. >> regarding the government's insistence on the good news story regarding two wars in iraq and afghanistan, what is that doing to the government and at large and our country and the state of journalism and why are in majority of the major news tlets buying into the good news story? >> what is the good news story? with that things are going well. >> i have not read that lately. >> i msed that. >> everyone's and while the prident might say it but even he does not say. i think that in fact, especially of late, there are stories of afghanistan about how difficult this missions and that right now in iraq, there is terrible internal sife.

it is affecting the withdrawal of our own troops and we will continue to withdraw despite the the courts and the economic conditions. just talk to the people at goldman sacks about the ability to sell a good news story. most of the news is pretty grim and i think people rlize, certainly reporters. >> thankou for being here. >> i will s that we are nearing the end of the time so we will not take many me questions. >> i sort of think of you gentlemen is the lennon and mccarty of journalism. [laughte >> somebody said the ham and egg. >> it seems to me from what i

know about you that this sort of have a creative tensionlong the lines of london and mccurdy. i wonder about the political tension that came to bear when you were working on the watergate project and how you think that might have had a positive or negative impact on the work you did. >> good question. >> i think both of us would say today that team reporting and group reporting can produce results and give you an extra element that is pretty hard to beat. in our case, we asked this question for the first time a few minutes ago. if it had been two different people come up with the same results have occurred? i doubt it.

maybe but i doubt it. things happen on our own time. rticular circumstances. and our case, there is no question in this time in place there is a remarkable synergy, what ever you want to call it. a complementary blending of skills, deficiencies, that everything worked right. >> we are dear friends. as you can see, there are still disagreements. did you notice? [laughter] we come at things in a different way. >> which is terrific. >> at the beginning when we were working together, we would say what the is that? my reaction now is maybe that is right or let's look at that way and so fth. >> a very early, i think each of

us came to understand that the other had a different outlook on aspects of all kinds of questions. but there was a real reason to respect both the outlook skills and the thodology of the other. we often switched roles. >> i can be honestabout this. the had been a reporter not two years. >> three weeks, right? >> you landed your first job in the coolidge administration. [laughter] >> garfield, actually. >> i went to graduate journalism school. you ught me many things, sometimes with a hammer and sometimes by example.

in terms of the relationship, it was what happened here? what is going on? if you look at that story just on the face,he mysteries compound themselves. we were in charge, as reporters, of explaining this. what really happened here? who caused this? what does it mean? that is why we loved it. we were both on married. carl had his warm newspaper to go home to read that. i had nobody to go home to at night. [laughter] we worked. >>i am just curious. and our current political culture where i opened the newspaper and read the entire series anything you were talking about with bush, i wanto hide

my head under a pillow. is it simpl because you are woodward and bernstein did you do not just quit and hide your head under the pillow? >> are you talking about %+formation -- i think there is terrific information out there. >> even with everything that has gone on in the politil culture, i still want to think good things about our politics is all just that. -- just bad. >> i am going to turn this around on u. sarah palin is not the president of the yet states. -- of the united states. [applause] i would say maybe there's say half empty, half full think a win on here.

obviously, i think there is reason to be really concerned about our political culture but also, you cannot divorce that from our larger culture. you could not divorce our journalism and how we did and the way it is delivered to us from what ee is on those platforms, ether on the web or reality television. we are part of a larger fabric. i think the answer to your question about your head under the pillow may have to do with concern about that larger fabric. i am concerned about that. i think that larger fabric, there iseason to be pessimistic about that larger fabric, more than i have ever

thought. >> to more questions. >> mine is going to be a little more philosophical. nobody has asked this yet about deep throat. >> we have a question from somebody and aristotle. it won't be more philosophical than that. [laughter] >> certain people came together at just the ght time. like you were saying, the synergy worked. you had the right editor. you have the right owner. do you loo back and think that deep throat and the know the whole story, that you knew him from the four, could you have broke it without him? do you think it was divine intervention it all came out? >> we had so many sources, you

could write a thesis that he was important. you could write a thesis that he was not important. i think we look back on its now and we are glad that he actually came forward and said that he was deep throat. that got answered in the history of this and it is one of those things were as soon as it came out, people said of course. that is logical. that is who it was. he did not give us primary data. talk about -- he was encouraging us. i think that was a very important. i think he was a source of comfort to the editors at the post that there was somebody senior in the justice department behind this. we certainly would have written what to get stories without him. . .

>> did your careers span the same year of greenspan's career, have you thought about doing a biography. jo you did that. >> i read greenspan's turn

lance. he was pretty good as exposing what went on. there's some questions i still have that is related to the history during the clinton years and the transition. the big question is this, what happened to the $700 surplus, was it spent and did the surplus actually exist? >> you mean when he left the office? >> the bush tax cut t

the same time that the war spending wenup board. >> can i taketwo minutes to tell the store which we have not told until today? and that is -- we keep wanting to know the future, and in fact we do not we ner get the future right. when that did the second story on bullish about how he decided to go to war -- on bush about how he decided to go to war in iraq? i asked him, how do you think history ll judge the iraq war? and he takes his hands out and shrubs like only bush can and says, history? we will not know. we will all be dead. [lauger

>> and for it -- and with that we want thank you for having us. [applause] >> i rely knew that we wer't done. >> real quick -- that was the tension. we goto get you home to your war newspaper. [laughter] and so i go home and my wife asked me how was the interview, and i said he answered all the question but they'reeally good news is that i have the ending to the book. ending to books are hard to find. about a year later, 2005, high was giving a talk in washington and the subject of your great biography, hillary clinton, was the other speaker. she came up to me and said, i

quote from your book all the time. in fact i "it's so often i should give you royalties. i stupidly said no and should have said how much. she sa, i "the end of the book were you asked about history and bush says, history we will not know. i said, why you quit that? hillary can get excited. she said, you cannot be president of the united states and talk like that. she is putting her fist into her palm. you're bullish is a fatalist. he gives himself over to history. you cannot think and talk like that and the president. and i said, well. she said, no, you cannot.

george washington would never talk like that. thomas jefferson would never talk like th. bill would never talk like that. [laughter] >> what would jesus do? [laughter] >> then i thought washington, jefferson, bill -- the new mount rushmore. history we will not know. we will all be dead. >> thank you. [caioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] . .

>> next, it is "washington journal". our guests include the george mason university professor jeremy mayer on the gulf coast oil spill. oil spill.