. >> on his name was ben graham but his real name was -- >> ben grossbalm. >> my son is name 56d ben and he is very glad he changed his name. >> so you moved back for a while to nebraska. then ultimately changed his mind and you went to work for ben graham. >> i kept pestering him. >> in those years what did you aspire to do? what did you aspire to become a wealthy person, did you want to buy stocks, companies? >> i loved just analyzing securities. i spent hours and hours. i kept turning the pages of moody's, instead, you had no internet or anything, you had two sources, moody's and standard & poor's. and we happened to have these sets of moody's, about 8,000 pages. about five manuals. and i went through those page by page. >> must have been exciting. >> yeah. it's a little strange. you know, i actually went to amazon a few years ago and found an old 1951 moody's. everybody else is going there for play boy but i'm ordering the old moody's. a strange guy here. >> working in new york you were attracted to one of the companies that ben graham was with, geico, i understand that you came

. >> it met the man who idolize ben graham. when you took his class, which he has great as he thought he would be? >> he taught one semester, one clause. he came up in wall street and taught this class. that was the reason i went to columbia. see, i had already read all the books. it was inspirational to be around him. it made a difference in my life. >> when you graduated, you wanted to work for him. rejected you for an interesting reason. if you work -- there were jewish firms and non-jewish firms and you were not jewish so he said because you were not jewish he did not harder you. >> that is true. i was ready to convert, believe me. ithin think that would of thougi was one at the time. it was true. there were very few firms and that wall street that would hire jews and they only employ five or six people. but he told me that to the extent there were able to employ those people, he felt that they could not get most jobs in wall street and that would employ only jews. >>> his real name was? >> ben grossman. ben.on is named aft

. >> so you rejected by harvard, you went to colombia, you met the man, ben graham. and when you took his class was he as great as you thought? >> he was. he only taught one semester one class. he came up from wall street and taught this class. that's the reason i went to columbia. i knew -- i don'ts -- it was inspirational to be around him. it made a real difference in my life. >> so when you graduated you wanted to go work for him, and his firm, and then he rejected you for an interesting reason. in those days i understand there were jewish firms and non-jewish firms. you weren't jewish so he said he didn't hire you. >> that's true. and i was ready to convert, believe me. i think they might have felt it was phony at the time. but it was true. there were very few firms in wall street that would hire jews at that time. and then only employed five or six people. he told me to the extent that they were able to employ five or six people they felt that the

but his name was ben graham but his real name was -- >> gernish. my son is named howard graham named after ben and he's very glad that ben never changed his name. >> so you moved back for a while to nebraska. but then quo he ultimately changed his mind. >> i made a pest of myself. >> what did you aspire to become a very wealthy person? did you want to buy stocks, companies? >> i loved analyzing securities. i just spent hours and hours and hours just -- i kept turning the pages of moody's instead of -- you had no internet. you had two sources of information and we happened to have the access to moody's they were about 8,000 pages about five different manuals and i went through those page by page. and -- >> that must have been exciting. >> it's a little strange. you know. i actually went to amazon a few years ago and i found an old 1951 moody's now everybody else is going there for playboy mag zip but i'm ordering the old moody's. >> when you were working in new york you were attracted to one of the companies that ben graham was attracted with geico.

[laughter] [laughter] [applause] [applause] you met the professor you would idolize, ben graham. class. he came up from wall street to teach the class. that is the reason i went to columbia. it was inspirational just to be around him. it made a real difference in my life. .. >> you move back quote to nebraska but then ultimately change his mind? >> yes. >> what did you aspired to do? a wealthy person? buying stocks or company is? >> i'd love to analyze securities. i would turn the pages of moody's. we had moody's and standard and poor's four sources of the creation. there was 8,000 pages. i would go through page by page is. >> sounds exciting. [laughter] >> it sounds strange. i actually went to the amazon anybody else goes for the old playboys by a blend for the moody's. [laughter] >> you were a attracted to geico and you came down and knocked on the door? started to talk to them? >> it was a lucky day progressed the columbia university the library government employees insurance company i said how can i learn more about this? so on and saturday it came down to washington and peop

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

and what ben said to me was my heart sank because they knew right then and done graham told you they knew right then the jig was up. but it took janet a couple of days to really just say i did it, about 36 hours. what happened next is the reason why in telling you the story. a massive fraud qaeda perpetrated on the "washington post." among the pose of the. so what do you do? your ben bradlee. and ben have been part of the pushing institution, which while some of now, but that assumes the second month we have a newspaper in the journal. so then couldn't assign, but he given free reign to fit everybody at the paper can cooperate with the story. there's not going to be one sordid fact about this falsehood, do you suppose that we're not going to get first. and when people ask me about that at the time and when i ask them about it, what he said as he learned the lesson on the lesson of the watergate is not always the crying. it's what she do after. and what ended after by opening up the whole paper with the whole participation and with the envoy was able to do was remarkably talented man

one of the things and i thank don graham and lose hilton and all the people around and they gave me a box full of ben's correspondence and it was revolutionary to my understanding of their relationship and one of the most exciting things you could ever read. it was their real time back and forth and that moment with the pentagon papers is an indicative moment and ben have a lot of courage but so did kate. i tried to find a way to sum up their relationship. they go back and forth and people speculate about love between them and i talk about that but nobody really knows and it was their compact and it worked and that was what was important about it but in 1995 a book party when his memoir came out that you should read will make you see how much i had to leave out but at the end of the party he realized he hadn't given her a book. she made him a wealthy man. everything so he wrote her a note and at the end hero this. kathryn you have been the most important force in my life. you have been a jolliest partner and makes my heart beat every time i see you. nothing can change that. not even my own clumsiness.

ben. it became something he is proud of. in the wake of the scandal, he and don graham, the only publisher at the typer that time. days, interviewed everybody, complete access. basically, no fact in that report had been successfully challenged. it is the definitive account. that actually saved the post and truly saved -- and what he will say to you is that he could learn a lesson of watergate and yes, the mistake was a mistake and he will always admit it was a mistake, but in the wake of it, it's the cover up. he threw his arms open and i think it saved him. i go into that episode a great deal in the book because it tells you as much about ben. >> you said you were fascinated about him. why you wanted to write the book and because you could. what about your sense of who he was? figure in history, a man changed or surprised you or did you learn in the course of writing this book? >> what anybody who has met ben or been around ben, when he walks into a room, he has a real charis charisma, a real personal power. it continues to affect me. i think what was surprising to me, he flew open his whole archive, his whoep l