Truitt, an intimate of the Grahams whomBen Bradlee would later force to resign, committed suicide himself in 1981, still despondent over his treatment at the newspaper after Philips death. By this time, Robin had returned to Paris. After a hurricane struck in 1926, the sugar company gave up and his father developed a dairy business on some of the land. Only 15 years later, when things were very bad, did I look at the situation ruefully. In some ways, this was the bottom moment for me -- very confusing, very difficult, and very painful. See Photos. In 1966, Truman Capote, her neighbor at the U.N. Plaza, where she kept a New York apartment, threw his famous Black-and-White costume ball for her. Freelancers Guide . As a result, I had no one on whom to lean for advice. She really does seem to believe that Watergate was an aberration. Instead, it appeared on Page B7. Katharine Graham is now seventy-nine, and the Post is in the hands of her son Donald, who is fifty-one. In the midst of the crisis, she wrote to Ehrlichman, saying, What appears in the Post is not a reflection of my personal feelings. Phil was born in 1915 in . Phil received the larger share of the stock because, as Dad explained to me, no man should be in the position of working for his wife. For years, whatever directive I may have issued ended with the phrase if its all right with you. If I thought Id done anything to make someone unhappy, Id agonize. I almost rather died!. Philip L. Graham. . "So I restated the matter urging him not to count on Johnson's turning it down . . Unfortunately, this incapacity often produced in womenas it did in mea diffuse way of talking, an inability to be concise, a tendency to ramble, to start at the end and work backwards, to overexplain, to go on for too long, to apologize. Film/TV Lets go, lets publish. And by doing that she opened the way to Watergate and to the Posts position as a rival of the Times. Now I can see how extraordinary -- and out of order -- it was for a Supreme Court justice to be stepping over the boundaries to this extent, but I didn't then. My feelings about The Post, however, were very clear. This is, for me, the most painful thing to look back on. He was the publisher (from 1946 until his death) and co-owner (from 1948) of The Washington Post. He welcomed her with a carload of flowers, and together they flew to Sioux Falls, S.D., where he was to talk to the publisher of the local paper about buying it. Joe persuaded Phil to accompany him to urge Kennedy to offer the vice-presidency to Johnson. At one point, Mrs. Graham asked for ice cream. The General Secretary had revealed his plans for a joint United StatesSoviet space mission to Mars, and we led the paper with that world beat. I didnt think much about it at the time, but this was the beginning of a pattern that I can see now was quite unhealthy. . It was all kept very private; our one idea was to conceal what had happened not only from the world but from our friends, my family, and even our children. Not only did Phil own the majority of the stock but he also believed that his efforts as publisher entitled him to ownership. In those days, of course, the only possible heir would have been a male, and since my brother was in medicine and had shown little or no interest in the business, my father naturally thought of Phil. After we had lunched as long as we could, someone suggested driving to the country, and we spent the afternoon there. As is true of any royal visit, there were many logistical problems to be worked out. She attended the Madeira School, in McLean, Virginia, one of the few girls schools intent on training young women for a career. When Eisenhower finally sent in federal troops, Phil saw it as a defeat not only for the South but for himself. Attention would have to be paid. He was married to Katharine Graham, the daughter of Eugene Meyer, the previous owner of The Washington Post. My father had said that he himself was too old to let Phil work his way up. But by the summer of 1958, he was starting to do a little more. At that point, Phil got together with {columnist} Joe Alsop to discuss the merits of Lyndon Johnson as Kennedy's running mate. I was expected to perform all the pulling and hauling; Phil gave directions and put the fun in my life and the childrens. Katharine, by her own account and in the accounts of others, was a tall and awkward girl with a manly stride, but she was also intelligent, and she absorbed the lessons of her social class well. The talent level in the newsroom began to shift, and so did the culture of the place. In an otherwise blissful spring of journalistic overload, a time when the merest cough in the Kremlin merited front-page attention, it came about that the Post and its sister publication, Newsweek, were being awarded a plum: an interview with the General Secretary of the Communist Party. The editors around her grumbled almost inaudibly, but just enough, it seemed to me, to nudge her out of such a call. Telling his father about the marriage proved difficult. To get a sense of how momentous were Katharine Grahams two decisions in the nineteen-seventieson the Pentagon Papers and Watergateit is crucial to understand just how poorly she had been prepared for such decisions by her family, her legendary husband, and the atmosphere in which she had always lived. Mainly, the Grahams were poor and had a difficult struggle. So, although he remained fairly liberal on domestic issues, he was not so on foreign policy. Katharine soon learned of their affair, when she picked up the phone and heard Phil and Robin talking to each other in words that made the situation plain.. While the Times and the two wire services, A.P. Phil's early memoranda to his executives are stunning in their detailed outline of problems, potential, and objectives. Post vice president James Truitt arranged with Kennedy to send Air Force 2 to retrieve Graham, who checked in for the first of two brief stays at Chestnut Lodge, then a leading psychiatric hospital in Rockville, Md., that has since burned down. Phils greatest successes were in business: buying and absorbing the Times-Herald in 1954, purchasing Newsweek (for a song) in 1961, and making inroads against the dominant paper in town, the Evening Star (which folded in 1981). I got it for her. The whole idea of buying Newsweek and adding yet another huge responsibility to his already too-full plate made me nervous. In the early days of Watergate, she tried, in rather submissive terms, to build a personal bridge to the one man who exceeded even Nixon in his public hatred of the PostSpiro Agnew. In England, she lunched with Harold Laski, but then went off to Salzburg to meet her mother, who treated us to the Hotel Bristol and tickets to the music festival there. While a friend went on to visit the socialist experiment in Moscow, Katharine, on the stern advice of her father, did not. The only thanks you ever seem to receive is a deafening chorus of carping criticism. journalism. In addition, Farber believed that labeling something, giving a name to a disorder, changed how the patient viewed himself and was viewed by those around him. We went to a restaurant, had a long dinner, talked and laughed a lot, and drank until quite late. That decision may have been right for me, she writes, but it was so wrong for Bill and Steve and even for Donso wrong that I wonder how I could have made it. Here was someone who combined for me the two parts of my life that I thought were inescapably separate. It introduced him to Felix Frankfurter. Great risk was involved, or so one heard. He wanted Estes Kefauver to head an anticrime commission and told him so, repeatedly, until Kefauver did it. She did not have to. Even before Adolph Ochs bought the paper, in 1896, the Times had earned its record for rigor when it went after Boss Tweed. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. Grahams mentor, Felix Frankfurter, talked him out of firing Barth, but Graham did print an apologetic note in the paper undermining the original editorial. In the end, Joe and his like-minded friends bought Phil's argument that this bill was better than nothing. Her story was not easy to figure out. Phil Graham's descent into the abyss of manic depression accelerated, and on 24 December 1962 she discovered that he was embroiled in an affair with a Newsweek stringer, Robin Webb. This was not entirely to the good. 318 Robin Webb Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images CREATIVE Collections Project #ShowUs Creative Insights EDITORIAL VIDEO BBC Motion Gallery NBC News Archives MUSIC BLOG BROWSE PRICING ENTERPRISE VisualGPS INSIGHTS BOARDS CART SIGN IN Images Images Creative Editorial Video Creative Editorial FILTERS CREATIVE EDITORIAL VIDEO An exception is David Halberstams 1979 book, The Powers That Be, which provides a vivid group portrait of the men and women behind the Post, CBS, Time, and the Los Angeles Times. From the start, she was intent on keeping the paper within the family and eventually passing it on to her children. Unlike Phil, I find it hard to express emotion. He acknowledged that he used humor as a weapon with which to keep people at a distance. To keep a story out of the paper to achieve a purpose, even a fine one, is neither appropriate nor in the spirit of my father's definition of the duty of a newspaper: "To try to tell the truth. The truth is that I adored him and saw only the positive side of what he was doing for me. Both were full of humor -- with an edge. Facebook gives people the power to. (One area that, surprisingly, started to shift under my feet was the Posts editorial quality. There he was diagnosed with manic depression, a condition today known as bipolar disorder. A nice full head of hair, and well combed. He left no note of any kind. He replied, Oh, yes, very. To this day, I cannot say what the beast wasa leopard, a cougar, a jaguarbut I can still see its talons not an inch from the hose and flesh of my proprietor. They had a natural affinity. Katharine's husband Philip battled alcoholism and mental illness throughout the marriage. It is hard to remember now just how far in front the Times was after the Second World War. But I want you to know I am among the many people in this country who believe in you and are behind you with trust and devotion.. The Grahams ran their rather expensive household out of Katharines trust fund; meanwhile, Meyer gave Phil nearly three times as many shares of Post stock as he gave his daughter. Terms & Conditions Except for the $500 present, I never used a cent of my own until two years later, when Phil went into the Army. He was simply not interested in the Times ideal so much as he was in making the Post a player in Washington and, perhaps more, in being a player himself. By 1906, Meyer had made several million dollars by investing in securities; by 1915, he was worth between forty and sixty million. Following the lead of my successful colleague the Latin-American correspondent, I tried to schedule every minute of the two days allotted me. Its hard to remake decisions and even harder to rethink nondecisions. He loved me, and I loved him. Robin Lee Graham is seen on his boat "Dove" during his solo trip around the world in the late 1960s. From the earliest days of our relationship, for instance, I thought that we had friends because of him and were invited because of him. Eugene served Agnes breakfast in bed every morning; he ate at the bedside table. One doctor told a friend later, "Phil was determined to get out and really was unbelievably masterful in his ability to manipulate people." And I was incredulous -- this brilliant, charismatic, fascinating man loved me! See Photos. With time, Katharine was becoming more and more troubled, less and less secure. Robin Webb. At some point, however, not quite three weeks after Christmas Eve, the phones started to work again between Phil and Robin. At Harvard, Phil made the Law Review and, at the end of his second year, became its president. . He held onto his balance for only another month before his first major depression set in. He has an example to follow. It is not usually advisable, or possible, to argue with a Soviet bus, but my priorities were clear. He told me that he wanted to preserve our marriage and our family; he said that he loved Robin but would tell her the affair was over, and that he would stay with his family. CAPTION: Katharine and Phil Graham in 1962, left, after The Post purchased Artnews; above, from left, Phil's half brother Bob Graham -- now a U.S. senator from Florida -- Felix Frankfurter, Ernest Graham and Phil Graham in 1955; right, Phil Graham with John Kennedy on Cape Cod in 1961. He and his girlfriend flew to Phoenix to attend a meeting of The Associated Press. There, in a ballroom full of the nation's top publishers, Phil Graham lost it. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Performance/Dance This being Russia, however, I could not bet with any confidence against the possibility that he was at this very moment converting his cash into a refreshing liquidity at some local bote. City Desk To the surprise of some, she easily warded off the blandishments of Samuel I. Newhouse (once with a somewhat duplicitous Theodore Sorensen as her agent) and the Times-Mirror Company. In middle age and in a state of grief, she suddenly found herself in charge of a newspaper that had yet to show any signs of greatness, and of a group of men who regarded her with, at best, considerable suspicion. District Line Daily: Our news, politics, arts, food, and sports coverage in one email every weekday. It wasnt until years later that I looked at the downside of all this and realized that, perversely, I had seemed to enjoy the role of doormat wife. in 1964, in his bedroom, she sat in an armchair while the President lay down on the bed. He loved me, and I loved him. The most imposing woman in journalism delivers an unexpectedly confessional autobiography. He said he felt trapped, no longer able to go on; that everything was black. But even this was hard to understand. Phil firmly stated his intention to divorce me and marry Robin. I can see today that his activities had become increasingly frenetic, though still fairly constructively so, the most obvious example of which was his purchase of Newsweek, then a weak, marginally profitable newsmagazine for businessmen, far behind its rival, Time. Like many members of his class and generation, his postwar view was shaped by his work in wartime intelligence; a classic Cold War liberal, he was uncomfortable with McCarthy, but quite friendly with the personnel and policies of the CIA. Dr. Phil McGraw and Robin McGraw during TNT's "Christmas in Washington 2004" - Show and Audience at National Building Museum in Washington, DC, D.C.,. He was intent, however, on making his mark in public life as well as on the stock exchange. Not only had I lost my husband but I was about to lose The Post. Graham, Katharine (1917-2001) American newspaper publisher who guided the Washington Post through its most turbulent period when it published the "Pentagon Papers" and investigated the Watergate affair. Local Dining Guide, City Lights We had lunch on two trays on the back porch at Glen Welby, chatting and listening to some classical records. My father received a confidential letter from his friend Kent Cooper, former general manager of the Associated Press, who was living in retirement in Palm Beach. He ended up on his hands and knees, crawling around at the last minute to retrieve one of Lyndon's contact lenses. He had come into a job for which he was ill-prepared. And he wanted many things. His anxiety as a son-in-law was in place before the wedding vows. But there was also a certain Africa-based correspondent who carved his own career coffin by arranging for a balloon safari over the Masai Mara at dawn; just as the sun was glinting off the savanna and the balloon was rising above a herd of grazing giraffes, Mrs. Graham is said to have turned to the correspondent and announced, with a profane burr, You know, I didnt travel all the way here to be a fucking tourist. It is said that the correspondent ended up as a recipe checker in the food section. In fact, Graham played a significant role in convincing JFK to appoint Johnson to the vice presidency instead of Missouri Senator Stuart Symington. The Post Company had gone public just two days before getting the papers, and publication could easily have affected its stock prices for the worse. The whole political year of 1960 was very exciting. In speeches, Dole had accused her paper of waging an ideological vendetta against the President. I never should have gone, she said. Philip planned to divorce Katharine for Webb and started the process of dividing up the couple's assets. The babushka melted. I grew up considerably, mostly thanks to him. And yet his periods of lucidity and humor, of lively intelligence, were frequent enough to confuse her and delay any sense of reckoning. Katharine Grahams establishment position on the war did not go unnoticed. With me in the lead, the three of us walked down a ramp and past what appeared to be a coffin-size box with open slats. So does her imperious carriage. She is a Valkyrian type with something elsea mixture of Valkyrie and Juno., Agness ambitions were fuelled by resentment of her station as a wife and mother. Phil Graham was forty-eight when he died. Please reload the page and try again. If she has been cool to any Presidents since Watergate, they have been the two Democrats, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, not least because they came to town with the greatest suspicion of old-line WashingtonKatharine Grahams Washington. . I'm not sure what triggered Phil's relationship with Lyndon Baines Johnson, but it now seems predictable, even foreordained. Graham was one of four children. Felix adopted Phil as one of his "boys" before he was appointed by President Roosevelt to the Supreme Court. In college at the University of Florida, Phil enjoyed fraternity life, and girls, and he drank a good deal of bathtub gin. Olympic Sports, Savage Love Since Eisenhower was not very interested, except in theory, and was concentrating on his vacation golf games, there was a vacuum within the administration. The charge of subverting a whole political process, that is a fantasy, a work of fiction rivalling only Gone with the Wind in circulation and Portnoys Complaint for indecency, Colson said. The two most powerful presences in her lifeher mother and her husbandwere both clearly suffering from psychological problems, yet Katharine still felt inferior to them. I also think that he realized the illness would recur. Maksym Levin started documenting war to become famous. After seeing conflict up close, his motivations shifted. The appearance of this messenger, a Newsweek stringer whose name was Robin Webb, was the beginning of the tragic end. On the other hand, some of our long talks over the past few years had made it apparent to me that Phil was worried about being a "son-in-law," about having been "given" the paper and the company by my father. Sometime after the "brainwashing" party, Johnson urged Phil to be at his side during the final push for passage of the bill. 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