Woodward and Bernstein are American journalists whose reporting uncovered illegal activities that led to the Watergate scandal, one of the biggest political scandals in United States history. Bob Woodward (1943-…) and Carl Bernstein (1944-…) led the investigation of a 1972 break-in at the Watergate building in Washington, D.C., and of the cover-up that followed the break-in. The scandal eventually led to the resignation of United States President Richard M. Nixon and the conviction of several high-ranking members of his administration. Woodward and Bernstein’s coverage of Watergate helped their newspaper, The Washington Post, win the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
The original report on the break-in, compiled in part by Woodward and Bernstein, appeared on the front page of the Post on June 18, 1972. It concerned burglars who had been caught in the early morning of June 17 after entering the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in the Watergate building. This office for the governing organization of the Democratic Party contained records and campaign information. Many members of the media dismissed the story as unimportant, but Woodward and Bernstein began investigating. Over time, the reporters linked the break-in to a larger plan to sabotage and discredit the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate. That plan had been conceived by members of Nixon’s 1972 reelection committee and members of his executive staff.
As part of the investigation, Woodward sought information from a person he had met while he was serving in the military. This person worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and agreed to answer questions, but only if he was not identified. Woodward and Bernstein dubbed the source “Deep Throat,” and he provided valuable information to the reporters. Woodward and Bernstein began writing a book, All the President’s Men, about their investigation, while continuing to cover further developments in the story for the Post. Published in 1974, the book revealed the importance of Deep Throat in breaking the story. Deep Throat’s identity was not revealed until 2005, when W. Mark Felt, the assistant director of the FBI during the Nixon administration, was named. That year, Woodward and Bernstein published the book The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat.
The ongoing reporting by Bernstein and Woodward eventually implicated President Nixon. After a Senate investigation and before his almost certain impeachment by the House of Representatives, Nixon resigned. Woodward and Bernstein then collaborated on a book covering the last months of the Nixon White House, The Final Days (1976). Meanwhile, a film version of All the President’s Men helped make the reporters’ coverage of Watergate one of the best-known stories in journalism.
Robert Upshur Woodward was born in Geneva, Illinois, on March 26, 1943. He graduated from Yale University in 1965 and then served as a communications officer in the U.S. Navy until 1970. He began working as a reporter for a small paper to gain experience, and in 1971 he began reporting for The Washington Post. After Watergate, Woodward continued to work for the Post. He became an assistant managing editor at the paper in 1979. Woodward wrote a number of best-selling books, including The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court (1979), with Scott Armstrong; Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987 (1987); The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House (1994); Maestro: Greenspan’s Fed and the American Boom (2000); Bush at War (2002); Plan of Attack (2004); State of Denial (2006); The Last of the President’s Men (2015); and Fear: Trump in the White House (2018).
Bernstein was born in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 14, 1944. In 1966, he began working as a reporter for The Washington Post, a position he held for the next decade. He worked for ABC News as a bureau chief and later as a correspondent. He left ABC in 1984. He contributed articles to many magazines and also taught at New York University. Bernstein’s second wife was the American journalist, essayist, screenwriter, and director Nora Ephron. They were married from 1976 to 1980. Bernstein’s later books include Loyalties: A Son’s Memoir (1989); His Holiness: John Paul II and the Hidden History of Our Time (1996), with Marco Politi; A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton (2007); and Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom (2022).
