Actually, you'll probably notice that I'm going to be a little uncomfortable through through this because neither Bob Woodward nor myself is a philosopher or a political scientist or a historian. And one thing especially we're not our public speakers. I am a reporter. However. And instead of making some sweeping pronouncements about things that I know very little about history philosophy and set Drive. I do feel a little more comfortable talking with you about reporting something. I do know something about particularly about reporting in Washington reporting on the White House. and I suppose it's a very good time to do it because I think Did those of us in the Press? Presently find ourselves in the midst of what might be termed an orgy of self-congratulation. Primarily as a result of the role of the press in Watergate. And it seems to me that nothing could be less Justified. Then this orgy of self-congratulation. There's one rather Stark figure that might give you an indication of what I'm talking about there more than 2,000 full-time reporters in Washington, DC. and during 1972 And in the 1973 while the Watergate story was going on up until the point where James McCord one of the Watergate burglars wrote his letter to judge Sarika. Saying that yes indeed. There had been a cover-up. More than six months after the burglary of those two thousand reporters in Washington. Only 14 were assigned to cover the Watergate story. And of those 14 fewer than 5 we're trying to cover it on an investigative basis. That is to try and find out what had happened. the others Recorded the daily events in the courtrooms in the press conferences, but 5 out of some 2,000 reporters in Washington. We're actively working on trying to find out the truth. about as what we all know now turned out to be perhaps the biggest political story in our history So I don't think that one Stark figure 5 or 14 out of 2,000. Is much reason for self-congratulation? Most of the reporters in Washington in the summer of 1972. We're out covering the presidential campaign. Dutifully recording the pronouncements of the candidates and ignoring the much more significant story in their own backyard. And at the same time since then I think a great deal of Mythology has developed. About not just the role of the press in general in Watergate. But also that of the Washington Post Bob Woodward and myself because of the simple fact of the matter is that Our efforts just were not that extraordinary. Which is to say that we use basic empirical police reporting techniques in covering Watergate. And I would suggest it perhaps it was our use of those basic techniques very much like the ones that you learn in journalism school, or when you start out at a small newspaper. Did if we were successful it had a lot to do with that basic approach. We knocked on an awful lot of doors. We saw people at their homes at night. One of the first things that we did is that we learn the structure of the committee for the re-election of the president and its relationship to the Nixon White House. And indeed we found it the terms committee for the re-election of the president and white house. We're somewhat interchangeable. We were both Metropolitan reporters. We were in on the highly-touted national staff of the post. We had no high-level White House sources, we could lunch and who could stroke us at the San Souci. the accepted practice of Washington journalism We started from the bottom worked our way up, which is to say we talked to secretaries and clerks usually before we talk to their bosses. and Incredibly our approach Not only was different from the way daily journalism is practiced in Washington. It was all so diametrically opposed to the methodology that was used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and their investigation of Watergate. undertaken under the auspices of the initial Watergate prosecutors the federal investigation involved with Patrick gray the former FBI director referred to as a presumption of regularity on the part of those who work at the White House. A presumption it seems to me that no good reporter would ever make being a Democratic or republican White House? The FBI was extremely deferential. And it's methodology to those who worked for the committee for the re-election of the president and at the White House. They were courteous enough to interview. all people with the committee and at the White House in their own offices in the presence of counsel. Instead of as we did going to people's homes and talking to them where they might not have felt pressured by their superiors. to hide certain information and I guess Did by confining their investigation to the premises of the committee and the White House? Did the FBI agents on the case never saw the fear this incredible fear that Woodward 9 counter when we would go out and visit White House employees. These clerks secretaries administrative assistants that I was talking about a couple moments ago. And I think it was that fear that they told us more than anything and is shalita told us the denials by the White House by John Mitchell by President Nixon in 1972. the assertions of absolute non-involvement in these types of activities that have come to be known as Watergate weren't holding any water. People were afraid they were being followed. They were afraid their phones were tapped. They were afraid to talk. And it was very instructive and it was something that needed a prosecutors know the FBI. I think had the advantage of seeing. The other thing that the FBI never did nor the prosecutors. What's to learn the lines of authority from the White House to the committee for the re-election of president? to study the White House staff structure so that you would know something quite as basic did anything that say Jeb Magruder did Would have been reported back to the white house chief of staff. Mr. Haldeman. But we just as I said used this rather basic empirical police reporting. technique and if it was not extraordinary and it wasn't the information did it develop certainly was as we all know now. We learned in that summer of 1972. Secret campaign funds contributions to the Nixon campaign had paid for the Watergate bugging and other illegal under undercover activities. We learned about a campaign of unprecedented political Espionage and sabotage that had been run from the White House. We learned about the plumbers. and their illegal activities taken under the guise of National Security And of course we learned and wrote about the Watergate cover-up. Which finally? It was conclusively demonstrated. Was seen to extend to the president of the United States himself. We wrote more than a hundred stories. during that summer of 1972 And in the fall during the presidential campaign and after it. And it's very interesting now in retrospect to go back and look at the White House response. To what we were writing. because what the White House did was they made our conduct that is to say the press the Washington Post in particular. They made the press the conductor the press the issue and Watergate. Rather than the conduct of the president and his men. It's been done before. I think it'll be done again. I think we've seen a little bit of the same. in the attempt by some members of Congress the whole damn sure up and impose a contempt citation on him. It's an easy thing to do. to blame the the messenger part of the mythology I think has to do the some how the Press brought Richard Nixon down. It didn't Richard Nixon brought himself down by his actions and those of his subordinates. Give you some idea of the the response to the White House and making our kind of the issue during the coverage of Watergate day after day. Ron Ziegler, then the press secretary would stand at the podium in the White House Press Room. And talk about yellow journalism in campaigns of innuendo and slander that we were supposedly conducting. They came at the White House to develop a technique that we referred to as the non-denial denial. What the non-denial denial very simply was was in assertion. Of Innocence blame the Press again and yet never answer the allegations contained in our storage. Us we would write a story saying that there had been this rather massive campaign of political Espionage and sabotage. Conducted from inside the White House. Against the Democratic opposition and the White House route would respond. Quote the sources of the Washington Post our Fountain of misinformation. And we would call back Ron Ziegler and we would say well aside from this Fountain. It's sprouting out here on 15th street is the story true. And Mr. Ziegler would say the sources of the Washington Post our Fountain of misinformation. Does giving the appearance of a denial? there's a a rather interesting moment in the movie of all the presidents men to digress a little Heroes. About the response to some of our stories or is it a moment when I guess it was September 29th 1972. We rode his story saying in the lead paragraph to John Mitchell wall Attorney General of the United States head exercise control over the secret funds that paid for Watergate and other illegal undercover activity and we wrote that story got the usual non-denial denial from the White House and from the committee for the re-election of the president. Once again, the response had to do with our conduct. Rather than that of the president and his men. so high call mr. Mitchell. I got a number for him in New York and I called him at home and the scene is depicted in the movie of all the president's man. Although the voice of Mitchell is a little wrong in the movie. It's one of the few things. I guess. It doesn't seem quite accurate. But I started to read Mister Mitchell the story and that lead paragraph and I got about five words into it and he got the gist of it pretty quick and he said Jesus. I read a few more words got to the part about controlling the secret funds. They said Jesus. Finally got to the end of the paragraph. And he said Jesus Christ. If you print that Katie Graham referring to the publisher of the Washington Post is going to get her tit caught in a big fat ringer. I kind of went like that. I wasn't too worried about mrs. Graham. And I guess I wasn't accustomed to speaking with Attorneys General. and but at least it was one of the few times we got a direct response from the administration. the interesting thing in retrospect Is this basic response of making the press the issue and Watergate instead of the president and his men worked? and it worked up until about the time that the Watergate committee began its investigation and it's important to go back I thinking and look at some of the reasons why at work should remember that The credibility of the press at the time of Watergate probably stood at an all-time low owing to a large extent to a campaign. By the Nixon Administration to undermine The credibility of the press. Can go back to a speech that was made by then vice president Spiro Agnew in Des Moines, Iowa in the early days of the Nixon Administration in 1969. When he said that it's time for the media to turn its critical facilities. on itself and went on to a rather generalized attack on the Press. and yet whatever his motivation I can't help agreeing with. Some of what Mr. Agnew had to say about to press particularly about the necessity for us turning our critical facilities. On ourselves because it seems to me the reason that the Nixon Administration was so able to undermine The credibility of the press is because so often we do our job so poorly. There was some very Sage advice that was given by that same John Mitchell to the press in the earliest days of the Nixon Administration when he came to Washington in 1969, Mr. Mitchell, sat down with a group of reporters, and he said to watch what we do not what we say. I suggest that's about the best advice and reporter ever got particularly in Washington. And had we watched what the Nixon Administration did rather than what its officials said. perhaps there would have been no Watergate if perhaps Did the atmosphere that existed inside the White House would have been reported on before the time of the Watergate bugging? in Washington Much too much reporting. I think is based on the pronouncements by public officials these public statements they make which we dutifully record almost word-for-word as if the profession of being a reporter is somehow that of being a stenographer. We're not stenographers and we ought to get out of the stenography business. Our job has got to be subjecting statements and conduct of public officials to a test of Truth. You know reporting is really nothing more when it's done, right? In an attempt to get the best obtainable version of the truth. And sometimes I think that we've forgotten that that's what reporting is all about. And instead relegated ourselves to this stenographic roll where we have this huge 2000 member stenographic pool in Washington, which dutifully Rickards what the president or the secretary of state of the Secretary of Labor or the secretary of agriculture might be saying on a given day without ever attempting to see whether it's true or not. thus we can go for months and months all the way back to when President Ford for instance asserts that he had no role in blocking the Patman committee hearings into Watergate. Without ever subjecting that statement. to the test of Truth It seems to me that that we didn't have to wait until two weeks ago. Verge ondine to recall some of the facts surrounding that investigation to report that we didn't have to wait until yesterday for the president. to explain What his role was in in that particular investigation? the same way that did we knew? at the time of Watergate did the Nixon Administration wasn't giving us the truth and its public pronouncements. We already had Itt. We already had the experience of listening to the Secretary of State explain that we were on the United States favored one side in the indo-pakistani conflict. When in fact our secret policy was to support the other side to tilt to use the state department expression to the side other than the one we publicly said we were supporting We had the horrible. president of official line about Vietnam in about Cambodia and Richard Nixon incidentally did not invent Lying by public officials. And we had a long record in Vietnam of untrue assertions by our public officials from the top to the bottom. We had previous the Watergate allegations by radicals and by blacks that there'd been covert government activities undertaken against them break-ins wiretapping. People sent into their meetings to disrupt them. They were dismissed those allegations by those of us in the Press without investigation has mirror paranoia. It wasn't until the safest most Centrist institution of all in our society that is to say the Democratic party was rated at the Watergate and five people were caught inside by the police. It was then and only then that the Press finally decided to make some serious inquiry into the question of illegal government activity. And then even then 14 of 2000 reporters in the city despite. All the hints were assigned to cover that story. and I don't think Did Indus? Orgy of self-congratulation that I referred to earlier. The things have gotten terribly better in terms of how we cover news in Washington. We report on the Ford Administration for the most part in terms of atmospherics not substance as if somehow pop-up toasters are a sign of openness. We've created a I'm in Psychology again about the Ford presidency. It has a lot to do with. the the whole idea reverence toward the White House and toward the presidency that did somehow we've forgotten it Gerald Ford. Whether he's a good man or a bad man, or whatever that he has a very clearly delineated history for almost a quarter of a century in Congress. Did he has a record? It's been rather consistent. In those years in Congress and yet we react with surprise. When the President says certain things in this campaign or does certain things take certain actions as if these pronouncements and acts are somehow it odds with his history in the Congress. And I suggested that we should be covering the Ford Administration the same way that we would cover any other Institution. Whether it's a university whether it's an educational establishment, but that we take away. this reverence that we in the Press. help cover the presidency with strip that away and start doing what our job is which is to find the best obtainable version of the truth. So I would say it's time that we go back and take John Michels good advice after all this time. And let's watch what they do. And not what they say. Thank you all. Question I believe is why was the rest of the press soulwax and getting involved in the in the Watergate story? I think unfortunately that didn't much like Patrick gray made a presumption of regularity. about the White House the Press did the same thing that you you kind of expect that the president of the United States in his associates. Obey the law. We never really had anything in our history quite comprable to what we found out in Watergate. Although obviously there's a a long history of of questionable undercover activities by the government. We certainly don't have the president of a cover-up and obstruction of justice. That extended to the president of the United States. I ain't there a lot of very complicated reasons. but I think we do make that presumption of regular ID or that we did there was also if you'll remember I miss ology just as the Ford White House has with help from the Press developed this mythology of of openness the Nixon Administration developed the mythology that we all subscribe to in the Press at the time of the smooth well-oiled machine with zero defects systems is Mister Haldeman call them it made no errors and you couldn't quite understand how The White House the Nixon White House, which was so concerned with efficiency could possibly be involved in anything quite so stupid. as the breaking and entering at the Democratic National headquarters Yes, sir. Do I feel that any more investigation should be done about President Ford's testimony before the hearings. I presume you mean is his confirmation hearings. I have not heard the president's press conference of yesterday. I'm just read a report of it in the paper. It seemed to me that sit for the first time. He publicly acknowledged what has always been there. For anybody to see which is it? Yes, the president played as minardi later a rather sizable role in blocking an investigation of Watergate by Department committee why the president repeatedly has has duct that question and appeared to deny it. I must say is somewhat of a mystery to me and I didn't nobody I that I know of his alleged did it was criminal it was done in a political context. He was minardi leader at the time. He has a very long history of being a zealous partisan and do expect him to be on the other side of that issue would have been a hell of a big surprise to anybody in Washington at the time. as for his other testimony and whether further investigation is warranted seems to me we wrote a story about his public testimony involving a pardon. I'm after considerable investigation ourselves. We have never been able to find any evidence that the pardon was the result of any kind of a deal. We missed connection what we did find and what we wrote I guess back in 1974 was it the pardon was issued after considerable discussion? With General Haig Nixon's former Chief of Staff and after considerable pressure had been put on Ford by Haig and in his testimony and in his statements about the party for his said indicated. I don't have the exact text with me that did he came to this decision independently without any consultation which would seem to be at odds with the facts. We've on the number of times. I attempted to get an answer from the president on the question. We've always been frustrated on it. And if he goes back much as he did at his press conference last week to saying we'll all that came up during my Confirmation hearings and if it was good enough for the Senators and congressmen and that should be good enough for you all. So I think the facts are probably somewhat variance. With what he testified at least as far as we've been able to determine in at the same time when he says that there was no deal we found absolutely nothing to indicate that he's not telling the truth cuz we we found no evidence of a deal at all. in a direct way I think there's a record in both cases and it that is a pardon and what led to it that of the Patman committee hearings and and what his role was it very easily. Available and depressed should have done a little more about getting a handle on it and just saying very straightforward Lee what it was but I don't think there's any evidence that there was anything criminal. Yeah. Where we ever personally threatened during our investigation. Two incidents. I suppose the most chilling moment came shortly after the a story that we had written saying it to Bob Haldeman head exercise control over the secret funds as well as mr. Mitchell and I I came into the office the next day and there was a note in my typewriter and it said you've gone too far this time. and I took it to Woodward nice today or you know, who the hell is this from really the worst thing that terribly worried about it all day and we showed it to Ben bradlee the editor and we you know, we're thinking well, maybe we should turn the note over the FBI, but no, that wouldn't do any good God knows. finally this dictation is at the post with whom I had gone out a week earlier came up to me and said did you get my notes? Is that a good moments? The in terms of direct threat. The only thing that happens is the movie of All the President's Men. I must say is really terrifically accurate and what it portrays about the reporting of the story and there's that scene in the movie witch indeed happened where Woodward and myself are on Bradley's light on after Woodward is met with the secret Source the garage freak. Deepthroat deepthroat his has told him that people's lives are in danger. Including our own my reaction was kind of disbelief. At first. We never had any other indication that did our lives were in any danger. Nothing untoward ever happened there were occasions when we thought perhaps we were being followed. We've been told by other sources that we were under surveillance of some kind either electronic or personal but I think for the most part we never felt Threaten the very incremental thing covering the story was sort of a little piece at a time. It's hard to remember that now, but you'd go on in the end and it was exciting working on the story. You didn't have time to to worry too much I guess. Okay, I'll take two more questions and that'll be it. Yeah. Is John Dean accurate in his identification of deep throat, or do I want to try a non-denial denial? I'm trying to remember who who Dean said it was. Oh, that's right. I said it was David gergen a white house speechwriter. We from the beginning have taken the consistent position on on not identifying or sources including deepthroat. The reason being is that did it it's a reporter's lifeblood that we that we've given certain people assurances that we won't reveal their identity. It's the only way we can get it get information from these people in Earth. There's a bond of trust and it's so it's not out of some kind of perversity that we don't say who deep throat or any other source is at any point if any of our sources choose to disclose who they are. That's great. That's up to them. But it it certainly can't be up to us last question. Yeah. Is it still possible for us to be effective reporters now that the phenomena of woodstein seems to be? So prevalent, I guess was the question. I hope so we've been back at work. We are back at the post. We have done stories in a lot of ways. I think our Effectiveness has improved in it and it we have better access to people when people are more likely to call us back. Thank you all very very much.