The smile is filled with memories and pride, engraved with the awareness of being the holders of the absolute headlines of American politics, stricken and unassailable even after half a century. And they who were the protagonists are reliving it where it took shape, sitting in the Washington Post briefing room. They are Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, reporters for Watergate, the journalism firm that triggered the White House earthquake that forced President Richard Nixon to resign. Fifty years later, the two legendary chroniclers find themselves seated at this table, where they appeared then as young but daring chroniclers, to commemorate the steps of this epic enterprise.
Starting with Barry Sussman who recently passed away. At that time he was editor-in-chief, from 1965 responsible for the metropolitan editorial office of the capital city newspaper with 40-45 reporters. It was he who chose what later became the most famous pair of reporters in the history of journalism, inseparable down to a single name: “Woodstein”. Woodward was 29 at the time and had only been with the Post for nine months, but already had a relentless work ethic and investigative zeal, even if he wasn’t great at writing. He was the first to be called to the “newsroom” after the June 17, 1972 arrest of five people in a raid on Democrats’ headquarters in the Watergate complex. Sussman then joined the contemporary but more experienced Bernstein, whose reporter skills and writing he appreciated.
The editor-in-chief played a key role in supporting and coordinating the investigations of his two reporters, even if his character in the legendary film “All the President’s Men” appears rather marginal. But Woodward and Carl Bernstein always gave him great credit: “More than any other executive at the Post or Bernstein and Woodward, Sussman has become a living compendium of Watergate knowledge, a reference resource to consult when even the library fails.” hat,” they wrote of him in their book, All the President’s Men, which inspired the film. “Follow the Money” was the phrase whispered deep into Woodward’s throat to clear up the scandal (it’s from the movie All the President’s Men). The indication is always valid, even more so today, because it allows us to identify the centroids, that is, the point around which everything revolves.
To mark the half-century, the Watergate sites were opened to the public. The story can be relived on P Street with the Webster Building, where Woodard used to place the flower pot as a signal to speak to the deep throat. There’s the convention lot in Arlington, Ford’s house in Alexandria, of course the Watergate complex, and the room that remains as a relic today. And exactly after fifty years, details emerge, like the character of Martha Micthell, the woman who had Nixon nailed. It is the wife of John Mitchell, then Attorney General, who knew all about the President’s business: she was cheated on by her husband, so in revenge she called the reporters to his home and gave them folders with documents, then went after New York them with a firm “here, nail them”.
Finally, one last note deserves the coincidence of time: the half-century of the scandal falls in the week of the spectacularization of the investigations into the events of January 6th. “We thought corruption had peaked, then along came Trump,” the Woodsteins wrote recently, repeating it yesterday as they sat at this table. Beside them are two young reporters who, unsurprisingly, appear to be the same age as the two Watergate protagonists were then, in a sort of historical juxtaposition that rewinds the story’s tape to 1972.