Watergate

Woodward and Bernstein: the Watergate

On June 18, 1972, a Washington Post front page story reported the previous day's break-in at the Democratic National Committee's office in the Watergatecomplex in Washington, DC. Five men were arrested while attempting to photograph documents and place bugging devices in the offices. The White House dismissed the crime as a "third-rate burglary," and muchof the nation's media soon dropped interest in what some jokingly referred to as "the Watergate caper." But two of the reporters who worked on that first Washington Post story, Bob Woodward and CarlBernstein, continued tracking down sources and pursuing leads on what became the biggest story of twentieth-century American politics.

Robert Woodward, born March 26, 1943, in Geneva, Illinois, wasraised in nearby Wheaton. The son of a Republican lawyer and judge, Woodward attended Yale University on an ROTC scholarship, graduating with a BA in History and English in 1965. He then served as acommunications officer in the US Navy from 1965 to 1970. After leaving the service, he contemplated attending law school, but then decided to seek reporting jobs with The Washington Post or The NewYork Times. Turned down for a lack of experience, he spent a year as a reporter for the Montgomery County Sentinel in Maryland before getting a position at The Washington Post in 1971. At the time ofthe Watergate break-in, Woodward had been at the Post less than nine months and had worked as a reporter for less than two years.

Carl Bernstein was born February 14, 1944, in Washington, DC, andraised in nearby Silver Spring, Maryland. His parents were social activists and members of the American Communist Party. He began working as a copy boy at The Washington Evening Star at age sixteen, andafter finishing high school attended classes part-time at the University of Maryland. He eventually began contributing stories at the Star and in 1965 moved to New York City to work as a reporter at...