15 Questions with Bob Woodward
The veteran reporter was in Cambridge this week. FM caught up with him to talk about journalism, his new book, and that Deep Throat dude.
By Francesca T. Gilberti
1. Mr. Woodward, who is Deep Throat?
Bob Woodward: [Laughter] Well, we now know W. Mark Felt, who was the number two in the F.B.I., surfaced himself last year, so the 33-year-old secret was a secret no more.
2. On the 1 to 10 scale of famous journalists, you’re about 9 to 9.5. Hell, maybe you’re even a 10. Say Watergate never happened, where do you think you’d fall on the scale?
BW: Now that’s what we called in college "if history." In other words, "if this didn’t happen, what would have happened?" And of course, it’s impossible to answer.
3. On to the reason you’ll be here at Harvard: your most recent book, "State of Denial." Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times seems to think that it contains a portrait of President Bush "that stands in stark contrast to the laudatory one [you] drew in ‘Bush at War’" in 2002. How has your tone regarding the president changed in your new book?
BW: I’m going to answer that very directly by saying I think she forgot the reviews that she wrote of the earlier book, "Plan of Attack". She said the following: "In his engrossing new book, ‘Plan of Attack’, Bob Woodward uses myriad details to chart the Bush administration’s march to war against Iraq. His often harrowing narrative not only illuminates the fateful interplay of personality and policy among administration hawks and doves, but it also underscores the role that fuzzy intelligence, Pentagon timetables, and aggressive ideas about military and foreign policy had in creating momentum for war."
4. You’ve spent a crazy amount of time with the president—seven hours over the course of four interviews. Has that coziness affected your ability to report with a critical eye?
BW: Read "State of Denial"—it says and concludes that for three and half years, the president has failed to tell the truth about what Iraq has become.
5. You’ve revealed the inner-workings and secrets of our nation’s most famous and powerful. But you’re a bit of a star yourself. Was it easier to report when no one knew who you were?
BW: You ask tough questions. I don’t know. You’d have to ask other people that. It cuts both ways—sometimes it’s easier, sometimes it’s harder. But it always requires knocking on doors, going back to people, checking facts, looking for documents in various occasions, and then going back through the whole cycle again, returning to people with new info, seeking verification for disagreement, and making the effort to insure that all points of view are reflected.
6. Which portrayal of yourself did you find more entertaining: Robert Redford in "All the President’s Men" or Will Ferrell in "Dick"? Do you ever find yourself in an instance where life imitates art?
BW: Oh, boy. You have no idea how many women I’ve disappointed that I look like neither of those actors. It’s generally agreed in journalism circles that ["All the President’s Men"] is the best movie about journalism by far.
7. Yale Daily News or The Crimson? Were you involved in journalism at all during your time in…where is Yale again?
BW: I was the chairman of The Yale Banner that puts out the yearbook and lots of other publications on campus.
8. In the fall of 1970, you had the opportunity to attend Harvard Law School. You chose The Washington Post instead. What specifically pulled you away from law school into the newspaper world? Did you just not want to be a lawyer?
BW: Great question. I was 27 years old and the idea of going to law school and spending three years not doing anything really—I had spent five years in the Navy, and I wanted to do something. I got a job at The Washington Post, and I had a two-week tryout, which I failed. I thank the people at the Post, because I found out I loved this, and I knew it was what I wanted to do and tried.
9. ROTC at Yale, five years in the Navy—how does the atmosphere in D.C. compare to the environment of the military?
BW: I worked in the Pentagon my last year, and it’s interesting to go back into my little office in naval communications, see the chairman of the joint chiefs, and ask them questions. My heart is with the people not at the top, my heart is with the people who are stuck in Iraq, and I feel that I owe them the best effort I can make as a reporter to explain what’s going on.
10. So, kids these days…with the recent changes in the world of print journalism, are there any young reporters who you think will make it big? (Aside from yours truly, that is.)
BW: Sure...what’s your position at The Crimson?
I am a freshman. This is my second story.
BW: [Pause] They gave me a freshman?!
11. Now let’s be serious and talk about blogs. What do you make of them? Is there a Bob Woodward of Generation Blog?
BW: I don’t know. They’re interesting. They create pressure in the system to do things immediately, on the good side and bad side. Journalism is at its best when it’s patient. With the blog and hydraulics of cable news, there’s pressure for "Now, now! Give it to us live!" You don’t have time to go dig. Digging is the big thing. Katherine Graham [head of the Post during Watergate], she recapped [Watergate]: "keep laughing, keep digging, keep loving—beware the demon pomposity."
12. You’re a very prolific writer—what writer has influenced you the most?
BW: So many people, from Le Carré to David Halberstam to Dostoyevsky to Robert Penn Warren.
13. Referencing your prodigious use of detail, Joan Didion wrote that you find "[nothing] too insignificant for inclusion." Might you include me in your next book?
BW: Okay.
14. Do you write on a computer or by hand?
BW: On the computer.
15. What’s one secret Carl Bernstein doesn’t want you to reveal in this interview?
BW: The secret I’ll reveal is he’s a magnificent friend. We have a friendship beyond Watergate and beyond working together. He is one of the people who, when people say your books are this way or that, he reads them and realizes that they are not political but factual, though he would personally take more of a stand on things. I am a non-partisan, ink-stained, 63-year-old reporter…if you can get ink on you from a computer. I do, from my laser jet printer. Sometimes, it sprays out on me.