Personal History (77 page)

T
HESE YEARS WERE
filled with executive turnover, the blame for which was often laid at my doorstep, sometimes incorrectly. One instance where Ben did the hiring and the letting go took place when he became executive editor of the
Post
and his job of managing editor fell open. Ben brought in Gene Patterson, the former managing editor of the
Atlanta Constitution
, who had a reputation for the kind of independent-minded, tough, straight editing we all admired. But over a three-year period, a combination of mismatched temperaments, overlapping responsibilities, and newsroom politics convinced Ben that things weren’t working out. He aired his doubts to Gene and Gene resigned immediately. When he left the
Post
, Gene summed up his feelings by saying, “Ben Bradlee needs a managing editor like a boar needs tits.” This was a quote that amused Ben vastly, but it accurately spelled out what Gene had long suspected: “There was no job there.” Miraculously, we all stayed friends, a remarkable tribute to Gene’s classy, lovely character.

Howard Simons, then deputy managing editor, moved right up when Gene left and accommodated himself to Ben’s personality and Ben’s ways. He was willing and able to do the job as Ben defined it—to do the things Ben didn’t and wouldn’t do, either because they bored him or because his attention was elsewhere. It would have been hard to portray this relationship accurately on an organization chart, but theirs was a partnership that worked well.

Fortunately, Howard had talents complementary to Ben’s. He was especially interested in what he irreverently dubbed SMERSH—“science, medicine, education, religion and all that shit”—and he created and headed a group of reporters who began to look more closely at these areas and to report on them more fully. He was a great hand-holder, and he developed many young people whom he spotted, hired, and tracked. And he had a droll, pixie humor which delighted us over the years.

Increasingly I found the confidence to pass along ideas or criticism or praise of stories that appeared in the
Post
or
Newsweek
, and I got great pleasure if a story idea I had passed on to the editors eventually made it into print and had some impact. Howard recognized my gratification in these small things and teased me occasionally with a “Brenda Starr” award for reporting. In true Brenda fashion, I once gave a story to Ben that he later regretted not trusting me on. Truman Capote had confided in me that he knew Jackie Kennedy was going to marry Aristotle Onassis—an
enormous story, if true. I called Ben from South America (where I was on a trip) and told him I was sure Truman was right. Ben cabled back, “You’re great, Brenda, but I chickened. Source confirmed but everyone else reached—and we reached scores—most skeptical and I decided ’twas too thin a reed to stake the paper’s reputation.” Of course, Truman was right, and the
Post
missed my scoop. Fortunately, Ben and I didn’t hold incidents like this against each other.

Howard was also a constant fount of ideas—some good, some not so good. He kept me well stocked with things to think about for the future of the paper. He sent me countless memos about his ideas for improving the
Post
, never mincing words and once prefacing his comments by saying, “Eat this after reading.” It was Howard who suggested exploring the publication of a weekly magazine to be distributed in the Friday-morning
Post
—in essence, the “Weekend” section, which remains an important feature of the paper.

Howard often addressed his memos to me as “Mama,” a nickname both he and Ben used, although with Ben it was usually “Mums.” It didn’t bother me; in fact, I liked it. The team of Ben and Howard functioned smoothly for many years, and only began to unravel after Watergate.

I had lost one old friend and important person at the
Post
when Russ left in the fall of 1968, and toward the end of that same year John Sweeterman told me that he wanted to be relieved of his day-to-day publishing responsibilities—in effect, to retire. Despite my difficulties with him, I was fully aware of all he had done and was doing for the paper, how essential he had been, from his arrival in 1950, when the
Post
was a losing paper, through the merger to our present position of stability and strength. Fritz and I both tried to dissuade him, but he remained firm. Later, he told me that he was tired “and had had it, sort of. I just wanted the freedom.”

When I realized he was serious, we named him to the newly created post of vice-chairman of the board of the company, to be concerned with planning for the future development of all of its divisions. I also asked him to help me find someone to replace him. John said that I could and should become the publisher—at the time I was president of the company and held no title at the paper. My immediate response was to say that I couldn’t and that we’d have to find someone, but John was adamant. With trepidation, I decided to take the title, which my father and Phil had had before me, and to look for a new business head of the paper, but I hadn’t the remotest idea how to organize a search that would evaluate anyone properly. I still didn’t know about headhunters, nor did I know the industry. I didn’t even know exactly what skills the job called for. After sounding out one or two people whom I knew in the industry, I turned to my friend Bob McNamara. Bob recommended Paul Ignatius, who had been
the secretary of the navy and was reputed to have gotten the supplies to Vietnam. The qualities in Paul that were described to me by people he had worked with ranged from “imaginative” to “budget-minded” and “profit-oriented”—in all of which we were certainly interested. He had also been in charge of several building projects, and since a new building for the
Post
was uppermost on my mind, I decided this was a good fit and that, although he didn’t know the newspaper business, he could learn it. So I hired him, and Paul came on board as president of the newspaper and executive vice-president of The Washington Post Company in January 1969. Almost from the outset, his tenure was troubled. It was a painful period for both of us. I knew he wasn’t going to work out six months into the arrangement, and I told Fritz then that we had made a mistake. Fritz—correctly—told me that I was being too hasty and that I had to give him a chance, and we carried on with Paul well into 1971.

John’s departure, in fact, ushered in a very difficult period for me. Problems seemed to arise everywhere, and I found managing the company to be a nearly impossible task at this time. At the
Post
, production was going from bad to worse, compounded by increasingly severe labor difficulties. At
Newsweek
, both editorial and business were troubled. At the stations, there was worry about profits and margins.

None of this was happening in a vacuum. I felt that I could manage one problem at a time if only everything else would hold still while I concentrated on it—but, no, the whole company kept spinning. I fretted that I wasn’t up to it, that all the qualities I was lacking added up to an overwhelming deficiency that might very well work to the detriment of the company. I worried that the company might actually fail—and I stayed worried.

I suffered over my decisions and my nondecisions—my sins of commission as well as my sins of omission. Of the many mistakes I made along the way, the ones that tormented me most were those that seemed to be written in concrete—like buildings and labor contracts, which at least
felt
like concrete. One of the most painful episodes had to do with a new plant for the paper. We chose I. M. Pei as the architect, but wasted nearly four years in the process of planning and designing an elaborate building that wasn’t going to work for the production of the paper. In the end, not only we but Pei became discouraged. We decided to cut our already great losses and stop working on what certainly would have been the wrong building for us. Except for our undue haste in turning again to the less distinguished firm that had built the original structure and then pushing that group to get started too quickly, I believe that dropping Pei’s firm was the right decision for us, despite all the money and time wasted. It was the right decision—but I hated it. Ever since we completed the building, in 1972, I have had the most ambivalent feelings about the structure I work
in, which is plain, dowdy, and full of compromises. On too many days, any one of its features reminded me that the decision-making process—and my role in it—had been poor. I still had a lot to learn.

Yet, despite the turmoil and self-doubting, many things at the
Post
and the company were going well. One of the groundbreaking achievements at the paper under Ben’s direction was the creation of the “Style” section, replacing what before then was known as the “women’s section” and called “For and About Women” in print. The new section was Ben’s idea, with Dave Laventhol the chief implementer. Dave had outlined what it should include—people rather than events, private lives rather than public affairs—and to whom it should be addressed: Washingtonians of both sexes, black and white, suburbanite and city dweller, decision-maker and home-maker. Prelaunch, the section was called “Trial Balloon.” There were a number of meetings on what to rename it until Ben came up with “Style,” an abbreviation for “Life-style,” which he thought was a bogus word, and this was adopted.

When “Style” first appeared, I was cautiously optimistic. I didn’t like some of what I saw, but was willing to reserve final judgment. Fairly soon, however, I became more and more distressed over the direction the new section was taking, but I was unsure how to criticize constructively something I wanted to improve. I tended to apply a dentist drill too frequently instead of considering things coolly and not constantly complaining. One of Ben’s strengths is that he stood by his convictions even if it meant standing up to me, and one of our rare square-offs had to do with “Style.” Once he cautioned me: “Give us time. It’s coming.” Another time he said to me sharply, “Get your finger out of my eye”—a stern directive that shook me up, especially because he had always been so good-tempered. It upset me enough so that I was able to cool down; I realized I’d pushed too hard. I had improved, but I still tended only to see what was wrong and to ignore what was right.

What was right was that we had broken an old mold and were inventing an important and entirely new one—one for the new times that were dawning, in which women’s and men’s interests were coming together, in which neither one nor the other wanted to hear about women holding teacups around a table, or, as Ben put it: “We had become convinced that traditional women’s news bored the ass off all of us. One more picture of Mrs. Dean Rusk attending the national day of some embassy (101 of them) and we’d cut our throats.”

Things began to straighten out. “Style” went through a series of editors, each of whom added something to it, until finally, in 1976, we arrived at Shelby Coffey, a charming Southerner who was a born writer and, above all, editor. Writers
loved
Shelby, and “Style” really took off under him, with a group of highly talented people writing terrific stories. One of
the
Post’s
finest talents, Tom Shales, was hired and developed by Shelby as a general reporter and moved on to become the paper’s television critic.

Ben also hired Sally Quinn, and she began to develop into a first-rate writer. Initially, Sally had been interviewed by Phil Geyelin, who had met her when she was social secretary to the Algerian ambassador. Phil sent her on to Ben, who said to Phil, “She’s fine, but she’s never written anything in her life.” Phil’s response was, “Well, nobody’s perfect.” So Sally arrived—totally inexperienced except vicariously, through a relationship with journalist Warren Hoge of
The New York Times
. She told the story of being paralyzed by having to cover a party on her first day on the job. She called Warren and said, “I’m on a deadline and I’m having a nervous breakdown.” He suggested she pretend that she was on the telephone to a friend and just talk about the party. That first piece came out very chatty. As Sally said, “People liked that because it was fun and easy to read. I felt as if I had come home. After the first few weeks, I realized that this is what I’m supposed to be.”

Henry Kissinger, in a fit of pique, once said to me, referring to how he felt when his name was mentioned in “Style”: “Maxine [Cheshire, the gossip columnist] makes me want to commit murder, but Sally makes me want to commit suicide.” What he meant was that Sally had a gift for making people feel free to talk to her and then hanging them with their own words. As she progressed, her profiles of various personalities became the talk of Washington. On occasion she almost destroyed people with the strength of her writing.

In 1983, when Shelby left “Style” for the national desk, he was succeeded by Mary Hadar, who was a big success in a way different from Shelby’s. She made “Style” more balanced and easier to read, and at the same time brought along her own writer-stars. Many of the most gifted came to cover parties, did that briefly, and immediately moved on to greater glory. “Style,” now under David von Drehle, remains a great developer of skills and talent. Not only was “Style” right for us, but the concept has been successfully embraced by papers all over the country.

W
HEN IN
1969 I became publisher of the
Post
as well as president of the company, my plate was fuller than ever. I had partly worked myself into the job but not, except for rare occasions, taken hold. I had acquired some sense of business but still relied on others more than most company presidents did. One article written about me that appeared fully five years after I’d gone to work said, “Mrs. Graham accepts her responsibilities much more often than she asserts her authority.” That was true; I didn’t always take charge or handle my relationships with people throughout the company in the coolest or best way. My expectations far exceeded my accomplishments. In fact, the years from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, rich and full as they were, were depressing for me in many ways.