Personal History

Betting the Future

The Post's leap to true national prominence came in 1971, when the paper, along with The New York Times, defied the Nixon administration to print the Pentagon papers, a classified history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The Post Company had just gone public, making it extremely vulnerable to the threat of legal action by the government. When the Post obtained the papers on June 17, Mrs. Graham, who was giving a party that night for a valued employee, was faced with making a momentous decision:

MANAGING EDITOR GENE PATTERSON'S JOB THAT day was to run the newsroom as though nothing were happening. But the people in the newsroom are as good at sniffing out something happening right in their midst as they are at following stories outside. No one could help noticing the absence of Chalmers Roberts, Murrey Marder, and Don Oberdorfer [the reporters on the story] as well as Ben Bagdikian, Howard Simons, and Ben Bradlee [the editors]. Certainly, something was up. Gene stopped by Ben's house on his way to my party, and then walked up the hill to my house. As I was receiving guests, he pulled me aside and gave me my first warning of what was to come, saying that he believed the decision on whether to print was going to be checked with me and that he ""knew I fully recognized that the soul of the newspaper was at stake.''

""God, do you think it's coming to that?'' I asked. Yes, Gene said, he did.

By now, crucial time was passing. The deadline for the second edition was fast approaching. The Post's general manager Jim Daly had come up to me twice at [Post vice president and business manager] Harry Gladstein's party, worrying about when we'd get the story and be able to put it into print, and asking if I had yet heard from the other house. I was strangely unconcerned and said I was sure they were just finishing and we would get it in time.

It was a lovely June day, and the party for Harry spilled out of the house onto the terrace and the lawn. I was making a toast to him and going full blast about how much he had meant to the paper and to me personally when someone tugged at my sleeve and said with some urgency, ""You're wanted on the phone.''