Personal History

My apprehensions about the whole Watergate affair were evident. ""Is it all going to come out?'' Woodward reported that I asked anxiously. ""I mean, are we ever going to know about all of this?'' As Bob later wrote, he thought it was the nicest way possible of asking, ""What have you boys been doing with my newspaper?'' He told me then that they weren't sure all of it ever would come out: ""Depression seemed to register on her face. "Never?' she asked. "Don't tell me never'.''

It was also at this lunch that Woodward told me he had told no one the name of Deep Throat. ""Tell me,'' I said quickly, and then, as he froze, I laughed, touched his arm, and said that I was only kidding--I didn't want to carry that burden around. He admitted that he was prepared to give me the name if I really wanted it, but he was praying I wouldn't press him. This luncheon was reassuring for me--or at least I gave the appearance of being reassured--but I remained nervous. Looking back, I'm surprised I wasn't even more frightened.

Toward the end of February, a civilsubpoena was served on five of us from the Post, and we were ordered to appear in the U.S. District Court to testify on our sources in the Democratic Party's civil suit against the Committee to Re-elect the President. The subpoena required that we produce a whole host of material, including documents, papers, letters, photographs, tapes, manuscripts, notes, copies, and final drafts of stories about Watergate. As Ben Bradlee put it, they asked us to bring ""everything except the lint in our pockets.'' My name was misspelled, but I was subpoenaed, along with Woodward and Bernstein, Howard Simons, and another reporter, Jim Mann, who had worked on a few of the early Watergate stories. Our lawyers decided to give me some of the reporters' notes. Bradlee had reassured Bernstein and Woodward that we would fight this case for as long as it took, adding:

. . . and if the Judge wants to send anyone to jail, he's going to have to send Mrs. Graham. And, my God, the lady says she'll go! Then the Judge can have that on his conscience. Can't you see the pictures of her limousine pulling up to the Women's Detention Center and out gets our gal, going to jail to uphold the First Amendment?

That's a picture that would run in every newspaper in the world. There might be a revolution.

At some point, Woodward had met with Deep Throat, who told him that the subpoenas were part of a response induced by Nixon's rampage against the Post, and that he, Nixon, would use the $5 million left over from his campaign ""to take the Post down a notch.'' ""It will be wearing on you but the end is in sight,'' Deep Throat told Woodward.