Personal History

And I was puzzled. If she wanted to maintain so low a profile, why did she keep making speeches and accepting awards?

Ben sent me a copy of this acerbic interview, to which I responded, ""I don't want to be too neurotic but it re- inforces paranoia, no? . . . He's got a point about my ambivalence, which was and is real.''

I was already worried about the ef-fect of the use of the Post's name when I opened a magazine one day and read that the movie would be filmed in the Post's city room. Within minutes, I was on the phone to Bob Woodward [who with Bernstein had made millions off the book and movie]. I exploded with outrage at the idea of our newsroom as a backdrop for the movie. Among all the evils I was imagining was how little work would get done under such circumstances. Bob told me he'd never heard me so angry. In the end, we didn't allow filming in the newsroom; Redford's people had arrived independently at the conclusion that it would be too disruptive for them as well. Instead, an exact duplicate of the Post's newsroom, including the stickers on Ben's secretary's desk, was created in Hollywood (for a mere $450,000, it was reported), and in the interests of authenticity, several tons of assorted papers and trash from desks throughout our newsroom were shipped to California for props. We did cooperate to the extent of allowing the filmmakers to shoot the entrance to the newspaper building, elevators, and certain production facilities, as well as a scene in the parking lot.

At one point, I got a message from Redford that they had decided not to shoot the one scene in the movie in which I was portrayed. I was told that no one understood the role of a publisher, and it was too extraneous to explain. Redford imagined that I would be relieved, which I was, but, to my surprise, my feelings were hurt by being omitted altogether, except for the one famous allusion to my anatomy. The next I heard from Redford was a phone call saying he was sending a prelimi- nary print of the film for us to see, and that we could still ask for changes, which I felt was a charade. In March 1976 several of us went to the viewing in Jack Valenti's screening room at the Motion Picture Association. Because we were all so nervous, we sat in pockets around the room. When the movie ended, there was dead silence. Finally, Redford got up and said, ""Jesus, somebody say something. You must have some reaction to it.'' Then there was a lot of nerv- ous babble.

In fact, I loved the movie.

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