Bob Woodward

At 81 years old, Bob Woodward has this physical status:

Robert Upshur Woodward (born March 26, 1943) is an American investigative journalist.

Woodward has been a Washington reporter since 1971 and is now an associate editor; he was a young reporter for The Washington Post; and, in 1972, he joined Carl Bernstein in a joint venture on the Watergate scandal; the two did a great deal of the initial news coverage on the Watergate affair.

Several government probes and President Richard Nixon's eventual departure contributed to a slew of government probes and his eventual resignation.

After his coverage of Watergate, Woodward and Bernstein's work was described as "perhaps the single best reporting effort of all time" by longtime journalist Gene Roberts.

He has since published 19 books on American politics, 13 of which were top-seller lists.

Early life, education and naval service

Woodward was born in Geneva, Illinois, the son of Jane (née Upshur) and Alfred E. Woodward, a lawyer who later became the head judge of the 18th Judicial Circuit Court. He was born in Wheaton, Illinois, and attended Wheaton Community High School (WCHS), a public high school in the same town. His parents divorced when he was twelve years old, and his brother and sister were raised by their father, who later remarried.

Woodward earned a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) scholarship and studied history and English literature after graduating from WCHS in 1961. Woodward, a Yale undergraduate, joined Phi Gamma Delta fraternity and was a member of the mystery society Book and Snake. He received his B.A. In 1965, he received his degree.

Woodward began a five-year tour in the United States Navy after Yale. Woodward served on the USS Wright and was one of two officers assigned to move or handle nuclear launch codes during its service as a National Emergency Command Post Afloat (NECPA). He was close to Admiral Robert O. Welander, who was acting as communications officer on the US Fox under Welander's command at one time.

Personal life

Woodward has been married three times. Kathleen Middlekauff, now an English professor, was his first marriage (1966–1969). Frances Kuper's second marriage (1974–1979) was to him. Elsa Walsh, a writer for The New Yorker and the author of Three American Women's Public and Private Struggles, married him for the third time in 1989.

Tali, his oldest daughter, is also a writer. She supervised a graduate program in journalism at Columbia University for six years before becoming an editor for The Trace.

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Career

Woodward was accepted to Harvard Law School after being discharged as a lieutenant in August 1970, but he declined to attend but did not attend. Rather, he applied for a job as a Washington Post reporter while attending graduate classes in Shakespeare and international relations at George Washington University. Harry M. Rosenfeld, the Post's metropolitan editor, gave him a two-week trial but decided against him due to a lack of journalistic experience. Woodward, a Washington, D.C., suburbs, was hired as a Washington, D.C., suburbs, after a year at the Montgomery Sentinel, a weekly newspaper in the Washington, D.C. suburbs.

Both Woodward and Carl Bernstein were scheduled to report on the break of the Democratic National Committee's headquarters in a Washington, D.C., office building called Watergate on June 17, 1972. Their work, under editor Ben Bradlee, became known for being among the first to cover a variety of political "dirty tricks" used by the Nixon re-election committee during his campaign for re-election. All the President's Men, the book about the scandal, became a No. 1. It was a 1 bestseller that was later turned into a film. Robert Redford's 1976 film, starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein, converted the reporters into stars and sparked a renewed interest in investigative journalism.

The book and film culminated in the continuing mystery of Woodward's unethical Watergate informant, Deep Throat, a nodisation of a famous pornographic film at the time. Woodward said he would shield Deep Throat's identity until the man died or allowed his name to be revealed. Woodward, Bernstein, and a few others knew the informant's identity before it was announced by his family to Vanity Fair magazine that he was former Federal Bureau of Investigation Associate Director W. Mark Felt in May 2005. Woodward immediately proved the truth of his allegations and published The Secret Man, a book that outlined his friendship with Felt.

Woodward and Bernstein followed All the President's Men with a second book titled The Final Days, which spans the period from November 1973 to President Nixon's resignation in August 1974.

The Woodward and Bernstein Watergate Papers are housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin.

On the front page of the Post titled "Jimmy's World," in which reporter Janet Cooke penned a story about an eight-year-old heroin addict's life in September 1980. Though some within the newspaper doubted the story's legitimacy, the paper's editors, including Woodward, assistant managing editor, defended it. Woodward wrote the article for Pulitzer Prize consideration, and Cooke received the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing on April 13, 1981. The tale was then discovered to be a complete fabrication, and Pulitzer was retrieved. Woodward made the following remark: In retrospect: Woodward made the following argument:

The allegations of China's involvement in the 1996 United States campaign finance scandal caught initial public notice when Woodward and Brian Duffy reported that a US Department of Justice probe into fund-raising findings had discovered evidence that Chinese agents requested foreign contributions to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) before the 1996 presidential race. According to the journalists, intelligence reports showed that the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., was used for coordinating contributions to the DNC.

Woodward spent more time than any other journalist with former President George W. Bush, speaking with him six times in total. Bush at War (2002), Plan of Denial (2004), State of Denial (2005), and The War Within: A Secret White House History (2006–2008) are four Woodward's books, including the response to the September 11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In a series of articles published in January 2002, he and Dan Balz chronicled the events at Camp David in the aftermath of September 11 and discussed the Worldwide Attack Matrix.

Prior to the conflict, Woodward dismissed the Bush administration's assertions of mass destruction in Iraqi weapons. "Suppose we go to war and go into Iraq and there are no weapons of mass destruction," Woodward said during an appearance on Larry King Live. There's just too much here. "I think I dropped the ball here," Woodward later admitted to his mistake. I should have pressed much harder on the WMD's mistrust; in other words, "I should have] said, 'Hey, look, the evidence isn't as robust as they were claiming.'"

Woodward, who was interviewed by Google CEO Eric Schmidt in 2008, said he had a fourth book in his Bush at War collection in the works. He then jokingly that his wife told him that if she wanted to write a fifth in the series, she would murder him.

Woodward depositions were conducted in a two-hour deposition by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald on November 14, 2005. He testified that a senior administration official told him in June 2003 that Iraq war critic Joe Wilson's wife (later identified as Valerie Plame) worked for the CIA as a WMD analyst, not as an undercover agent. Woodward seems to have been the first reporter to learn about her work (although not by name) from a government agency. Woodward's deposition was announced in The Washington Post on November 16, 2005, the first time he admitted to the court that he had no personal knowledge of the case. Woodward testified that the information was handed to him in a "casual" and "offhand" manner, and that he did not believe it was part of any organized attempt to "out" Plame as a CIA agent. Later, Woodward's source named himself. It was Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's replacement, and an internal reviewer of the Iraq war and the White House inner circle.

Woodward said the revelation came after a lengthy, private background interview for his 2004 book Plan of Attack. He did not disclose the official's identity at the time because it did not concern him as important. Later, he kept it to himself because it was part of a private conversation with a source.

Woodward also said he had conversations with Scooter Libby after his confidential administration source told Libby that it could have asked her further questions about Joe Wilson's wife before her work with the CIA and her identity were revealed in his deposition, and he even suggested that she ask Libby further questions about her wife before she knew her husband's wife before his wife's employment with the CIA and her identity were publicly revealed.

Woodward apologised to Leonard Downie Jr., the Washington Post's editor, for not informing him earlier in the discussion in June 2003. Downie expressed regret for the apology and said that even if the newspaper had known it would not have changed its reporting, it would not have changed it.

Woodward was widely chastised by the Bush White House for allegedly being co-opted by the Bush White House and also for failing to tell the truth about his participation in the Plame affair, according to New York University professor Jay Rosen, "Not only is Woodward not on the hunt, but he is gradually turning into the hunter." Woodward's behavior by the Bush team, as well as the findings he obtained on the scandalous information he obtained, are among the many things that should be investigated.

Although Woodward is no longer employed by the Washington Post, the paper's associate editor, who was dubbed honorific by Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan as honorific with no regular duties. He focuses on the presidency, intelligence, and Washington agencies, including the US Supreme Court, The Pentagon, and the Federal Reserve. He also wrote Wired, a book about Hollywood drug culture and comic John Belushi's death.

Woodward also participated in an online class on investigative journalism in 2018.

The Washington Post published a column by Woodward on February 22, 2013, shortly before the Obama administration's words in 2012 and 2013 that the sequester had been considered by Republicans in Congress, but Woodward said his study found that the sequester plan had originated with the White House. "The sequester was something that was discussed," Press Secretary Jay Carney said, and "it was an assertion that the White House advanced."

Woodward called a senior White House official [Woodward] for about half an hour before handing him a page-long email containing the word, "I think you'll regret denying the assertion." Woodward's reporting in Politico's journals was described as "making it clear he sees [that sentence] as a veiled threat," but Woodward did not use the term "threat" or "threatened." Woodward has also stated the line as an apprehension, as shown by several other sources.

The complete email exchange between Woodward and Sperling was revealed the next day by Politico. "But I do certainly agree you should rethink your comment about Potus asking for funds is moving the goal post," Sperling's words leading up to the "regret" line. You may not believe this, but I suspect you would regret staking out that assertion as a friend. The White House said later that "of course no threat was intended"; the note said Mr. Woodward would regret the observation regarding the sequester because the conclusion was inaccurate, not more." Several conservative commentators expressed dissatisfaction with the email's release, and many conservative commentators expressed surprise at the fact that the "regret" statement was no longer portrayed as a threat.

Woodward said he had never heard the word "threat" in a Fox News Channel interview on February 28, but Sperling's conduct was "not the way to run in a White House." "I've been flooded with emails from people in the press, saying that this is exactly the way the White House operates, they are trying to regulate, and they don't want to be asked or crossed." Fournier and Davis, a national newspaper reporter, and Fox News contributor and former Clinton advisor Lanny Davis expressed sympathy for Woodward; several others in the Obama administration shared similar experiences with Obama administration officials.

Career recognition and awards

Woodward, although not a winner in his own right, was a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes by The Washington Post. He and Bernstein were the lead reporters on Watergate, and the News later received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1973. In 2001, he was also the main reporter for the Washington Post's coverage of the September 11 attacks. For ten of its articles on the topic, the Post received the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2002.

Woodward has been a recipient of virtually every major American journalism award, including the Heywood Broun award (1972) and the Gerald R. Ford Award for Investigative Reporting on the Presidency (2002). Woodward was given the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award in 2012 for both brave journalism and as an honorary doctorate.

In the last 35 years, Woodward has written or co-authored 20 nonfiction books. Both 18 have been national bestsellers, and 12 of them have been No. 1. More No. 1s in the United States than fiction books—more No. There are more national nonfiction bestsellers than any contemporary author.

In his 1995 memoir A Good Life, former Washington editor Ben Bradlee singled out Woodward in the foreword. "It's impossible to overestimate the contributions to my newspaper and to my time as editor Bob Woodward, who has unquestionably been among the best of his generation at investigative reporting, as well as the best I've ever seen..." Woodward has remained in the same position on top of journalism's ladder ever since Watergate." The American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award was given to Woodward in 1995.

"I don't believe everything he writes as gospel" in Woodward's memoir, Eyewitness to Power, said the author, but his accounts in both his books and in the Newspaper are remarkably accurate and deserve serious attention. I'm pretty sure he writes only what he believes to be true or has been proven to be true. He's certainly a power for keeping the government afloat," says Secretary Of State John Kerry.

Woodward received the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism in 2001.

Woodward was dubbed "the best pure reporter of his generation if ever," according to Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard. Woodward was dubbed "the most respected journalist of our time" by Al Hunt of The Wall Street Journal in 2003. "Woodward has established himself as the best reporter of our day," CBS News' Bob Schieffer said in 2004. He may be the best reporter of all time."

"He has an extraordinary ability to persuade others to talk about stuff they shouldn't be discussing is really rare." Robert Gates, the former CIA and Defense minister, said in 2014 that he wishes he'd sent Woodward to the CIA because he "has an amazing ability to get otherwise responsible adults to spill [their] guts to him."

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Career recognition and awards

Although not a recipient in his own right, Woodward made contributions to two Pulitzer Prizes won by The Washington Post. First, he and Bernstein were the lead reporters on Watergate and the Post won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1973. He was also the main reporter for the Post's coverage of the September 11 attacks in 2001. The Post won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for 10 of its stories on the subject.

Woodward himself has been a recipient of nearly every major American journalism award, including the Heywood Broun award (1972), Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Reporting (1972 and 1986), Sigma Delta Chi Award (1973), George Polk Award (1972), William Allen White Medal (2000), and the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Reporting on the Presidency (2002). In 2012, Colby College presented Woodward with the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for courageous journalism as well as an honorary doctorate.

Woodward has authored or co-authored 20 nonfiction books in the past 35 years. All 18 have been national bestsellers and 12 of them have been No. 1 national nonfiction bestsellers—more No. 1 national nonfiction bestsellers than any contemporary author.

In his 1995 memoir, A Good Life, former Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee singled out Woodward in the foreword. "It would be hard to overestimate the contributions to my newspaper and to my time as editor of that extraordinary reporter, Bob Woodward—surely the best of his generation at investigative reporting, the best I've ever seen.... And Woodward has maintained the same position on top of journalism's ladder ever since Watergate." In 1995, Woodward also received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

David Gergen, who had worked in the White House during the Richard Nixon and three subsequent administrations, said in his 2000 memoir, Eyewitness to Power, of Woodward's reporting, "I don't accept everything he writes as gospel—he can get details wrong—but generally, his accounts in both his books and in the Post are remarkably reliable and demand serious attention. I am convinced he writes only what he believes to be true or has been reliably told to be true. And he is certainly a force for keeping the government honest."

In 2001, Woodward won the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.

Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard called Woodward "the best pure reporter of his generation, perhaps ever." In 2003, Al Hunt of The Wall Street Journal called Woodward "the most celebrated journalist of our age." In 2004, Bob Schieffer of CBS News said, "Woodward has established himself as the best reporter of our time. He may be the best reporter of all time."

In 2014, Robert Gates former director of the CIA and Secretary of Defense, said that he wished he'd recruited Woodward into the CIA, saying, "He has an extraordinary ability to get otherwise responsible adults to spill [their] guts to him...his ability to get people to talk about stuff they shouldn't be talking about is just extraordinary and may be unique."