Katharine Graham

At 84 years old, Katharine Graham has this physical status:

Katharine Meyer Graham (June 16, 1917-July 17, 2001) was an American publisher.

From 1963 to 1991, she edited The Washington Post, her family's newspaper.

During her tenure as it covered the Watergate scandal, which ultimately resulted in the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Following Eliza Jane Nicholson's ownership of the New Orleans Daily Picayune from 1876 to 1896, she was the second female publisher of a major American newspaper.

In 1998, Graham's memoir, Personal History, received the Pulitzer Prize.

Early life

Katharine Meyer was born in 1917 in New York City to Agnes Elizabeth (née Ernst) and Eugene Meyer, who married her in 1917. Her father was a financier and, later, Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Marc Eugene Meyer was her grandfather, and her great-grandfather, rabbi Joseph Newmark, was born in Montreal. At a bankruptcy auction in 1933, her father bought The Washington Post. Her mother, a bohemian intellectual, art lover, and political activist in the Republican Party, who shared friendships with people as diverse as Auguste Rodin, Marie Curie, Thomas Mann, Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, John Dewey, and Saul Alinsky.

Her father was of Alsatian Jewish descent, and her mother was a Lutheran whose parents were German immigrants. Katharine was baptized as a Lutheran and attended an Episcopal church, along with her four siblings. Florence, Eugene III (Bill), Ruth and Elizabeth Meyer were among her siblings.

Meyer's parents owned several homes around the country, but they mostly lived between a "castle" on a large estate near Mount Kisco, New York, and a mansion in Washington, D.C.; she was raised in part by nannies, governesses, and tutors. Katharine's mother had a tense relationship with her daughter. Agnes was described as skeptic and condescending toward Katharine, which had a detrimental effect on Meyer's self-confidence.

Florence Meyer, the older sister of actor Oscar Homolka, was a very popular photographer and wife. Florence Meyer Blumenthal, her father's sister, founded the Prix Blumenthal.

Meyer attended Vassar College before moving to the University of Chicago, and was an alumna of The Madeira School (to which her father donated a large amount of land). She became really interested in labor issues in Chicago and developed friendships with people from all walks of life.

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Career

Meyer spent a short time as a reporter in San Francisco, where, among other things, she covered a major strike by wharf employees. Meyer began working for the newspaper in 1938. Will Lang Jr., a former student at Washington, D.C., was visiting her classmates. The two people were dating, but they broke off their friendship due to competing interests.

Meyer married Philip Graham, a Harvard Law School graduate and a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, on June 5, 1940. They had a daughter, Lally Morris Weymouth (born 1943), and three sons: Donald Edward Graham (1948-2017) and Stephen Meyer Graham (born 1952). She was identified as a Lutheran.

William Graham died at the age of 69 in his Los Angeles home on December 20, 2017. He died by suicide, as did his father, Phil Graham.

When Eugene Meyer gave over the newspaper to his son-in-law, Philip Graham became the Post's publisher in 1946. Katharine explains in her autobiography, Personal History, how she didn't feel let down by the fact that her father gave the newspaper to Philip rather than her: "Far from troubling me that my husband thought of my husband rather than me," her father said of my husband and not me." In fact, it never occurred to me that he might have regarded me as someone to take on a critical role at the newspaper." Eugene Meyer, her father, went on to become the head of the World Bank, but she was forced to leave the bank only six months later. He was Chairman of the Washington Post Company until his retirement in 1959, when Philip Graham took over the position as chairman and the corporation grew with the acquisitions of television stations and Newsweek magazine.

The Grahams became acquainted with John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert McNamara, Ronald Reagan, and Nancy Reagan, among other things, were vital members of Washington's social scene, becoming acquaintances with John Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Margaret McNamara, Robert McNamara, Ronald Reagan, and Nancy Reagan.

Graham writes in 1997 about how close her husband was to politicians of his day (he was instrumental, for example, in getting Johnson to become the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1960) and how closeness with politicians became ineffective in journalism. In 1967, she attempted to coerce lawyer Edward Bennett Williams to serve as Washington, D.C.'s first mayor. Walter Washington, a Howard University-educated lawyer, was given the position.

Graham was also known for his long-time friendship with Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway owned a majority stake in the Post.

Throughout his marriage to Katharine, Philip Graham dealt with alcoholism and mental disorders. She was often belittled, and her mood swings. Katharine Webb, an Australian stringer for Newsweek, discovered her husband was having an affair on Christmas Eve in 1962. Philip announced that he would divorce Katharine for Robin, and that he would divide the couple's money.

Philip evidently had a nervous breakdown at a newspaper conference in Phoenix, Arizona. He was sedated, flown back to Washington, and escorted to the Chestnut Lodge psychiatric facility in nearby Rockville. He died of a shotgun at the couple's "Glen Welby" estate near Marshall in the Virginia horse country on August 3, 1963.

After Philip Graham's suicide, Katharine Graham took over the company's leadership and the newspaper. She wore the name of president and was de facto editor of the newspaper from September 1963. She served as a publisher from 1969 to 1979, as well as as chairwoman of the board from 1973 to 1991. She became the first female Fortune 500 CEO of the Washington Post Company in 1972. She was the first woman to be in such a high position at a publishing company and had no female role models and was having trouble being taken seriously by many of her male coworkers and employees. In her book, Graham addressed her insecurity and distrust of her own knowledge. Graham's influence with Graham's leadership of the Post resulted in shifts in Graham's outlook and helped her to advocate for gender equality in her organization.

Graham hired Benjamin Bradlee as editor and cultivated Warren Buffett for his financial services; he became a major shareholder and something of an eminence grise in the company. Donald Reagan, her son, was a journalist from 1979 to 2000.

At a critical time in its history, Graham presided over the newspaper. The Washington Post was instrumental in the uncovering of the Watergate affair, which eventually resulted in President Richard Nixon's resignation.

The Pentagon Papers' content was first encountered by Graham and editor Bradlee as they first published them. When Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein brought the Watergate story to Bradlee, Graham praised their investigative reporting and Bradlee ran news about Watergate when few other news outlets were covering the topic.

Graham was one of the most prominent threats in American journalistic history in connection with the Watergate affair. It happened in 1972, when Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, warned reporter Carl Bernstein of a forthcoming publication: "Katie Graham's gonna get her tit stuck in a big fat wringer if that's revealed." Bradlee cut the word her tit, although the quote was published in the Journal, although Bradlee cut the words her tit. Graham continued, "particularly odd for [Mitchell] to call Katie, which no one has ever called me."

Graham delivered "Secrecy and the Press" to a packed auditorium at CIA headquarters on November 16, 1988 as part of the Office of Training and Education's Guest Speaker series. "We live in a gritty and dangerous world," Graham said when considering whether press reports could influence national security. There are certain topics that the general public does not need to know and shouldn't need to know. I believe democracy flourishes when the government takes legitimate steps to safeguard its information, and when the media can determine whether or not to print what it knows."

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