—Graham quoted in the Washington Post
Few things are holy to journalists. But truth and the right to publish it are both sacred. With her powerful backing of The Post’s editorial staff in the Watergate and Pentagon Papers episodes, Katharine Graham entered the annals of history forever. Young journalists in Washington learn Watergate by heart. It happened before I was born, but we all knew the story. And the quote? The quote was famous.
“Katie Graham's gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that’s published.”
—Nixon campaign manager and Attorney General John Mitchell to Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein
It could never have been said to a man. Reading about it, years later, I grinned and loved that. And the Watergate stories were published. Later, as Harry Jaffe of Washingtonian wrote in Salon.com, Graham explained the decision to publish the top-secret Pentagon Papers as “instinctive.”
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