Katharine Graham
Katharine Meyer Graham (June 16, 1917 – July 17, 2001) was an American publisher. She led her family's newspaper, The Washington Post, for more than two decades, overseeing its most famous period, the Watergate coverage that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. She has been widely described as one of the most powerful American women of the 20th century.
Early life
Graham's father, Eugene Meyer, was a financier and, later, a public official. He bought The Washington Post in 1933 at a bankruptcy auction. Her mother, Agnes Ernst, was a bohemian intellectual, art lover and political activist in the Republican Party, who shared friendships with people as diverse as Auguste Rodin, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt, and worked as a newspaper reporter at a time when journalism was an uncommon profession among women.
Graham lived a privileged childhood. Her parents owned several homes across the country, but primarily lived between a veritable 'castle' in Mount Kisco, New York and a smaller home in Washington, D.C. Graham often did not see much of her parents during her childhood, as both traveled and socialized extensively, and was raised in part by nannies, governesses and tutors. As a young adult, Graham felt she had been sheltered by such privilege.
Her elder sister Florence Meyer (1911-1962) was a successful photographer and wife of actor Oscar Homolka.
Graham was an alumna of The Madeira School (to which her father had donated much land) and attended Vassar College before transferring to the University of Chicago. In Chicago, she became quite interested in labor issues and shared friendships with people from walks of life very different from her own. After graduation, she worked for a short period at a San Francisco newspaper where, among other things, she helped cover a major strike by wharf workers.
Graham began working for the Post in 1938. While in Washington D.C., Kay met an old schoolmate, Will Lang Jr. The two dated, but broke off the relationship due to conflicting interests.
Family
After a short romance, on June 5, 1940 she married Philip Graham, a graduate of Harvard Law School and a clerk for Stanley Reed and later Felix Frankfurter, both of the U.S. Supreme Court. (Philip Graham's younger brother, Bob Graham, would go on to become Governor of Florida and a long-time U.S. Senator.) The couple decided that they would not live off her great wealth, but rather would both work and live off of their own salaries — however meager. He worked as a law clerk and she at the Post; the couple enjoyed an active social life with Washington's governmental and journalistic elite.
During World War II, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps as a private (1942), rising to the rank of major. She followed him on military assignments to Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania up until 1945, when he went to the Pacific theatre as an intelligence officer of the Far East Air Force.
Their first child died at birth, and Graham experienced several subsequent miscarriages. The couple eventually had four children: Elizabeth ('Lally') Morris Graham, now Weymouth, born on July 3, 1943; Donald Edward Graham, April 22, 1945; William Welsh Graham (1948), and Stephen Meyer Graham (1952). Graham left the Post in 1945, with the birth of Donald, to raise her family.
Lally Weymouth is now a prominent conservative journalist, and Donald Graham is the current chairman of the Post.
Leadership of the The Washington Post
Philip Graham became publisher of the Post in 1946, when Meyer left that position to become head of the World Bank. Meyer left that position only six months later; he was Chairman of the Washington Post Company until his death in 1959, when Philip Graham took that position and the company expanded with the purchases of television stations and Newsweek magazine.
Social life and friends
The Grahams were important members of the Washington social scene, becoming friends with John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Bobby Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, and Henry Kissinger, among many others.
In her 1997 autobiography, Graham comments several times about how close her husband was to politicians of his day (he was instrumental, for example, in getting Johnson to be the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee in 1960), and how such personal closeness with politicians later became unacceptable in journalism.
Philip Graham's illness and death
After several years of erratic behavior — sullen, depressed and introverted times as well as magnanimous, hard-working, brilliant times, later diagnosed as bipolar disorder — Philip Graham suffered a nervous breakdown. Also around this time, Katharine discovered her husband had been cheating on her with Robin Webb, an Australian stringer for Newsweek. Her husband declared that he would divorce Katharine for Robin and he made motions to divide up the couple's assets.
At a newspaper conference in Phoenix, Arizona, Philip Graham, either drunk, having a nervous breakdown, or both, told the audience that President Kennedy was having an affair with Mary Pinchot Meyer. Katharine flew to Arizona to retrieve him by private jet, and her sedated husband was flown back to Washington. (For more on this episode, and Philip Graham in general, see the separate article about him.) Philip was taken to the private Chestnut Lodge psychiatric facility near Washington, D.C. He was released after a short stay; subsequently suffered a major depression; and then returned to the facility. In 1963, during a weekend release from Chestnut Lodge, while at the couple's Glen Welby home, he committed suicide.
Ascension to power
Katharine Graham assumed the reins of the company, and of the Post, after Philip Graham's suicide. She assumed control despite it being widely assumed that her lack of management experience would lead her to sell or hand over control to a more experienced proxy.
Graham was de facto publisher of the newspaper from 1963 onward, formally assuming the title in 1979, and chairman of the board from 1973 to 1991. As the only woman to be in such a high position at a publishing company, she had no female role models and had difficulty being taken seriously by a many of her male colleagues and employees. Graham outlined in her memoir her lack of confidence and distrust in her own knowledge. The convergence of the women's movement with Graham's ascension to power at the Post brought about changes in Graham's attitude, and also led her to promote gender equality within her company.
Graham hired Benjamin Bradlee as editor and cultivated Warren Buffett for his financial advice; he became a major shareholder and something of an eminence grise in the company. Her son Donald was publisher from 1979 to 2000.
Watergate
Graham presided over the Post at a crucial time in its history. The Post played an integral role in unveiling the Watergate conspiracy, and ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
Graham and editor Bradlee first experienced challenges when they published the content of the Pentagon Papers. When Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein brought the Watergate story to Bradlee, Graham supported their investigative reporting, and Bradlee ran stories about Watergate when few other news outlets were reporting on the matter.
In conjunction with the Watergate scandal, Graham was the subject of one of the best-known threats in American journalistic history. It occurred in 1972, when Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, warned reporter Carl Bernstein about a forthcoming article: "Katie Graham's gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that's published." The two words "her tit" were cut on publication.
Other accomplishments and recognition
Graham had strong links to the Rockefeller family, serving both as a member of the Rockefeller University council and as a close friend of the Museum of Modern Art, where she was honored as a recipient of the David Rockefeller Award for enlightened generosity and advocacy of cultural and civic endeavors (see External links below).
In 1997, Graham published her memoirs, Personal History. The book was praised for its honest portrayal of Philip Graham's mental illness, and received rave reviews for her depiction of her life, as well as a glimpse into how the roles of women have changed over the course of Graham's life. The book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998.
Death
In 2001, Graham suffered a fall while visiting Boise, Idaho. She died three days after the fall, due to trauma resulting from her fall-related head injury. Her funeral took place at the Washington National Cathedral.
Trivia
The character of newspaper owner Margaret Pynchon (played by Nancy Marchand) on the TV drama Lou Grant was said to have been loosely based on Graham.[1]
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Graham, Katharine (1997). Personal History. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-394-58585-2.
- Bradlee, Ben (1995). A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0684808943.
- Gerber, Robin (2005). Katharine Graham: The Leadership Journey of an American Icon. New York: Portfolio. ISBN 1591841046.
External links
- New York Times Paid Death Notices: July, 18, 2001 Inserted by Rockefeller University and the Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved May 18, 2007.
- Katharine Graham: 1917-2001 Tuesday, July 17, 2001 By Jessica Reaves Time.com Retrieved May 18, 2007.
- Personal History February 6, 1997. Online NewsHour. Retrieved May 18, 2007.
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