All the President's Men

The classic. I appreciate that Woodward admits to his weakness as a writer from jump, cuz, yeah. Despite the somewhat watery style, the pacing is good, and it's clear that the legwork done was 100% legit. That is after all what the book's really about: not the scandal per se, more the fast times and hard work that went into the WP's reporting on Watergate.

The end is missing! Now I have to find it. This is very frustrating!

A fascinating look at what led up to Nixon's resignation. I was in my early teens when this all took place and so it really helped me to understand what went on.

The facts of the Watergate Scandal, well marshalled and readable. Not so much fun as the Hoffman and Trudeau version, but respectable work from professionals.

very interesting as history . the ending feels awfully rushed.

Change the names from 1972 to today's names and nothing has changed. The talking points and the words are the same. Denials and coming down on the press from the White House. I am astounded how much things stay the same in 50 years. While the book at first is a little disconcerting because of all the names as well as feeling I was dropped into the middle of a conversation, I soon got comfortable as Bernstein and Woodward tell of putting the Watergate story and the subsequent fallout stories together to get a full story of what happened during the Nixon reelection campaign. This is much more interesting now than it was 50 years ago when all I cared about was my soap operas being exempted for the Watergate coverage. There are so many parallels to 2020 and beyond.

If the reader wants to study this time in history, it's a good book. If the reader wants only to enjoy reading, this is not the book for you. It contains details about a time in US history that is complex and involves many, many characters. I wasn't up for it at this time. Listened for a couple hours, then got bored--DNF.

Read this. Now.

I can't find the quote in the book, but there is a point where someone (McCord? Magruder?) is willing to finally tell all to the Senate committee. He didn't testify earlier because he did not trust that the Attorney General (John Mitchell) or the FBI Director (L. Patrick Grey) were not in Nixon's pocket. That was a good decision and is eerily resonant with the Trump White House.

The dramatic structure is controlled by real events, but captivating. The origin is the break-in at the Watergate. Then each clue uncovers three more clues. The web gets very large, then everything stalls before the election. Nobody will talk. There are setbacks, then the evidence points closer and closer to the White House, eventually converging on Nixon. But the President cannot be indicted.

From the afterword in the 40th anniversary edition:


The Watergate we wrote about in the Washington Post from 1972 to 1974 is not Watergate as we know it today. It was only a glimpse into something far worse. By the time he was forced to resign, Nixon had turned his White House, to a remarkable extent, into a criminal enterprise.


For Trump, I would substitute "commercial enterprise".

One tiny complaint. This could use a much more detailed index. For example, it doesn't list James McCord. I'm sure that Bernstein and Woodward view the actual reporting as the official record, but most of us don't have NEXUS/LEXUS to dig through that. For us, this book is the story of Watergate and Nixon's crimes.

The possible parallels to modern times engender hope.

The details—how the reporting worked, how it all unfolded—are what makes this story fascinating, but they can also be overwhelming. There's a lot to keep track of. Although not the main point, I also learned some about the Watergate scandal. > Woodward had worked for the Post for only nine months and was always looking for a good Saturday assignment, but this didn't sound like one. A burglary at the local Democratic headquarters was too much like most of what he had been doing—investigative pieces on unsanitary restaurants and small-time police corruption> On June 17, 1972, less than a month before the Democratic convention, the President stood ahead of all announced Democratic candidates in the polls by no less than 19 points. Richard Nixon's vision of an emerging Republican majority that would dominate the last quarter of the century, much as the Democrats had dominated two previous generations, appeared possible.> Deep Throat nodded confirmation as Woodward ran down items on a list of tactics that he and Bernstein had heard were used against the political opposition: bugging, following people, false press leaks, fake letters, canceling campaign rallies, investigating campaign workers' private lives, planting spies, stealing documents, planting provocateurs in political demonstrations> Bernstein would count to 10. If there was any reason for the reporters to hold back on the story, the lawyer should hang up before 10. If he was on the line after 10, it would mean the story was okay. … Bernstein should not have used the silent confirm-or-hang-up method with the Justice Department lawyer. The instructions were too complicated. (Indeed, they learned, the attorney had gotten the instructions backward and had meant to warn them off the story.)> Sloan's message seemed clear, though not explicit. Haldeman had controlled the fund; the matter had not come up during his grand-jury testimony. Either the reporters had misunderstood what Sloan had told them about the grand jury earlier that week or Sloan had misinterpreted their question. The telephone conversation with Sloan was at least a hopeful sign; if the reporters could re-establish beyond any doubt that Haldeman controlled the fund, and could explain the error, their credibility might not be totally destroyed. … The mistake had jeopardized all of their earlier reporting, he believed. The stories had been building. Eventually the White House would have had to yield. Now the pressure was off the White House because the burden of proof had shifted back to the Post.> Several people suggested they might be more talkative after Nixon's victory. The promise of easier access to information after November 7 was not the only reason the reporters wanted the election behind them. With Nixon's re-election, the White House would be forced to abandon the line that the Post was working for the election of McGovern.> Around this time, the White House began excluding the Post from covering social events at the Executive Mansion—first, a large Republican dinner; then, a dinner for past, present and newly designated Cabinet officers; then, a Sunday worship service; finally, a Christmas party for the children of foreign diplomats … "They're going to wish on L Street [location of the Post] that they’d never heard of Watergate." Soon, challenges against the Post's ownership of two television stations in Florida were filed with the Federal Communications Commission. The price of Post stock on the American Exchange dropped by almost 50 percent.> Rothblatt and his clients found a cab as Bernstein raced toward them. The lawyer, the stocky Frank Sturgis, and the three other men filled the cab, but Bernstein, uninvited, got in anyway, piling in on top of them as the door slammed. Von Hoffman and Wilkins nearly fell off the curb laughing.> "That's the difference between Watergate and the Pentagon Papers. In the Pentagon Papers, damn, you had the lawyers involved the first day … getting advice, and Katharine actually making the decision to publish. Nothing like that happened with Watergate. We never called the lawyers and said, Are we okay, what’s the legal view of this? I do think we did slip into it. It was incremental."> "We spent $8400 on false telegrams and ads to stir up phony support for the President's decision. Money was used to pay for telegrams to the White House, to tell the President what a great move it was, so that Ziegler could announce that the telegram support was running some large percentage in support of the President. Money also went to pay for a phony ad in the New York Times." … "Everyone had to fill out fifteen postcards. Ten people worked for days buying different kinds of stamps and cards and getting different handwriting to fake the responses. … Thousands of newspapers were bought from the newsstands and the ballots were clipped out and mailed in." At a minimum, Dooley said, 4000 ballots supporting Nixon's decision were sent from CRP. WTTG reported that 5157 agreed with the President and 1158 disagreed.> "When you're involved in an election, you do what you can," Shumway replied. "We assumed the other side would do it also. On that assumption, we proceeded. I don’t know if the other side did." Woodward asked if the other side Shumway was referring to was the North Vietnamese. No, Shumway said, he meant the McGovern forces.> Gray went to the White House and said, in effect, "I'm taking the rap on Watergate." He got very angry and said he had done his job and contained the investigation judiciously, that it wasn't fair that he was being singled out to take the heat. He implied that all hell could break loose if he wasn't able to stay in the job permanently and keep the lid on. Nixon could have thought this was a threat, though Gray is not that sort of guy. Whatever the reason, the President agreed in a hurry and sent Gray's name up to the Senate right away. … Sachs said that pressuring the White House was "not the way Gray handled himself with those guys. It was plain fear most of the time. … Now it makes perfect sense that some of those guys down there would think he might be pressuring because that's the way they operate, but not Gray."> Just as the breakin had been but a small part of a massive election-year campaign of espionage and sabotage, the whole undercover effort to reelect the President was, in its turn, part of a broader program directed by the President's men, almost from the beginning, against those who they thought threatened the administration.> It was another Watergate. In Los Angeles, at the trial of Daniel Ellsberg, Judge Matthew Byrne had announced that he had learned from the Watergate prosecutors that Hunt and Liddy supervised the burglary of the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist in 1971.> Woodward typed out a note and passed it to Bernstein. Everyone’s life is in danger. Bernstein looked up. Has your friend gone crazy? he asked. Woodward shook his head rapidly, indicating to Bernstein not to speak. He typed another note. Deep Throat says that electronic surveillance is going on and we had better watch it. Bernstein signaled that he wanted something to write with. Woodward gave him a pen. Who is doing it? Bernstein wrote. Can-I-A, Woodward mouthed silently. Bernstein was disbelieving. While the Rachmaninoff piano concerto played on, Woodward began typing as Bernstein read over his shoulder:> In May, Woodward asked a committee staff member if Butterfield had been interviewed. "No, we’re too busy." Some weeks later, he had asked another staffer if the committee knew why Butterfield's duties in Haldeman's office were defined as "internal security." The staff member said the committee didn't know, and maybe it would be a good idea to interview Butterfield. He would ask Sam Dash, the committee's chief counsel. Dash put the matter off. The staff member told Woodward he would push Dash again. Dash finally okayed an interview with Butterfield for Friday, July 13, 1973. On Saturday the 14th, Woodward received a phone call at home from a senior member of the committee’s investigative staff. "Congratulations," he said. "We interviewed Butterfield. He told the whole story." What whole story? "Nixon bugged himself." … The existence of a tape system which monitored the President's conversations had been known only to the President himself, Haldeman, Larry Higby, Alexander Haig, Butterfield and the several Secret Service agents who maintained it.

The style is the clipped version expected from reporters, but still an engrossing read into the Watergate affair. Still relevant after all these years.

Even decades later, this is a thrilling account of investigative journalism. It’s also particularly timely considering all of the political investigation is currently happening and the current administration‘s feelings about the press. This book is such a great example of why free press is so important to a democracy.

In light of events during 2017, a look back was in order. This book shows how a little peeling of the onion on minor story set forth the resignation of a president and shattered whatever trust many had in government.

Of an engaging nonfiction narrative, it’s often said—as a form of praise—that it “reads like a novel.” Presumably because the characters are well developed, the plot is interesting, the themes are relevant or perceptive, and the prose style is compelling or original or captivating in some way. While this book certainly tells the tale of what is perhaps still the most consequential feat of 20th-century journalism, it is not a nonfiction book that reads like a novel. It is, however, worth the read, if only to provide hope given the current chaotic mess that is the US Executive branch of government.The factors that prevent All the President’s Men from achieving the lauded “reads like a novel” status are perhaps beyond the control of Bernstein and Woodward, who prove themselves to be intrepid, reflective reporters who are not above admitting their own shortcomings or lapses in judgment. The story they uncover is such a byzantine quagmire of conflicting loyalties, stealthy connections, cloak-and-dagger schemes, and downright preposterous (yet true) accusations against the most esteemed government office in the US that one forgives them for failing to weave an intelligible plot out of the Gordian knot of intrigue that they discover. Furthermore, Bernstein and Woodward are not necessarily storytellers—they are journalists telling the story of their story.Over 40 years after the Watergate scandal, the paranoia, hypocrisy, and dishonesty that emanated from the office of the President of the United States feel all too palpable in the current era, when we are forced to endure what will undoubtedly be regarded as the most ignorant, embarrassing, arrogant, appalling, and absolutely batsh*t crazy administration of all time. I simply hope that somewhere, working for a newspaper or website like the Washington Post, there are journalists in the mold of Bernstein and Woodward who will someday tell the story of 45’s corruption and reveal him for the criminal that he is.

Great classic read. I find it a bit unfortunate that it actually stops a few months before Nixon's resignation, but at that point the story was out. You get a sense that investigative journalism is a long, arduous slog through countless telephone calls and snippets of talk with hundreds of people, most often meaningless but with sometimes the hidden gem that allows the reporters to painstakingly assemble the whole puzzle piece by piece.

What more is there to say about this book? Especially with the recent political turmoil worldwide in 2016/2017, what this book explores is as relevant now as when it was written (1974). I have read it several times, as each time I gain a greater and greater understanding of the political intrigue that is behind this investigation.It begins with the break-in at the Watergate Hotel in June, 1972. Simple, to-the-point, bad guys did something bad. But then there are names in notebooks that belong to people in the White House. And there is money that shouldn't be there. And then there are more people in the White House who have named more money a "slush fund." The questions become broader and more wide-reaching. And more troubling the deeper the reporters go to find answers.What I gained this time reading it was applying the knowledge I now have of what a Director of the FBI is, what the FBI *should* be doing in an investigation, what a Chief of Staff is, what an Attorney General is. These terms are important to what went on during this time; as a young child these terms were not part of my world. Now they are, and I did not hesitate to re-read passages to more fully understand the intrigue and conversations.Note to modern readers: the authors wrote this work in 1974, before Nixon resigned. The ending ends after the President's State of the Union message. Also, because the events and people were so well-known at the time, there may be mentions or a literary short hand that leaves you scratching your head. Just hang on - re-read a passage or make a note to Google a term or a person. It will all make sense.

Aside from a few cultural references that I had to look up, this book holds up remarkably well. Readers who are familiar with Watergate will probably do a better job of keeping track of everyone, but there is a list of principal players at the beginning of the book for the rest of us. I only wish this book wasn't so relevant today.

Strange that I've not read the book til now and stranger even that as I read the book, very few people had heard of it. The book takes a journalistic approach (naturally) which can make for some choppy reading, but the subject is fascinating. I was in Europe living through these tales of woe as they happened. Goodness, how things have not changed!

For some time now, I've been wondering when exactly we became distrustful of our government, when they became distrustful. And buddy, this is it.Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein present the pivotal moment when our President, the leader of the free world, became a shifty, scheming thug instead of a statesman with his country's best interest at heart.Told from the perspective of the writers in a third person way, the events that kick off with the Watergate break-in and end with the Executive Branch of the United States government in shambles becomes a thrilling and potent detective story. These two put themselves on the line by searching out the truth, no matter how much the President's men tried to make them look foolish and like full-blown McGovern puppets solely trying to make the President look bad because he was a Republican. There were threats, secrets, cover-ups, and more than a few tricks.This book. This is the one. If you want some solid reporting about political intrigue, read this book.

About the only reason I don't give this and similar books a "5" is that this was the era of "piling on." Anything that spread bile about Nixon was taken as true hook, line and sinker. I happen to think Nixon was a thug, but there are limits.

Along with "The Final Days", THE defining book of the tradegy of American History called Watergate. It uncovered the shallow dark side of the most devious president the U.S ever had.

Meh. I've wanted to read this for a long time, so I'm really disappointed that I didn't like it better. The Watergate scandal was over and done with six years before I was born, so I have no memories of it, of course. And I think that's partly why I had such a hard time with this book. Aside from Nixon, Woodward and Bernstein themselves, and a few of the other big names associated with the scandal, I didn't recognize the names of any of the principle players in the story. That, coupled with the writing style (very much "reporting"--no attempts to novelize, to create character, to make things memorable), made it very hard for me to keep track of who was who and to make the connections necessary really to understand all the machinations behind the whole affair. I don't fault the book for this; it is a journalistic account, afterall, not a novelization or a "true crime" sort of thing. But after about a third of the book, it became clear to me that I wasn't getting much out of it, so I speed read the rest, stopping to read more fully any parts that jumped out at me as very interesting.

The Watergate break-in occurred forty years ago this week... I remember the break-in, trial, Senate hearings, and Nixon's resignation like they were yesterday. Sadly, I haven't trusted the executive branch much since. This first-hand account of the groundbreaking Washington Post investigation is a must read if you wish to understand the American political climate since the 1970's.

Insightful up to a certain point, but very badly written.I had quite some trouble with this book, because of the style. It's terrible, especially since these men are (were?) reporters!I also find it's practically impossible to read if you do not already know something about Watergate. Thankfully I had read a biography about Nixon before I picked up this book.Now I've finished it I have to say I still am not much wiser. There a truckload of names, a lot of leads (most have to do with a money trail), but real conclusive information? There's not much of that, unfortunately.I find this book a waste of time.

A book and a movie. About two journalists running and writing and their bosses discussing and deciding. How can that make such exciting, entertaining and intriguing content? The book nor the movie has a hint of violence, car chases and James bond allure, and both don't need to. Each and every time when you re-read the book you'll be engrossed in the story and baffled as it evolves for the umpteenth time.It has a personal story too. When I became interested in Watergate, and read the book for the first time back in the seventies, I believed that Woodward's "My Friend" contained an acronym for Mark Felt, then deputy chief of the FBI. If I'd only put a bet on that, I would have been rich today...Recommended, and never old nor outdated, despite the big phones they need to use and the paper they write on. And in the movie, the ties they wear. But that's a different story.

This is a truly shocking and rapidly moving narrative of the actions that President Nixon and his Republican supporters in the White House and in the Republican Party took to gain advantage in elections. What begins as an innocuous burglary in the Watergate Hotel turns into an unraveling tale of money laundering, illegal wiretapping, political sabotage, and deceipt. It is truly amazing to read the lengths to which political parties only three decades ago went to gain an upper hand. Nixon was a no-holds-barred type who had tremendous ambition, but unfortunately he was caught and ultimately tainted American politicals with what remains a fundamental distrust with our elected officials. The reporting by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward was amazing, especially considering they were only 28 and 29 years old at the time. And the were successfully in large part because Ben Bradlee and others at the Washington Post were willing to stand up to federal officials and support this work. I strongly recommend this book. It makes me want to learn more about Ben Bradlee, Katherine Graham, Deep Throat, and the others who had a role to play in this story.

I was very young when Watergate transpired, and am so pleased that the writers that brought him down were able to tell their story with so much detail. Sadly, I am not sure reporters can investigate like this anymore. Be aware, this is not the story of Nixon, it's the story of the two WaPo reporters. But what a story. I think this book is pictured in the dictionary under "pageturner."

An excellent, page turning account of the two reporters doggedly seeking to uncover the mystery of the Watergate break in.

I was an early teenager during the Watergate scandal, and avidly followed the Senate Select Commitee hearings on Watergate, watching all the coverage I possibly could on TV. Therefore, this book was of great interest to me, and I found it totally absorbing. Someday, I'd like to read it again and see if it has the same impact.

This is an excellent account of the Nixon years. It is very well-written and reveals how two dedicated people made a difference in American history. Do we still make journalists like these? I would like to think so.