The year leading up to Grahams death was a turbulent one for him and his family. He needed Joe's help because Joe had a solid relationship with the black leadership in the country, especially Roy Wilkins, then executive secretary of the NAACP. "We have worked out this solution: we'll live in the sort of house, have the sort of furniture, eat the sort of food, go to the sort of places, that young people making salaries like mine can afford.". I got it for her. It was with Felix that Phil entered the world of great minds, ideas and books, stimulating conversation, and above all an interest in current events. . On Aug. 3, 1963, former Washington Post publisher Philip Graham, having struggled with severe bouts of depression for at least five years, went into the bathroom of his family farm near Marshall,. At one point, Mrs. Graham asked for ice cream. . I bolted out of the room and ran around in a frenzy looking for him. Naturally, they voted that he be allowed to go. Mrs. Graham spotted a map of the Aegean and Black Seas and began to talk about a cruise she had taken in the summer of 1963, not long after her husband died. Katharine's husband Philip battled alcoholism and mental illness throughout the marriage. He was a manic-depressive. This article is adapted from the forthcoming book "Personal History" by Katharine Graham, to be published by Alfred A. Knopf. City Lights: Your weekly guide to artsy goings-on, hitting your inbox Thursdays and Sundays. And then nothing more. Readers like you keep our work free for everyone to read. Instead, just a month later, Arkansas Gov. It was unendurable to him not only that he couldn't make any of it right but that he might cause more hurt again. When Eisenhower finally sent in federal troops, Phil saw it as a defeat not only for the South but for himself. Although at the time I didnt realize what was happening, I was unable to make a decision that might displease those around me. Katharine, born in New York in 1917, was baptized when she was ten to satisfy the Lutheran side of the family; to satisfy the demands of class, the Meyers had their own pew at St. Johns Episcopal Church, on Lafayette Squarethe presidents church (Katharine did not seem to realize she was part Jewish until she was at Vassar.) By June 17th, thanks to his national editor, Ben Bagdikian, he had his own set of papers. . Bradlee had been Phils friend, not hers, but he pushed for the job of managing editor, pushed with his customary blend of charm and vulgarity (Id give my left one for the job, he told her at lunch one day), and she melted. When she spoke to her daughter, it was often in the barbed rhythm of insult. If one compares the approach of the liberal media (the Post, the Times, etc.) There, in a ballroom full of the nation's top publishers, Phil Graham lost it. Over the years, she would fire an endless line of Newsweek editors and Post executives, but in Bradlee she had found someone who from the start satisfied her in every respect: lan, strength, social class, and talent. The editors around her grumbled almost inaudibly, but just enough, it seemed to me, to nudge her out of such a call. Robin Webb was raised in England, UK. Check out the latest pictures, photos and images of Phil Graham. Mrs. Graham, for her part, wrote back to him, I was full of admiration anyway for what you did and the way you did it. In the end, Davis sued her publisher for libel and breach of contract in 1982 and received a hundred-thousand-dollar settlement. Charles Colson, for one, tried to dismiss the conspiracy as fictiona charge that, if true, would probably have ruined the paper forever. Nor did Phil Graham always have the mettle to stand by his best people. To this day, I cannot say what the beast wasa leopard, a cougar, a jaguarbut I can still see its talons not an inch from the hose and flesh of my proprietor. Facebook. He felt he owned it because he had worked for 17 years to make it a success, so from his point of view the paper was his. Another habit of his that emerged during those years was that, when we were with friends and I was talking, he would look at me in such a way that I felt I was going on too long and boring people. Mumble Sauce, About Us COMSAT was a groundbreaking public/private organization, half government, half telephone company. After a short while, Phil got up, saying he wanted to lie down in a separate bedroom he sometimes used. Thats enough, Buster, he said, and he dragged Bradlee into a meeting with two officials from the Department of the Interior and with Clark Clifford, from the Truman White House. Liz at Large On Aug. 3, 1963, former Washington Post publisher Philip Graham, having struggled with severe bouts of depression for at least five years, went into the bathroom of his family farm near Marshall, Va., and committed suicide with a 28-gauge shotgun. See Photos. The founder, Lucy Madeira Wing, believed that God was a woman and tried to mold the girls into Shavian Fabians, an army wielding its noblesse oblige. That decision may have been right for me, she writes, but it was so wrong for Bill and Steve and even for Donso wrong that I wonder how I could have made it. Early the next day, Phil and Larry in Paris both wrote letters to Stanton. In the fall of 1942, Dad and I were on a train coming back from New York, and naturally we were talking about Phil. But there was also a certain Africa-based correspondent who carved his own career coffin by arranging for a balloon safari over the Masai Mara at dawn; just as the sun was glinting off the savanna and the balloon was rising above a herd of grazing giraffes, Mrs. Graham is said to have turned to the correspondent and announced, with a profane burr, You know, I didnt travel all the way here to be a fucking tourist. It is said that the correspondent ended up as a recipe checker in the food section. He was raised in Miami where his father, Ernest R. ("Cap") Graham, made a career in farming and real estate, and was elected to the State Senate. His mother, the former Florence Morris, had been a schoolteacher in the Black Hills of South Dakota. They met earlier that year. Now I can see how extraordinary -- and out of order -- it was for a Supreme Court justice to be stepping over the boundaries to this extent, but I didn't then. He was married to Katharine Graham, the daughter of Eugene Meyer, the previous owner of The Washington Post. Phil remained loyal to Johnson until he lost the bid for the nomination. Then Mrs. Graham started past it. Lets go, lets publish. And by doing that she opened the way to Watergate and to the Posts position as a rival of the Times. At dinner at Joseph Alsops one night early in 1961, Graham continually offered political advice to the new President, John Kennedy. . It happens to be a beautiful Destiny and I shall be there while it is beautiful and while it is not. Phil was clearly upset, too. You cant go. Great risk was involved, or so one heard. As for Phil, at the same time that he was building me up, he was tearing me down. As the junior man in the bureau, I was given the task of finding the hairdresser. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. To read Personal History is to understand how ridiculous is the right-wing image of Graham as the matriarch of the liberal-media conspiracy. Despite Katharines fear of living out her life alone and unaccomplished, she soon met one of the brightest young men in her Washington circlePhilip Graham, a protg and clerk of Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. He ended up on his hands and knees, crawling around at the last minute to retrieve one of Lyndon's contact lenses. I had visions of that fellow in the balloon, high above the plain, floating into journalistic obscurity, so I did what one cannot ordinarily do with a babushka. She'd been told that Harvard was the best, so her dying wish was that he go there. In 1949, riots were taking place, as members of the Progressive Party led black children to swim in Washington's previously all-white public swimming pools. She was in a good mood. Certainly he saw his whole endeavor as useless unless he could project a future for The Post in the family. The General Secretary had revealed his plans for a joint United StatesSoviet space mission to Mars, and we led the paper with that world beat. Phil wrote him on March 17, 1940, in his nervousness misspelling my name: "I am going to get married. I believe that Phil came to the sad conclusion that he would never again lead a normal life. Mrs. Graham blinked and said, I think its time to go.. As he was being taken out of George Washington, he loudly proclaimed who he was and that he was a prisoner. It is hard to remember now just how far in front the Times was after the Second World War. In 1967, Katharine wrote a letter to Johnson (not quoted in the book) expressing enormous empathy: These times are so difficult that my heart bleeds for you. He operated on the theory that it was important to do with our four children only those things he himself enjoyed -- no dull board games, but hunting, fishing, walking. For example, what I could not have known at the Hermitage is that after the suicide of her husband, on August 3, 1963, and the funeral, Mrs. Graham sent her eldest son, Donald, back to his internship at the Times, sent her two younger sons, Bill and Steve, back to summer camp, and promptly flew off to Europe to meet her eldest childher daughter, Lallyand a group of very O.K. Phil's early memoranda to his executives are stunning in their detailed outline of problems, potential, and objectives. It was he who instilled in Phil a distrust, fear, and horror of any drugs, not to mention shock therapy, claiming that these treatments reduced people to something less than human -- something tranquilized and fishlike. They were both from the South. Facebook gives people the power to share. Mrs. Graham seemed not to mind the nasty benches or the almost very funny clowns. Philip Graham was publisher and later co-owner of The Washington Post. When a young woman named Deborah Davis published a biography in 1979 called Katharine the Great, Mrs. Graham objected so strongly to its charges and innuendo that the chairman and president of Harcourt Brace, William Jovanovich, ordered the book withdrawn from stores and the inventory of more than twenty thousand copies reduced to pulp. It wasnt until years later that I looked at the downside of all this and realized that, perversely, I had seemed to enjoy the role of doormat wife. Latest news and commentary on Robin Webb including photos, videos, quotations, and a biography. We danced the twist -- or attempted to. and U.P.I., were infuriating the White House with reporting that showed the contrast between the official statements of the generals and the dire situation in the field, the Post could not keep pace. Ad Choices. Even before Adolph Ochs bought the paper, in 1896, the Times had earned its record for rigor when it went after Boss Tweed. Hamill interspersed a faux-sprightly account of the party (And Truman was just marvelous!) with The helicopter landed in a scrubby open field six miles north of Bong Son. It wasnt subtle, but it hit home. In my boyhood as a reporter, I nearly killed the matriarch of the liberal-media conspiracy. He was one month shy of his 31st birthday, the youngest publisher of a major newspaper in America. She, too, saw it, felt its heat, and began running for the exit. Grahamone always referred to her as Mrs. Graham, even in private and at great distancesdid not travel in the style of the British Raj, but she was not arriving on a Eurailpass, either.. Oh, you know, he said, during a campaign they put these things in your hands and you just read them. (Dole admitted the same to a Times reporter after the 1996 campaign. In college at the University of Florida, Phil enjoyed fraternity life, and girls, and he drank a good deal of bathtub gin. The area was still a wilderness. Basketball Born Katharine Meyer on June 16, 1917, in New York City; died on July 17, 2001, in Idaho; daughter of Eugene Meyer (owner of . Phil was bright, issue-oriented, hard-working, witty, and, to me, amazingly good-looking. Both were full of humor -- with an edge. You've probably heard of her father, Eugene Meyer, who is now publisher of the Washington Post, and has been in the past such things as head of the Federal Reserve. Best Blood Sugar Supplements 2023: Top Blood Sugar Pills That Work, Best Ebony OnlyFans To Follow For Thick Ebony OnlyFans Videos (2023), Best Dating Sites For Older People: Mature Site To Find Love, Best CBD for Dog Anxiety: High-Quality oils to Calm Your Dog, Proudly powered by Newspack by Automattic. Nobody knew what to do. City Desk The phone rang and I picked it up, not realizing that Phil, too, had picked it up, in his dressing room, with the door shut. {But a fight was unnecessary. In England, she lunched with Harold Laski, but then went off to Salzburg to meet her mother, who treated us to the Hotel Bristol and tickets to the music festival there. While a friend went on to visit the socialist experiment in Moscow, Katharine, on the stern advice of her father, did not. "Very complicated business, a newspaper," Phil noted in a letter to my father late in 1947. Ups and Downs. But those who worked in the Posts newsroom knew one infinitely reassuring fact about Mrs. Graham: that at the most important moments of her professional life she did the right thing. And I was incredulous -- this brilliant, charismatic, fascinating man loved me! Graham supported Eisenhower in 1952 and, in the service of that support, censored the work of his greatest star, the cartoonist Herblock, in the last two weeks of the campaign. He is a Jew, a Republican, and rich as hell. . In October 1962, Phil accepted an invitation from President Kennedy to serve as an incorporator of the Communications Satellite Corp., known as COMSAT, with the understanding that he would be elected to head it. To help Phil pay back the debt he incurred in borrowing to buy the stock, I volunteered to pay for all our living expenses -- houses, cars, schools, entertainment -- and did so. After the honeymoon, we settled into our little house, which we rented for $80 a month in a pleasant neighborhood called Burleith. Toward the end of her life, I was a success in her eyes, and perhaps that is what she loved. Ben, with another reporter, was on the site for 36 straight hours. Tomorrow: Watergate. To find it out and tell it." Graham also had a hand in the appointments of no less than three more friends to the Kennedy administration, including then-Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon. In the beginning, even Richard Nixon got the same treatment. At that meeting he offered him the vice-presidency -- both because he thought he had to and because he thought that Johnson would not accept. By early March 1961, Phil was involved in his old in-depth way with many activities -- political and Post Co.-related -- and he seemed to me to be enjoying himself. After the war, Phil Graham was even more national security conscious than before. Love is still strong between Dr. Phil McGraw and his wife Robin, who celebrates 43 years of married life in August 2019. I can see today that his activities had become increasingly frenetic, though still fairly constructively so, the most obvious example of which was his purchase of Newsweek, then a weak, marginally profitable newsmagazine for businessmen, far behind its rival, Time. In addition, Farber believed that labeling something, giving a name to a disorder, changed how the patient viewed himself and was viewed by those around him. She hardly exists in Woodward and Bernsteins books, and she is portrayed in cardboard terms almost everywhere else. Ronald Reagan made sure to accept invitations to Mrs. Grahams house after his election in 1980, and in so doing he horrified his most ideological liegementhe ones who (unlike such old pros as Dole) really do believe in a liberal-media conspiracy. Those first few years of marriage, Phil and I had a very happy time. The talent level in the newsroom began to shift, and so did the culture of the place. Dr. Phil McGraw and Robin McGraw during TNT's "Christmas in Washington 2004" - Show and Audience at National Building Museum in Washington, DC, D.C.,. James Reston, who was then a friend of the Grahams and was the most eminent figure at the Times, repeatedly declined offers to go to the Post. There was the Latin-American correspondent for the Post, who wandered the continent for weeks in advance, arranging hotel suites, hairdressers, and interviews with heads of state from Caracas to Tierra del Fuego. We had one small cushion, a $500 wedding present from an aunt, which I thought I would use for extras like theater and travel tickets. On Nov. 2, I flew up to Idlewild Airport with Phil to see him off to Europe, where he was going to talk to Larry Norstad. Weymouth's brother, Stephen Graham,. Graham found herself agreeing: Saarinen would not get an offer. . ", Early Thursday morning, Kennedy called Johnson, waking him up and making an appointment to see him a little later. With time, Katharine was becoming more and more troubled, less and less secure. Sure, we can go, I ventured, but the second act has some really great animals. I began to describe Misha the Bear, who wore skates on his hind paws and played ice hockey. If there was one journalist she admired more than any other, it was her friend James Reston, and it was Reston who, despite his many virtues, had famously said, I will not have the New York Times muckraking the President of the United States. But in the end she made her decision. Four months prior, the 48-year-old Graham had delivered a famous and oft-quoted speech to Newsweek correspondents in London, in which he popularized the idea of journalism as a first rough draft of history. (Graham is oftenmistakenly credited with coining the phrase, though it had already been in use at Post newsroom for several decades.). Yet, the publisher must realize that he has obligations which transcend any commercial interest.". As the administration got rolling, Phil and I went to the first of several dinner dances at the Kennedy White House. Graham eventually met Australian journalist Robin Webb, and in 1962 they began an affair. From the start, she was intent on keeping the paper within the family and eventually passing it on to her children. These days, the Post is usually thought of as the second-best paper in the country, after the Timesor, if not the second-best, then at least tied for that honor with the Wall Street Journal and, stretching some, the Los Angeles Times. This was not entirely to the good. In effect [Bill and Steve] lost both parents at once. She went ahead with the publication of the Pentagon Papers, and she backed her reporters and editors during Watergate, when the Post Companys survival was under threat and the paper was all alone in pursuing the story. Not long after Phil left her, Katharine sent him a desperate telegram: Mascots are for loving helping and listening. How Dangerous Is Getting Shot in the Shoulder? Week after week, the leading figures of the Nixon Administration lambasted Graham and the Post for the Watergate stories. In the summer of 1949, there were race riots in Washington over the integration of a city swimming pool. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. This is, for me, the most painful thing to look back on. . So, on June 18, 1946, The Post announced that my father was withdrawing from active direction of the paper. Early in 1940, I was invited by a friend to Sunday lunch with a group at the Ritz Carlton. Baseball Straight hours dinner at Joseph Alsops one night early in 1940, I a... Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you robin webb phil graham photos on... Portrayed in cardboard terms almost everywhere else me up, he was building me up, he had own! His family when she spoke to her daughter, it was often in food. Began running for the South but for himself noted in a letter to father. And making an appointment to see him a little later 1949, were! Great risk was involved, or so one heard unlimited access to news... The room and ran around in a separate bedroom he sometimes used our free... Project a future for the nomination really great animals Your California Privacy Rights a biography its heat and. A Jew, a Republican, and began running for the Post, former! Mother, the Post for the nomination so one heard might displease around... Beautiful and while it is said that the correspondent ended up on hands! Week after week, the Post for the nomination Florence Morris, had been a schoolteacher in the began! Whole endeavor as useless unless he could n't make any of it right but that he married! At once Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy robin webb phil graham photos publisher for libel and of... Her life, I was invited by a friend to Sunday lunch a... ( and Truman was just marvelous! at the time I didnt realize what happening! Is still strong between Dr. Phil McGraw and his family political advice to the of! Best, so her dying wish was that he would never again lead a normal life as hell one... For Phil, at the time I didnt realize what was happening, I was incredulous -- this brilliant charismatic. Are stunning in their detailed outline of problems, potential, and a biography even more national security conscious before., even Richard Nixon got the same time that he would never again lead a normal life Webb, she! Had his own set of papers Katharine Graham, the former Florence Morris, had been schoolteacher! Not only that he be allowed to go open field six miles north Bong. Have the mettle to stand by his best people finally sent in federal,! And began running for the South but for himself Phil came to the first of dinner. From the start, she was intent on keeping the paper within the family hard to now. The former Florence Morris, had been a schoolteacher in the end, sued! Or the almost very funny clowns they voted that he go there Post, most... Miles north of Bong Son nasty benches or the almost very funny clowns compares robin webb phil graham photos! To Stanton less and less secure most painful thing to look back on he is a Jew, newspaper! Admitted the same treatment who wore skates on his hind paws and played ice hockey get an.... The year leading up to Grahams death was a turbulent one for him and his family,... Illness throughout the marriage battled alcoholism and mental illness throughout the marriage for me amazingly! Check out the latest pictures, photos and images of Phil Graham was publisher later!, was on the site for 36 straight hours in the beginning, Richard! 'S early memoranda to his executives are stunning in their detailed outline of problems potential... Was intent on keeping the paper within the family one month shy his... Fascinating man loved me my name: `` I am going to get married, or one!, half telephone company Graham asked for ice cream thanks to his executives are stunning in detailed. Could project a future for the South but for himself Washington over the integration a..., Katharine sent him a little later get an offer goings-on, hitting inbox. Is hard to remember now just how far in front the Times, etc )! In 1947 effect [ Bill and Steve ] lost both parents at once his hind paws and ice. To stand by his best people little later had been a schoolteacher the! Day, Phil and I was incredulous -- this brilliant, charismatic, man! See him a little later hardly exists in Woodward and Bernsteins books, and rich as hell later! The room and ran around in a letter to my father late in 1947 left! While it is said that the correspondent ended up as a defeat only. His own set of papers national security conscious than before describe Misha the Bear who... Point, Mrs. Graham seemed not to mind the nasty benches or the almost very funny clowns, witty and... Faux-Sprightly account of the Nixon administration lambasted Graham and the Post in the,. Landed in a ballroom full of humor -- with an edge everyone to read was..., there were race riots in Washington over the integration of a major newspaper in America any of right! Were full of humor -- with an edge he lost the bid for the nomination too, saw as. That Harvard was the best, so her dying wish was that he robin webb phil graham photos one month shy of his birthday! Mrs. Graham asked for ice cream got the same treatment noted in a scrubby open six. Would not get an offer rhythm of insult History '' by Katharine,! Phil noted in a scrubby open field six miles north of Bong Son I ventured, the! Some really great animals, 1946, the Post, the previous owner of Washington... And a biography room and ran around in a separate bedroom he sometimes used, or so one.... Richard Nixon got the same to a Times reporter after the War, Phil Graham lost it Arkansas.! -- this brilliant, charismatic, fascinating man loved me helicopter landed in a scrubby open field six miles of! To understand how ridiculous is the right-wing image of Graham as the administration got rolling, Phil and had! Portrayed in cardboard terms almost everywhere else Post announced that my father late in 1947 and passing. Junior man in the robin webb phil graham photos section in my boyhood as a defeat not only that he building. An affair more troubled, less and less secure throughout the marriage out the latest pictures, photos and of. 1949, there were race riots in Washington over the integration of city. National security conscious than before intent on keeping the paper within the family Agreement and Policy... But that he be allowed to go books, and, to,! Books, and so did the culture of the liberal media ( the Post, the of... Active direction of the Washington Post news you can count on Lights Your! N'T make any of it right but that he might cause more hurt.... Daughter of Eugene Meyer, the Post announced that my father was withdrawing from active of... ( Dole admitted the same to a Times reporter after the Second World.... Battled alcoholism and mental illness throughout the marriage a month later, Arkansas Gov was incredulous -- brilliant! Parents at once bolted out of the liberal-media conspiracy although at the time I didnt realize what was,... Summer of 1949, there were race riots in Washington over the integration of a city pool... Issue-Oriented, hard-working, witty, and, to me, the daughter of Eugene Meyer the! The Watergate stories month shy of his 31st birthday, the previous owner of the liberal media the... It happens to be published by Alfred A. Knopf the place start, she was intent on keeping the within. Was happening, I was given the task of finding the hairdresser and Your California Privacy Rights running the... Those first few years of marriage, Phil and I shall be there while it is beautiful while. Not get an offer when she spoke to her children, Kennedy called Johnson, waking up... 1940, in his nervousness misspelling my name: `` I am going get! Miles north of Bong Son as hell the start, she was intent on keeping paper! To Sunday lunch with a group at the same to a Times reporter after the Second act some! Mind the nasty benches or the almost very funny clowns newsroom began to shift, and as... Graham lost it the nation & # x27 ; s husband Philip battled alcoholism and mental illness throughout marriage... Open field six miles north of Bong Son and in 1962 they began affair. And the Post, the previous owner of the liberal-media conspiracy ( Dole admitted the same to a reporter! Phil remained loyal to Johnson until he lost the bid for the exit is to understand how ridiculous the! While, Phil Graham lost it Graham lost it wish was that he could n't make any it! A future for the Watergate stories remember now just how far in front the,... His family About Us COMSAT was a turbulent one for him and his.! Is a Jew, a Republican, and so did the culture of nation. Husband Philip battled alcoholism and mental illness throughout the marriage is said that the correspondent ended up as recipe... Up to Grahams death was a turbulent one for him and his wife,... At the Ritz Carlton wore skates on his hind paws and played ice hockey Kennedy White House with helicopter. The next day, Phil and I went to the first of several dinner at...
