‘Bush is going down because there is this talk of threatening Iran. If he does that, I think he’s had it’

• You could be used to it, but I want to say something else to you. It’s one of those moments when I love my job, because if I weren’t a journalist, I wouldn’t be walking and chatting with Benjamin Bradlee.

Well, let’s see if towards the end of the conversation you are still pleased.

• Well, everything you did as an editor is something journalists around the world fantasise about, including the fact that you lasted 24 years in the job.

Yes, I lasted a long time. Well, I had a wonderful owner. People ask me what is the secret of being a great journalist, and I tell them: having a great newspaper owner, and someone who spends a lot of time in choosing you. But once they choose you, they leave you pretty much alone. But I didn’t realise how important it was. But Catherine Graham Meyer was a wonderful person.

• And she stayed the course with you through Pentagon Papers, Watergate . . .

Yes, yes. And she was so personally involved. I mean she came down to the newsroom maybe three-four times a day. Never left the office at the end of the day without either calling or coming down to the newsroom . . . she was so excited. She never told me what to do. She said, ‘What are you going to do?’ Wow, that’s a wonderful owner. If I owned this paper, I don’t think I’d let you run it for me: I’d like to run it.

• That’s the interesting part. Most editors, when they write their

autobiographies, they vent their spleen on the owner. Yours is so friendly to the publisher. And vice versa.

Well, you know, we were writing books at the same time. She was writing her own and I was writing mine and so we would check in. ‘How’s the book coming,’ she’d say to me, and I’d ask her the same question. And then I said, ‘You know, you’re the big cheese around here. You go first. You publish your book first.’ And she said, ‘No, no, no, I wouldn’t do that.’ So I went and published it first.

• Frankly, both these books should be standard texts in every journalism school. I am fortunate because I started as a reporter one year after Watergate.

You did? And that was that vivid in your mind?

• Absolutely. That was a time there was no TV, a little state-owned TV we had, and there was no Internet. But it was in the papers. I think that the Woodstein school sent a lot of talented people to the J-schools, isn’t it?

Oh, it did! There’s no question. It attracted, strangely, one of the things it did in America, it attracted women journalists. There hadn’t been a great many women journalists. Then they made that movie . . .

• And they thought reporters look like that.

Yeah, it’s hard to remember even now, from the length of time, how important it was, how much of life we spent, how many days, how many hours each day was full of this — 400 stories of Watergate alone, that’s amazing.

• And not four-para stories.

Oh, no no! Some of them were very long. And by necessity very complicated. But I don’t think either (Bob) Woodward or (Carl) Bernstein were very great writers. Bernstein was a better writer than Woodward. Woodward was a better reporter than Bernstein.

• But they had a great editor.

We had a great team. There were two or three editors. Wonderful people.

• So when did you first realise you were on to something really big? We all know it started as a burglary.

I wish I could tell you I knew it early. Once we traced the money in the pocket of the burglars to a man who had given that money to the Committee to Reelect the President of the United States, we said, ‘My God, it is the White House’s! This is from the Republicans!’

• Tell me, Mr Bradlee, what was the most difficult moment in that phase?

I don’t know. Let me tell you. The day you didn’t have a story, that was the day that killed you, because you got a story that is going to die. But we held our noses under water.

• And the threats and the fears?

Not many threats. There were times members of the Cabinet would say, ‘You guys know what you are doing? You better be right. And if you are wrong . . .’ Well, if we were wrong, we would have to resign, we would be out of business. That’s quite serious.

• But there were threats and doubts at some point?

No, I don’t remember receiving any threat from anyone in the White House.

• Threatening language?

There were two members in Cabinet. One was Kissinger, who said he didn’t know anything about this because it had nothing to do with foreign affairs. He said, ‘You’d better be right about this.’ And another man, Pete Peterson, he was saying, ‘I can’t believe what you are writing. I can’t see any sign of that in the White House.’ He was the Secretary of Commerce, so he had no clue of the funny business going on there.

• But did you ever have any doubts? Maybe the story wasn’t so good? Did you go to bed some day thinking, hoping, ‘God! We are right!’

For all my career I got to bed saying, ‘I was right.’ But there was a point, there was, 400 stories! That’s a lot of stories. Once we found the money, and the money in the White House, and then you had the legislature, the court inquiry and the legislative inquiry.

• This came in a very newsy period, because the Pentagon Papers was before. . .

A year before.

• Then you had to handle that little ethical setback Would you accept that it went wrong?

A monster, but . . .

• What happened?

It was a Janet Cooke story. Cooke was a young female reporter, she worked very well. She was so pretty. She dressed well. And she got this wonderful story about how a young eight-year-old child was turned on to drugs by her mother and the mother’s boyfriend. And we plastered it all over Page 1 and we had a particularly poignant illustration. I can see it in my mind’s eye now. It turned out to be a lie. Every word of it was a lie. That was almost a year later. There was a person who told me that maybe the story was wrong. And we said, you know, if it’s wrong it’s a disaster. And the only way out was to lead the charge, and to tell the public it was wrong. Right away. We did a huge investigative reporting job on it.

• To quote the line made famous by an iconic Indian corporation today that sets the standard for corporate governance: ‘When in doubt, disclose.’

When in doubt, disclose. Yes. And lead the pack. Don’t have somebody disclose about you. If you can’t lead the discovery process, then other people can jump on to say, ‘Hey, I told you about that.’ But (here), you told them.

• Right, all the time.

All the time, and it eventually worked to our benefit. They will say, ‘At least these guys told the truth as soon as they came to know about it.’

• Our business has been changing. In America, for instance, newspapers are losing circulation. I was reading a long interview in which you were asked what newspapers can do to prevent that from happening. You said, ‘Good stories.’

Yeah, good stories and the truth. True stories. Tell the truth. And a newspaper has to entertain, has to instruct, has to be useful to the public, really useful.

• So what do you see changing in journalism now? In the US, because that’s where you are. In so many ways, media around the world take the view from America.

Here’s the problem: there’s so much television as a competing source. When I was growing up, I knew how to read a newspaper. That was my only text as an eight-year-old. Now you can’t do that. There are children who don’t read.

• It was the reading habit earlier, which is not the case now.

Well, yes. Readers begin with newspapers. If there are no newspapers, the first people to suffer would be television.

• Why do you say so?

Well, where do they get their ideas from? They get their ideas from the paper. I discovered this 24-hour radio (on which) you can almost hear him turn the page, and if you rob him of the paper, the radio station will shut up, and there will be nothing.

• I was in Davos a while back, and the stars there were the guys who founded Facebook, the guys who founded YouTube, you know these guys are the stars — the bloggers, the new media people. And we find captains of global media in deep fright of them now.

And where do they get their news? Papers. And as you talk about the decline of newspaper circulation, biggest decline is in television news. Their audience decreases every year. Something like 17 per cent a year.

• Is it shifting to blogs?

Somewhere. They say they can’t go to a newspaper, because that’s where they started. That’s where they get their news. But it’s the same thing on the blogs.

• But this question comes up very frequently in media discussions, how blogging is the way, how as citizen journalists you can do your own news. I, being old-fashioned, argue you can’t have citizen-doctors, citizen-lawyers, so how can you have citizen-journalists? But then people say you guys rely too much on anonymous sources . . .

Well, you know, in our business you can always identify the source. I could say to someone who asked me, ‘Who did you talk to India?’, if I couldn’t name you, I can say, ‘I don’t know, this guy is a little bald, he wears glasses, he has black shoes, doesn’t wear a tie, has a long moustache. And they’d know who I’m talking about.’ I taught journalism a couple of semesters and one of my assignments to a class was to identify someone in a story in the Post or the New York Times. They were identified only as an Army person, or a Navy person, a diplomat. I said, ‘Tell me who that is?’ Newspapers now identify their sources much better, even if they mean they are old, or young, male or female . . .

• What they do not say any longer is if they are short, or tall, or fat. That’s not politically correct now.

One little trick . . . five out of ten times, at the end of the story, they will mention the name of the person who they were quoting anonymously in a different context.

• You have taken a very strong view on journalists remaining just journalists. In an interview you were described as arrogant. And you said, ‘Because we come from the holy profession.’ So give us the perspective of the holy profession.

Well, the truth begins with the biblical injunction that the truth shall set you free. Without the truth, no man is free. Because he doesn’t know and if he doesn’t know what is going on, and you don’t know what you are talking about. . . you are much less of a person. Your contribution is even less of a contribution. But if you do know, you are able to speak. When nobody can say you are wrong — that’s the only power that interests me.

• That gives the profession the aura that it has.

Yeah, I think so. I think in America they are getting better and better people. I really think that. As we were talking before, Watergate had brought lot of good people together (in journalism).

• This is a time when there seems to be a revolving door between journalism and government policies.

It’s not true any more. It happens …

• Like Strobe Talbott. . .

The man who is the press secretary now, forgot his name. . . that’s one. But doesn’t happen very much.

• And you don’t approve of them?

I don’t like it. I did it myself when I was just starring as a journalist. I wanted to be a foreign correspondent. I thought that was glamorous. To stroll with your trench coat around and walk all over the streets of Europe. But I couldn’t get a job there. The Washington Post did not have any overseas correspondent there. So I found this job with the state department as the spokesman. And they made me lie. Then I looked for a job in the press. And it took a while, but I found Newsweek, and I stayed with Newsweek. . . then I went back to The Washington Post.

• New Delhi has always been an important dateline with the Post. But somehow that hasn’t brought you to India. It’s your first real visit at the age of 85, a very robust 85.

I don’t know what that means? It doesn’t mean that I don’t travel. It doesn’t mean that I don’t go to interesting places. I’ve been to the Middle East.

• What do you have to say on India now? On India changing, India rising.

I mean it’s such an exciting place. And the idea that there are a billion people here in this country. We can’t cross those numbers.

• A billion argumentative Indians.

That’s tough. Against one argumentative American.

• Two hundred and sixty million or 270 million.

Three hundred now. You speak such good English.

• We say in our country we speak 16 dialects. Each part of the country speaks the language differently. If I could bring you a little bit of politics. In interviews after 9/11, you were asked how was America coping. You said that coping powers are gentle and you don’t think they (government) are taking it that fast. Then you said that the majority of the people want some action. They want some response to 9/11.

Yeah.

• And then there was action, and the country is divided.

I don’t think they need a response. Right now President Bush is going down because there is this talk of threatening Iran. If he does that, I think he’s had it. He’s had it anyway.

• But you mean he might do that also.

There’s a lot of talk about that. But it’s all denied. There’s persistent talk. And I know a very high military officer who is after the job of commanding officer, chief of all the Army, Navy . . . and he was scared of what President Bush had in his mind.

• Has Bush surprised you?

I don’t know him very well.

• But just the way he performed?

I don’t think he is . . . I don’t want to say this . . . I don’t think he is a very interesting man,

I don’t think his is a very interesting government. Take the example of Carter, who was not very famous before he became president, or even take Clinton, who is such a student of government, who worked so hard . . . it was impressive how hard they worked. This government does not impress me.

• Who is your candidate for the presidential election?

I don’t care, I just would want to know who it is. Do you know who it is?

• You have the vote.

Well I want to know who it is. That will help me. But I don’t have to know. I am no longer an editor.

• But you think America is going to have a change?

Oh, it’s going to change. Yes, it will.

• The country is so divided now.

The country is very divided. Majority against Bush. A big majority against one who was reelected two years ago.

• You knew many presidents personally. Would you rank George Bush Jr somewhere there?

Down low.

• But I think presidents need a little help from above to leverage interesting time and make the right decision.

Kennedy was my friend. I really liked him. I think he was a wonderful example of what an American can do. I think he was a great president in accomplishment. There was promise, there was hope. Even Nixon wasn’t bad. He was bad in foreign affairs.

• Back to Watergate. I cannot let you go without asking you this one question: What do you tell a young college kid now who you want to become a journalist?

Why should he go (and become a journalist)? Because it’s interesting. It puts you on the pulse. In America or wherever you are. You learn about the very important centres of power, how decisions are made and what decisions are made. I talk to a lot of young kids and I tell them, ‘Go out of the state you live in. Don’t get a job near your mother or father. Go away for a while. And don’t stay too long. Find a guy in the paper who will really take you seriously, will help teach you, who will make you work hard. Will make you revise a story.’ I was made to rewrite my first big story 16 times.

• You know what I will recommend to them? A compulsory reading of your autobiography.

That will be nice. It will sell some copies.

• I hope they are all watching, they will read the book.

So nice of you.

• It’s so wonderful to have you on Walk the Talk. Once again, it’s such pleasant feeling.

Thank you, thank you very much. I am honoured.