WASHINGTON: Fifty years after the Watergate housebreaking that ended in the downfall of US president Richard Nixon, Washington Submit reporter Bob Woodward remains to be haunted by way of one query. “The unanswered query that pulses thru all of that is ‘Why?’ Woodward mentioned at an tournament at Submit headquarters together with his former reporting colleague Carl Bernstein.

Why did best participants of Nixon’s re-election committee arrange a break-in on the Democratic Nationwide Committee headquarters on the Watergate on June 17, 1972? Nixon had received the White Area in 1968, the 79-year-old Woodward famous, and was once cruising to what appeared like some other sure victory within the 1972 election. “He had the brass ring,” Woodward mentioned of Nixon, who resigned in 1974 quite than face impeachment over a cover-up of the housebreaking.

“And so what’s the psychology – which I feel we by no means cracked in reality – of anyone who’s attained their purpose and fails to invite the query… what do the folks want? For Nixon, it in reality didn’t arise,” he mentioned. Woodward and Bernstein praised the overdue Washington Submit writer Katharine Graham for the fortify she gave them whilst reporting the Watergate tale.

The 78-year-old Bernstein recounted a consult with to the paper sooner or later by way of any person bearing a subpoena to snatch his notes. Managing editor Ben Bradlee went to look Graham and got here again 5 mins later, he mentioned. “And he says, ‘Katharine says they’re now not your notes. They’re her notes. And if anyone’s going to visit prison, it’s her,’” Bernstein recalled. “To me, it’s one of the most ancient moments in American journalism historical past,” he mentioned.

Woodward mentioned the pair gained a notice from Graham after Nixon resigned caution them to stay their ft at the flooring. “It mentioned ‘Pricey Carl and Bob, now that Nixon has resigned, you probably did one of the tales, high-quality. ‘Don’t get started considering of your self too extremely,’” Woodward quoted the notice as announcing. “‘Let me come up with some recommendation and the recommendation is ‘Beware the demon pomposity.’”

‘Are you dumb?’

Woodward and Bernstein additionally recalled encounters with Mark Felt, the FBI deputy director whose identification because the supply famously codenamed “Deep Throat” was once printed a long time later. They mentioned Felt was once repeatedly pushing them to appear past the Watergate housebreaking to a extra wide-ranging conspiracy. “It was once roughly like ‘Don’t what you may have right here? This isn’t simply the Watergate housebreaking, it’s grimy methods,’” Woodward mentioned. “Mark Felt roughly laid it out and mentioned, ‘No, it is a a lot larger factor. Are you dumb?’”

Artifacts from the Watergate break-in and the newspaper’s protection have been on show all the way through the development on the Submit’s new glittering headquarters in downtown Washington. Clips have been proven from the 1976 film “The entire President’s Males” starring Robert Redford as Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein. The artifacts incorporated a door latch from the Watergate which have been coated by way of a work of tape by way of the burglars and was once noticed by way of an alert safety guard – a key step within the plot coming to mild. Woodward mentioned it have been bought at public sale by way of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the landlord of the Submit. “We’re looking for out how a lot Bezos paid,” he mentioned. – AFP