Writing For Publication - Svab - All The President’s Men - FACT SHEET^[1]

This 1976 award-winning film tells the true story of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, two Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story.

Background Facts To Know

• Richard M. Nixon (R) was a Dwight Eisenhower’s Vice-President from 1952-1960. He lost a very close election to John F. Kennedy (D) in 1960. Their debate was the first-ever televised presidential debate.
• Nixon generally disliked the Kennedys. He was from a poor background in California, and he saw them as East Coast, Ivy League elitists who, he thought, looked down on him.
• US Sen. Ted Kennedy, brother of JFK and Robert Kennedy, was responsible for the death of a young woman in a car accident in Chappaquiddick, Martha’s Vinyard, MA in 1969.
• 1968 was a tumultuous year in American history. The background of this included:

• The Vietnam War saw hundreds of US soldiers dying monthly.
• The military draft was in full swing.
• Anti-war protests were building.
• Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed in April.
• Riots and protests broke out all over the country after Dr. King’s death.
• Democratic Party presidential nominee Robert F. Kennedy (brother of JFK and his former Attorney General) was killed in June. Many political pundits think if he had not been assassinated, he would have defeated Nixon in the 1968 election.
• The Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August saw massive anti-war protests, rioting, and arrests.
• Yet Nixon, a Republican seen as out-of-touch by the younger generation, won the election that fall. Nixon used the phrase “silent majority” to describe his supporters: average people who weren’t “hippies” or “communists” who wanted peace and law and order and weren’t “anti-war” or “anti-American.”

• “CREEP”^[2] was the “Committee to Re-Elect the President,” which ran Nixon’s 1972 campaign operations.

Timeline:

• Nov. 1968: Nixon wins presidential election (beating Hubert Humphrey, US Senator from Minn).
• June 1972: Watergate break-in. Woodward and Bernstein start their reporting.
• Summer 1972: 1972 Presidential campaigns, during which Nixon’s team sabotage Democratic candidates using “dirty tricks” and “rat-f*****g”
• Nov. 1972: Nixon is re-elected (beating George McGovern, US Sen. from S. Dakota).
• Jan. 1973: Watergate burglars plead guilty.
• May 1973: Senate Watergate Committee begins televised hearings.
• May 1974: Impeachment hearings begin in the House of Reps.
• Aug. 9, 1974: Nixon resigns.

Names to Know

• Bob Woodward — Post reporter played by Robert Redford
• Carl Bernstein — Post reporter played by Dustin Hoffman
• Ben Bradlee — executive editor of the Post (played by Jason Robards in the film, and played by Tom Hanks in the 2017 film The Post)
• Katharine “Kitty” Graham — publisher/owner of The Washington Post (never appears in this film, but is played by Meryl Streep in The Post)
• John Mitchell — former U.S. attorney general; Nixon’s 1972 campaign manager (we only ever hear his voice in this film)
• Hugh Sloan—treasurer for CREEP
• Ron Ziegler—Nixon’s press secretary
• Dwight Chapin — Nixon’s appointments secretary
• Charles Colson — former presidential special counsel
• John Dean — White House counsel
• “Deep Throat”^[3] — undisclosed source. W. Mark Felt, deputy FBI director in the 1970’s, disclosed in 2005 that he was “Deep Throat.” He met Woodward regularly in parking garages in DC, and he’s played by Hal Holbrook in the film.
• John Erlichman — Nixon’s chief domestic adviser
• H.R. “Bob” Haldeman — White House chief of staff
• E. Howard Hunt — a former White House consultant, indicted after break-in
• G. Gordon Liddy — member of CREEP’s finance committee
• James McCord — a security consultant for (CREEP); former CIA agent. One of the five Watergate burglars. Driver and bodyguard for John Mitchell’s daughter.
• Donald Segretti — a paid “political prankster” for Nixon
• Eugene Muskie—US Senator from Maine & Democratic candidate for 1972 presidential nomination; he was discredited by a fake “Canuck Letter” scheme orchestrated by Segretti, in which a fake letter was published in a NH newspaper claiming that Muskie was prejudiced against Americans of French-Canadian descent in New England.

Questions to consider as you watch the film:

• This is taking place before the internet. What strategies are they using to get information? How do they do research?
• Watch closely as they conduct phone calls and interviews. What can the way an interviewer reacts to a question tell you?
• What are the challenges of using anonymous sources in stories like these?
• Do you think Woodward and Bernstein cross any ethical lines in this depiction? Are they lying to their sources?

The real Carl Bernstein (left) and Bob Woodward (right) in 1972.