They said details of Woodward’s account, such as the positioning of Casey’s hospital bed, did not even remotely match Woodward’s description. “People close to Casey at the time said he couldn’t even speak, much less jerk his head up. Woodward and Bernstein had always denied it-in 1974, and as recently as 2011,” Himmelman wrote. “But, according to the memo, it didn’t appear to be true: Z was no mystic she was a grand juror in disguise, and had apparently broken the law by talking.

For four decades, that story endured, as it was replayed in interviews and reread in library copies of All The President’s Men, and as Woodward and Bernstein and Bradlee became a holy trinity of newspaper journalism,” Himmelman wrote in a New York Magazine excerpt.

“For four decades, Carl and Bob have insisted that the grand jurors they contacted had given them no information. Himmelman’s book also revealed that Woodward and Bernstein misled the public for decades about another Watergate source, known as source “Z.” Himmelman wrote that Woodward, fearful of the truth coming out, tried to pressure him into removing the damaging information from the book. One meeting in the garage? Fifty meetings in the garage? I don’t know how many meetings in the garage … There’s a residual fear in my soul that that isn’t quite straight.” “Did that potted incident ever happen? … and meeting in some garage. “You know I have a little problem with Deep Throat,” Bradlee said to an assistant in a 1990 interview that he originally intended to use for a memoir but which remained private until Himmelman published his book. Details like Woodward communicating with Deep Throat by placing a flag in a potted plant on his balcony, or their dozens of shadowy garage meetings. Bradlee and Woodward’s former assistant at the Post, Jeff Himmelman, revealed Bradlee’s nagging doubts in a 2012 biography of the longtime editor.īradlee gave Himmelman full access to his files, which revealed that details about Woodward’s relationship with infamous Watergate source “Deep Throat” gnawed at Bradlee years later.

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