Katharine Graham: The Woman Who Took Down a President [Outliers]

0:00 Catherine Graham was hosting a farewell party in her Georgetown home when she got a phone call that would change history. While the capital's elite filled her living room, her editors waited on the line with an impossible question. Should they publish the Pentagon Papers and risk destroying the company? Frightened and tense, she took a big gulp and said, Go ahead. Let's publish.

0:21 And she hung up the phone. І на момент за матві вона. In American media, and one of the most powerful women ever. Welcome to the Knowledge Project. I'm your host, Shane Parish.

0:38 In a world where knowledge is power, this podcast is your toolkit for mastering the best for what other people have already figured out. Catherine Graham documented her remarkable life and journey in a Pulitzer Prize winning memoir called Personal History, which is the main source of the material today. She wrote it with an unflinching honesty because she wanted everyone to understand that courage isn't the absence of fear, it's doing what's right despite being terrified. The image of me is this this tough sort of decisive Combative.

1:14 And I just like to say that I hate fights. And I am very courageous only when forced into a corner. And all of the

1:29 Battles we got in. were ones in which you Right. Very little choice. Or no choice.

1:36 There's no corporate spin. It's just a raw blueprint for turning self doubt into unshakable resolve. Catherine Graham or Kay as her friends called her, is one of the most powerful women in history. She published the Pentagon Papers, exposed the Watergate scandal, faced the full force of the US government coming after her, brought down a president and weathered a strike that would have crippled any other company. Oh, and if that wasn't enough, Thanks to an unlikely friendship with Warren Buffett, she ended up with one of the best track records by shareholder return in business history.

2:12 It's time. To listen? And learn. Imagine a little girl so isolated by wealth that she doesn't know clothes need to be washed until she goes away to college. At home servants take them away dirty and return them clean.

2:29 She grows up thinking this is how the world works. This is Catherine Mayer in nineteen twenty one at the age of four, the daughter of one of America's most powerful financiers. She was known to her friends as Kay. Her father, Eugene Mayer, Had already conquered Wall Street.

2:46 JP Morgan himself warned colleagues, watch out for this fellow mayor, because if you don't, he'll end up having all the money on Wall Street. By the time Catherine was born in nineteen seventeen, Eugene was already making millions and thriving in a career that would later earn him the top job at the Federal Reserve. But here's the side of privilege most people don't see. It can create the exact opposite of confidence. The mayor household operated like an institution, not a family.

3:13 A forty room mansion in Washington, a sprawling estate in Mount Kisko. The children followed rigid schedules, French lessons, music, writing, dancing, but emotional connection. That was too expensive. Catherine's mother, Agnes, was brilliant and overwhelming, a pioneering journalist who collected friendships with Einstein and Thomas Mann, like others, collected stamps.

3:38 Yet she viewed her children in Catherine's brutal assessment as burdens. Her father remained very shy and remote, capable of wit, but not intimacy. The result? Catherine felt like the peasant walking around the brilliant people. She had every material advantage, but no confidence in her own voice. At least not yet.

3:58 Well, there's a subset of people who have belief before ability. There's also a subset of people with no belief and a lot of ability. People who have never had to prove themselves or overcome obstacles struggle with self doubt. When crisis comes, and it always does, the people who have learned to overcome obstacles often outperform those who never faced any. In nineteen thirty three, an event occurred that would change everything. The Washington Post was dying. It was Washington's fifth best newspaper in a five newspaper town.

4:28 Its owner had inherited it and ignored it for fifteen years. By nineteen thirty three, as Eugene Mayer put it, the post was mentally morally physically and in every other way bankrupt. The circulation at the time was fifty thousand. It had mounting debt.

4:45 In the heart of the Great Depression, it went to auction. Eugene Mayor bought it anonymously for eight hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. Here's the beautiful part though, he didn't tell his daughter. Catherine was studying for college when she and her newspaper owning friends spent afternoons speculating about the mystery buyer. That summer, sitting on the porch, her mother casually mentioned When you take over the post, the

5:09 What are you talking about? Catherine asked. Oh, darling, didn't anyone tell you Dad bought the post? Eugene's vision was grand. The first mission of a newspaper is to tell the truth as nearly as the truth may be ascertained. Beautiful words, profound even, but expensive ones. They would come to test. Everything.

5:30 Two years in the post was still hemorrhaging money. It was still dead last in a five paper town. One successful publisher delivered the verdict. No morning paper, especially the post, will ever amount to anything in Washington. Eugene's response. The capital of this great nation deserves a good paper. I believe in the American people. When an idea is right, nothing can stop it.

5:55 The post became a family obsession. Eugene visited the newsroom nightly. Agnes sent weekly memos about delivery problems. Catherine, away at college, read every issue and mailed critiques home. When Eugene Mayer purchased a struggling newspaper during the Great Depression, no one thought he had a chance. In fact Nearly everyone thought he was crazy. But if you believe something is important and you're prepared to lose everything, you can ignore the skeptics.

6:23 After graduating from the University of Chicago in nineteen thirty eight, Catherine worked as a reporter for the San Francisco News, earning twenty-one dollars a week. After one day on the job, Kay went to her father's hotel room in tears. I can't do this. I'm not worth the twenty one dollars a week. Eugene Mayer's response was perfect. Nobody is worth it at first, but you will be. She stayed.

6:48 Within a month she was having the time of her life covering major labor disputes, learning to write fast under pressure, while constantly worried about being scooped. Two months in the strike forced papers to cut cause. Her father called her boss to make it easier for him to let her go. Instead, he wanted to keep her permanently, and

7:07 She's doing fine work, he said, and Eugene Mayor. How to write to be proud. Most importantly She discovered something that had been missing from her entire childhood. She can do the work.

7:20 But her father needed her back at the post. Her father said it directly. If it doesn't work, we'll get rid of her. So she went to work at the Washington Post, proofreading and assembling letters to the editor, making friends with all the junior employees. Most days weren't glamorous. Though on September first, nineteen thirty nine, she found herself at FDR's press conference. On the exact day that Germany invaded Poland, the And in nineteen forty, at a party, she met a brilliant Harvard lawyer named Philip Graham.

7:51 That would change everything. Confidence isn't inherited, it's earned through doing the work. It's earned in the grind, it's earned in the dark hours that nobody sees. Catherine's father gave her something more valuable than money or connections, the permission to be terrible at first. Well, her father might not be have lacked the emotional connection. I love that he told her, No one's worth it when they start, but you will be. Just keep putting your head down and grinding away and you will get there. He wasn't being kind, he was giving her room to grow. Philip Graham came

8:24 From the opposite end of privilege, born in nineteen fifteen in the dirt pour Florida Everglades, he arrived at Harvard Law School. In what a classmate described as a badly cut country suit looking as though he had straw hanging out of his rather large ears. But Phil had something money can't buy. He was magnetic. The kind of person who walked in a room and everyone turned to watch. Brilliant, witty, with what Catherine called that right mix of intellectual, physical, and social charm.

8:54 He was the president of the Harvard Law Review, clerk to a Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. People who met him came away thinking the exact same thing. This man would one day be president of the United States. Catherine was smitten. They fell in love fast. On their second date, he suggested marriage. I agreed that it sounded quite a good idea, but perhaps a bit rah, she recalled. On the inside, she was incredulous. This brilliant golden boy wanted her the tall

9:24 awkward girl who spent her childhood trying please everyone. Her father approved after one dinner. The engagement was on. But there was a moment that should have been a warning. They went dancing before the wedding, and Phil drank way too much.

9:39 He wasn't just drunk, he became something darker, something unpredictable. The evening worried me a lot, Catherine later wrote. A friend asked her if She had seen him like that before and Catherine responded no. And he warned her in that moment, Well, you better think about it right now. But when Phil sobered up, the charm returned as if his switch had been flipped. That was that. For the time being.

10:03 Catherine Mayer was about to become Catherine Graham, but the brilliant charismatic man she was marrying carried demons she couldn't yet see but could already feel. In her bones. They married in June nineteen forty. Catherine was twenty three, determined to be the perfect wife. The division of labor at the time was clear. Phil would lead She would follow.

10:26 That was the deal. That's how it was then. The first year was a shock. Phil insisted that they live on their combined salaries. His thirty six hundred dollars as a Supreme Court clerk and her fifteen hundred dollars at the post.

10:41 For someone raised with servants walking blocks to save ten cents on laundry felt like a form of poverty. And then Pearl Harbor changed everything. Phil tried to enlist but was rejected. Married men with poor eyesight weren't wanted yet. By July nineteen forty two, standards had loosened. He shipped out of the Pacific, leaving Catherine to follow him between training posts, living in boarding houses and cheap hotels. Two pregnancies ended in heartbreak. The third nearly did too. When doctors said it looked hopeless, she ignored their orders to stay in bed. Somehow the pregnancy held. Their daughter, Lally, was born on july third, nineteen forty three.

11:19 Phil shipped out to work in intelligence in the Philippines. Catherine moved back to Washington. This is where something interesting happened, though. She didn't see it that way. With Phil overseas, she managed everything. The household, the baby, her job, the post circulation department, where she learned how terrible a confused and poorly managed apartment is for those who work in it. Her son Donald was born in April nineteen forty five. She did it all essentially as a single parent, balancing work, life, running the post, and family obligations. But in the letters to Phil she deprecated her ability. She worrantly about competency. She saw herself as barely managing and barely getting by until he could return to take charge.

12:01 When the war ended, Philip came home to Eugene Mayer's offer. Would he become the associate publisher of the post? Would he learn the business and eventually take over? Catherine's response at the time revealed everything. She wrote in her memoir, far from troubling me personally, that my father thought of my husband and not me, it pleased me, and In fact, it never crossed my mind that he might have viewed me as someone to take on an important role with the paper. The woman who had just managed a household, a job, and two children through a war couldn't imagine running a newspaper. She was still blind to her own competence, but

12:37 But that would change. The post-war years created a dangerous pattern. Phil Graham was building one of America's great newspapers while slowly destroying himself. They settled into a grand house on R Street with four children and clear roles. Bill conquered the business world. Catherine managed everything else, including her job. Boom, the children, the staff, the social calendar. I became, she wrote, the drudge. And what's more, accepted my role as kind of a second class citizen.

13:07 But Phil was electric at the post. At thirty he became the youngest publisher of a major American newspaper and He immersed himself in his work, and he was very competent. Eugene Mayer had left to head the world bank and Phil attacked every aspect of the business. He recruited talent, negotiated with unions, and personally supervised newsroom renovations. His memos were stunning in their detail of outline of problems, potential, and objectives.

13:35 He looked and analyzed at everything from the use of space to the tiniest expense. The paper began taking stands. A crusade against local crime led to a four year battle with the police chief. They championed the Marshall Plan with front page features. The newspaper guild praised them in these days when playing it safe and treading softly is so general, the record of the Washington Post in nineteen forty seven is truly extraordinary. In nineteen forty eight, two things happened that changed their prospects. Phil acquired W Top, a fifty thousand watt radio station marking their entry into the broadcasting industry. And that same year, Eugene Meyer transferred ownership to Phil and Catherine.

14:18 The arrangement was telling Phil received thirty five hundred shares, while Catherine received fifteen hundred shares. Eugene's explanation typical of the times no man should be in the position of working for his wife. Catherine's response I not only concurred, but was in complete accord with this idea, but But it went even deeper. To help Phil pay for his shares because he didn't have the money, she volunteered to pay for all of their living expenses from her trust fund.

14:49 The houses, the cars, the schools, the entertainment, everything except Bill's personal expenses was carried by her. No problem, she thought. This arrangement was never an issue. It didn't bother either one of us. I never thought about it, and we never talked about it. Only fifteen years later, when things were very bad, did I look at the situation ruefully. Meanwhile, the warning signs were starting to accumulate. Bill's drinking increased. Their no fighting rule meant problems fastered. The more successful Phil became, the more he needed Catherine to hold everything together behind the scenes.

15:25 Phil Graham was transforming the post while his personal life deteriorated. And everyone focused on the success story instead of the warning signs. From the outside it seemed like the perfect relationship from the inside. It was getting darker and darker. The nineteen fifties brought Philgram's greatest triumphs and biggest warning signs. He was running the post at full speed

15:48 Then came the deal that made everything possible. In nineteen fifty four, a cryptic letter arrived about a business matter of importance. The Times Herald. might finally be for sale. Phil wrote down the payment, two million dollars on a crumpled personal check from his wallet, and then called the treasurer to cover it somehow. He didn't have the money.

16:09 Overnight the post circulations doubled from two hundred thousand to four hundred thousand. They jumped from third to first in the morning market in a single day. But success came with a prize. The more Phil achieved at work, the more demanding he became at home. Catherine provided it completely deferring to his judgment on everything, but When guests came for dinner she'd stop talking if Phil gave her a certain look.

16:35 And something else was happening. Phil's energy wasn't just intense, it was manic and eighteen hour days, a dozen initiatives, heavy drinking, and then crashes into what everyone called exhaustion. The first real crisis came in october nineteen fifty seven. Phil broke down in the middle of the night weeping uncontrollably saying Everything was black.

16:56 The diagnosis that nobody used the term for years was manic depressive illness. For the next several years, Catherine's life became a careful dance between Phil's soaring highs and crushing lows. During depression she couldn't leave him alone. I was on duty a great deal of time and If I had any strength, much of it came from surviving these exhausting months.

17:19 The outside world saw none of this. To Washington society, the Kennedy administration, Phil remained the brilliant publisher of the renowned Washington Post. When his mood was up he was magnificent. But the cycles worsened. In nineteen sixty two, Phil began an affair with Robin Webb, a young employee at Newsweek. Catherine discovered the affair on Christmas Eve. Her world built entirely around Phil shattered.

17:46 He left her for his mistress, but he kept control of the post. After all, Eugene Mayer had given him the majority voting shares. Consider Catherine's position here. She's forty five. She's devoted her full adult life to supporting Phil and raising their family with no career of her own. And now she faced losing not just her husband, but the newspaper that her father had saved. And then Two friends changed everything. Justice Frankfurter pulled her aside and said, Kay, you've got to fight for this paper. It does not belong to Phil Graham. Your father created this paper. There is not room in Washington for two Cram families. Then came the walk that changed her life. She told her friend Lovey.

18:28 About how she would try to hang on and fight for the paper until the kids were old enough to run it. And her friend's response, Don't be silly, dear, you can do it. Me? That's impossible. I couldn't possibly do it. You don't know how hard and complicated it is. Of course you can do it. And Lovey's voice grew firm. You've got all those genes. It's ridiculous to think you can't do it. You've just been pushed down so far you don't recognize.

18:55 What you can do. Sometimes the best gift that you can give someone is believing in them. Believing in someone else when they don't quite believe in themselves. In June nineteen sixty three, Phil's latest Manic episode crashed into depression. He broke with Robin, begged Catherine to take him home, and entered the Chestnut Lodge Psychiatric Hospital. For the first time in months there was a glimmer of hope.

19:20 On august third, Phil convinced the doctors to let him spend the weekend at the Virginia farm. After lunch he said he was going to lie down. Minutes later, Catherine heard a gunshot. Phil Graham was dead at forty eight. The funeral filled the National Cathedral. President Kennedy sat alone, sunlight from stained glass windows illuminating him as if he were the one being mourned.

19:45 In fact, nearly three months later, Kennedy himself would be dead. The day before the funeral, Catherine did something that would have seemed impossible months earlier. She went to a board meeting, her daughter Lally, still in her nightgown, jumped in the car scribbling notes about what her mother should say. Standing before the all male board, Kathryn delivered a simple message. The paper would not be sold. It would remain in the family. A new generation was coming along.

20:13 What she didn't say. Was that she herself would lead the company for the next Three decades. She didn't say that she would publish the Pentagon Papers and bring down a president. That she would become the first woman CEO.

20:27 of a Fortune five hundred company. That this stock performance during her tenure would be one of the best in history. That she would become a force. It would change the course of history. No, on that day, in August of nineteen sixty three, she was simply a widow trying to hold things together moving forward as she would write blindly and mindlessly. into a new and unknown life.

20:51 The apprenticeship was over. Catherine Graham's real education was about to begin. Phil's suicide didn't just end his life, it began hers. The woman who thought she was holding the company together temporarily. Is about to transform it permanently. Do you ever struggle to stay focused?

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22:23 Her voice comes out. As a whisper, the men around the table have to lean in to hear her. This was Catherine Graham, one month after Phil's death, walking into a building as publisher of an a major American newspaper. In nineteen sixty three, there were zero female CEOs in the Fortune five hundred companies. To put things in perspective,

22:43 Harvard Business School had just started accepting women that very year. The idea was incomprehensible, even to Katherine herself. She'd absorbed her generation's assumptions that women were intellectually inferior to men, that they were not capable of governing, leading, and Managing other anything other than our homes and our children. She had modest ambitions, she had planned to hold things together until her son Don could take over. She saw herself as a placeholder, not a publisher.

23:11 But something interesting happened when she started showing up for work. She began at the ground level, answering phones in circulation, sitting on classified odd cells, attending meetings where she was too terrified to speak. She didn't know how to read a balance sheet. Terms like liquidity made her eyes glaze over. I stumbled around the post building talking to people, not realizing that I shouldn't always start with the first person I encountered. The learning curve was brutal.

23:37 When she gave a farewell dinner for the post longtime telephone operator, a woman she'd known since she was a teenager, the business chief exploded. Didn't she see that this set a precedent? She disagreed, but was reduced to tears in front of him, an unacceptable response, she later wrote. But she kept showing up and slowly. Something shifted. It crystallized when she attended IBM's executive computer course as the only woman among ten male CEOs.

24:06 When they gathered in dormitory rooms to share contraband alcohol, she stood among them, drinking from paper cups. By the week's end, she learned something crucial. These confident men were just as overwhelmed by the new technology as she was. You were sort of formed by what you are engaged in, she would later explain. And so gradually you get some confidence. And with that, it means that you're not going to be something else, but it means you can forget yourself and become engaged in what you are doing. When Scotty Reston asked her, Don't you want to leave

24:36 A better paper for the next generation than the one you inherited. The question stunned her. She'd assumed the post was fine as is, but This may not seem like a startling question, she said, but it was to me. After that conversation, she started to see the problems. She wrote, How could I tell? I certainly didn't have a sophisticated judgment about the quality of our news product, but I was observing a great deal of indecision among the executives, followed by some odd decisions, especially about people. I sensed a certain Lack of adrenaline and through the grapevine.

25:10 I had heard talk of stagnation in the city room. All of these were clear warning signs. She realized good enough wasn't good enough anymore. Sometimes the most important questions are the simplest ones. Catherine had been so focused on just surviving and not messing up that she'd never asked whether the post was

25:31 Actually excellent. Ben Bradley had twice turned down promotions at Newsweek rather than move to New York. He was committed to Washington, and now he was sitting across from Catherine Graham and she was asking him what he would like to do. His answer was typical Bradley. I'd give my left one to be managing editor of the post. Catherine was stunned. This wasn't the answer she expected. She barely knew Bradley personally and still associated him with Phil's troubled final years, but something about his directness intrigued her. His energy, his absolute confidence that the post could

26:06 be more than just good. His confidence that it could be great. The decision wasn't easy. When she floated the idea to the post top editors, they reacted negatively, suggesting he should come in as a reporter like anyone else and work his way up. But Catherine had made up her mind. In july nineteen sixty five, she announced that Ben Bradley would join the post as deputy managing editor. The newsroom was shocked.

26:32 An outsider from Newsweek was leapfrogging over longtime post people. Bradley arrived like a force of nature. He hit the ground running, working Into the night and on Saturdays. Within months, he had learned more about the post operations than some people knew after years. Under Bradley, the post experienced a surge in energy. He hired talent, he created new beats, he expanded coverage, and he demanded the paper take. Risks.

27:01 The editorial budget rose two point two five million in just three years. Catherine established what she called the no surprise rule. She wouldn't dictate coverage or second guess decisions, but never wanted to be surprised by what she read each morning. This created accountability without micromanagement. The partnership worked because it was built on mutual respect and earned through crisis, not corporate hierarchy. Ben would take over as managing editor within months.

27:30 Sometimes the best hire is the one that makes everyone else uncomfortable. Catherine chose talent over internal politics and an outsider's perspective over insider loyalty. When building a team, the person who challenges your thinking is often more valuable than the one who confirms it. Warren Buffett had bought five percent of her company without telling her. He sent a letter to her, Dear Miss Graham. I just bought five percent of your company and I mean you no harm.

27:56 I think it's a great company and I know it's Gram owned and Gram run and that's fine with me. H Bort panicked and told her to do the same. Instead of listening to them, she went to see what he was all about for herself. sensing her anxiety to offer to stop buying if it worried her.

28:12 Catherine saw an opportunity after she got to know Warren better, she invited Buffett to join the Washington Post board. People thought he was manipulating me, actually. I was just asking for advice because I realized how brilliant he was. What followed was the most intensive business education any CEO has ever received. Buffett literally took her to business school. He would arrive at board meetings carrying twenty annual reports, walking her through each one line by line. She took notes like a schoolgirl at the feet of a great professor who

28:45 Buffett didn't just teach her history, he demystified business entirely. He explained that while others collected antique cars, he collected antique financial statements. He taught her to take snapshots of businesses at different points in time and analyze what factors produce change. Warren, she said, is a great teacher and his lessons took. The mentorship went far beyond formal meetings. Warren sent constant memos, guidance on major decisions and alerts about problems. For someone who'd spent years feeling inadequate about business knowledge, having one of the world's greatest investors as her personal tutor was transformative.

29:23 But the relationship worked both ways. Catherine helped Buffett with things money couldn't buy, social situations, connections, clothing choices, even tried to help him with basic nutrition. Before meeting her, his diet consisted largely of hamburger, steaks, seas candy, and cherry coke. She introduced him to dinner parties, taught him social graces, and helped him navigate the social scene in Washington. He never did give up the hamburgers.

29:49 They became genuine friends who talked for hours about everything from politics to philosophy. As Warren once told her, you handled me at the dinner table like I handled you at the accounting books. Those ten point six million dollars in shares that Buffett bought would eventually be worth well over a billion dollars. But the real value wasn't measured in dollars. It was transforming an uncertain widow into one of America's shrewdest business leaders. The best opportunities are sometimes disguised as problems. After Buffett bought five percent of her company and

30:23 Everyone on the board was whispering that she should panic. Of course, they all had their own motivations for those, and none of them were what was best for the post. Catherine didn't panic, she met with Buffett to gauge his intentions. By choosing curiosity over fear, she ultimately received the best business education in history. Okay, picture this. Catherine Graham is hosting a dinner party in Georgetown. The capital's elite are in her living room toasting a departing colleague, and she's playing the perfect hostess when someone taps her on the shoulder. You're wanted on the phone.

31:00 Three miles away, American democracy is hanging by a thread. The Nixon administration had just done something unprecedented in US history. They've silenced the press. The New York Times had started revealing the Pentagon paper, seven thousand pages proving the government had lied about Vietnam for decades. The administration got a court injunction.

31:22 And the times went silent. Now the Washington Post had the same documents and they faced a choice that would define history. Ben Bradley is caught between two wars in one room, lawyers are in full panic mode. The legal team is saying this is suicide. The post will face criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act. People will go to jail. This will be the end of the paper.

31:49 The end of the company. In another room, the editors are threatening to resign unless they are published. At stake? Only everything. The post had just gone public two days earlier. They desperately needed the IPO for expansion. Everything could be lost if they were to publish.

32:06 But there's something larger at stake, the death of the free press, the role of press in a democracy. Never before had The US government stopped a newspaper from publishing. If the post doesn't act, that precedent becomes permanent. The first amendment becomes meaningless. Ben is running between rooms, updating each side, watching the deadline approach. Someone has to decide.

32:30 Right now. The phone rings in Catherine's library she steps away from her guests and closes the door. Benning it's on the line. Okay. I need to know.

32:40 What do we do? Think about her position. Eight years ago she could barely whisper in a board meeting and now she's being asked to risk her entire company on the On a principle. A federal court had silenced the Times. The first time in American history, the government had successfully stopped a newspaper from publishing. If the post didn't challenge this, the president would stand. The first amendment would be meaningless.

33:06 In that moment, Catherine thought of her father's words. The first mission of a newspaper is to tell the truth. As nearly as the truth may be ascertained. The deadline was approaching Ben needed an answer. Frightened and tense, I took a big gulp and said, Go ahead, Go ahead.

33:23 Let's go. Let's publish. And I really th was convinced by the editors and the reporters that they were right. And that we really had to go ahead. And so I really gulped and I really was not

33:39 What your heroic leader is, I just said oh go ahead She hung up immediately, too terrified by what she'd done to say another word. Then she walked back to her party. Smiled at her guests, made small talk. All well knowing she might have just risked everything her family had built.

33:59 The next morning the post published The government sued within hours, but they refused to stop publication. Two weeks later, the Supreme Court ruled six three, the government cannot engage in prior restraint of the press. The woman who eight years earlier could barely whisper in meetings had just told the president of the United States No.

34:22 When everything you built is on the line you discover what you stand for and Catherine didn't feel brave making this decision. She felt terrified. But the most important decisions in leadership aren't about strategy or tactic. They're about principles and character. And character is revealed. When the stakes are the highest.

34:40 This wasn't the last time she'd make one of the most consequential decisions in history. On june seventeenth, nineteen seventy two, five men in surgical gloves carrying burglary tools and sophisticated Electronic surveillance equipment were caught inside the Democratic National Committee headquarters. At the Watergate complex. The White House dismissed it as

35:03 A third rate burglary. What began as a bizarre police story evolved into one of the greatest political scandals in American history. And for nine months, nine long months, the Washington Post stood alone. against the most powerful office in the world. The break in itself was bizarre. Something felt off. Why would anyone need electronic surveillance equipment to rob the Democratic Party? As Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein investigated, they discovered something far more sinister.

35:34 A web of political espionage and dirty tricks leading directly to the White House. Nixon won reelection in November in a landslide, forty nine states, sixty percent of the vote. He should have been celebrating. Instead, he was plotting his revenge. On election night. The White House tapes capture Nixon's chilling words.

35:58 We're gonna fix the son of a bitch, believe me, we've got to. The son of a bitch he's referring to? Was the Washington Post. The plan was to destroy it. Between december twenty ninth, nineteen seventy two, and january second, nineteen seventy three, during the holidays when nobody was paying attention. Nixon's allies struck with surgical precision. Four separate challenges were filed against the post Florida.

36:22 Television licenses. This wasn't a coincidence, і вас war. The television licenses were the profit center. They funded the paper. The post company stock plummeted from thirty-eight dollars to twenty-one, representing a catastrophic forty-five percent decline. For a company that was barely public, this represented a crisis. The television stations were the company's most profitable assets.

36:47 Losing them would kill the company. But the financial pressure was just the beginning. For nine months from June nineteen seventy two to March of nineteen seventy three, the post stood virtually alone in In the pursuit of the Watergate scandal. Other major newspapers ignored the story or actively undermined it. When CBS planned a two part investigation, threats from the White House to the network president William Paley resulted in the second segment being significantly curtailed.

37:17 Fellow editors warned Ben Bradley that the post had gone nuts. The Chicago Tribune and Philadelphia Inquire refused to publish the post-revelations, but they eagerly printed the White House denials. Nixon's strategy was working. It was to isolate the post and make it look like a Vandetta by one liberal newspaper against the president. No one would pay attention as long as it was just the post, or so he thought. But the attacks turn personal and vicious.

37:46 on September twenty ninth, nineteen seventy two, at eleven thirty PM, former attorney general John Mitchell delivered his infamous threat to Carl Bernstein Katie Graham's gonna get her tit caught in a big fat ringer if that's published. The crudeness was deliberate. The use of Katie, a name nobody called her, added insult. This was about humiliating a woman who dared. Challenge presidential power.

38:13 Mitchell's threat was just the beginning. Nixon ordered the IRS to go after his enemies, including her and the post. The White House compiled lists targeting post journalists. The reporters' lives were in danger. Catherine found herself socially isolated in Washington, even close friends told her the post was out on a limb. They were standing all by themselves. Well, Catherine took the institutional pressure. Two relatively unknown reporters were methodically building an unshakeable case.

38:44 Woodward and Bernstein work with legendary persistence, four hundred stories over thirty-three months. Often until two AM, repeatedly interviewing sources until the truth emerged. Ben Bradley's two sources rule meant that every significant fact required independent confirmation. Multiple editors reviewed each story. When prosecutors demanded notes and files, Catherine personally took possession of them, making herself a Not her reporters, the target.

39:14 If anybody would go to jail, it would be her. The methodology was exhausting, but unbreakable. Each thread pulled persistently unraveled more and more of the conspiracy. Through it all, Catherine felt in her memorable phrase as if she were pregnant with a rock. The pressure was unlike anything in American journalism history. A sitting president of the United States was using every tool of the government at his disposal to

39:41 to destroy her and her company. Board members worried about financial ruin. Business colleagues warned the coverage could destroy the post the Legal costs mounted into millions. Stock analysts downgraded the company, advertisers grew nervous. But Catherine had learned something crucial from the Pentagon papers.

40:02 The only way to assert the right to publish is to publish. She told her newsroom she would go to jail before surrendering their notes. The post isolation finally ended in March nineteen seventy three when convicted burglar James McCord sent his explosive letter to the judge. There was political pressure applied to the defendants to plead guilty and remain silent. Perjury occurred during the trial. When the judge read the letter in open court on March twenty third, everything changed. The Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and television networks around the country suddenly discovered Watergate.

40:36 The Senate voted seventy seven to zero to investigate. Largely due to the post. By May seventeenth, when televised hearings began, Watergate had become a national obsession. Every major revelation confirmed what the post had been reporting in isolation for nearly a year. On August eighth, nineteen seventy four, Richard Nixon became the first American president to resign from office.

41:03 The post won a Pulitzer for public service. Its circulation nearly doubled, but more importantly, it had proved that in America, even presidents are not above the law. The journalism plays a fundamental role in checking power. Something I Personally wish it would remember. During it all, Catherine didn't feel brave. She was terrified. She believed in a free press. She believed in the First Amendment. She believed in the role of the press, and she stood on principle and rest everything.

41:33 A few years later, Catherine Graham stared at the picket line outside of her building. Union workers were using her husband's suicide as a weapon against her. It's October first, nineteen seventy five. The pressman at the post didn't just go on strike. They went to war. They systematically destroyed equipment, set fires in the press room, beat a foreman unconscious when he tried to keep the presses running.

41:56 Then they walked out, expecting Catherine to cave within days. They clear weren't paying attention. They didn't know her very well. Catherine had been secretly preparing for months. She had trained non-union employees to run the presses. She'd arranged for helicopters to distribute papers when Picketers blocked trucks. She lined up printing facilities to keep publishing. The strike lasted 139 days. The personal attacks were brutal. They burned her in effigy. They carried signs that said Phil shot the wrong graham, but

42:30 Death threats arrived regularly, the uncertainties, the difficulties, the violence were all overwhelming, she later admitted. I felt desperate and s secretly wondered if I might have blown the whole thing and lost the paper. But outwardly she projected steel. Catherine didn't hide in her office. She worked alongside replacement workers, taking classified ads, bundling papers in the mailroom, cleaning trash in the press room. Employees who had never spoken to the publisher suddenly found her next to them, sleeves rolled up, asking how she could assist. It created loyalty that lasted

43:04 generations. The strike ended with complete victory. The pressmen's union ceased to exist at the post. New technology was installed without interference. Production staffing was reduced from over one thousand to just a few hundred, resulting in a dramatic improvement in efficiency. Labor historians criticized for union busting. However, the numbers don't lie. The changes save millions of dollars annually and position the company for continued growth. Well, the public saw the tough negotiator behind the scenes, Catherine was quietly becoming one of America's shrewdest investors. Under Buffett's guidance, she authorized stock buybacks when the shares were undervalued, maintained a conservative balance sheet with virtually no debt, made selective acquisitions that transformed the company. The most Perseian move came in nineteen eighty four when managers proposed buying Copland, a test preparation company for forty million dollars.

44:00 Within two decades, Kaplan's revenues would surpass those the newspapers and become the company's largest profit center. That casual forty million dollar investment became worth billions. When Catherine Graham took over in nineteen sixty three, the Washington Post Company had revenues of eighty four million. By nineteen ninety one, when she stepped down as CEO, revenues reached one point four billion, a twenty fold increase that beat the market by orders of magnitude. But numbers don't capture the full story of her true impact. She turned a struggling local newspaper into one of the world's great media companies. She published the Pentagon papers when it could have destroyed her business. She stood virtually alone for nine months investigating Watergate, while the president Of the United States tried to crush her and her company. She broke a violent union strike and worked alongside replacement workers in the press room.

44:53 And through it all, she never compromised the newsroom's independence. Well, Catherine's role as the first female Fortune five hundred CEO is undeniable. Focusing only on gender diminishes her broader legacy. She was simply one of the twentieth century's great business leaders, period. Her approach to capital allocation was masterful. She understood what many CEOs often overlook. that excellence and profitability aren't opposing forces but complimentary ones.

45:23 As she put it, journalistic excellence and profitability go hand in hand. She proved it through decades of strong returns, while never compromising her father's mission. Her diversification strategy showed Remarkable foresight. Unlike media conglomerates that diversified randomly

45:41 She stayed focused on related fields, broadcasting, magazines, and education. By the time she retired, the post company wasn't just a newspaper, but a balanced portfolio that could weather any storm. Her crisis leadership has become legendary in business schools. The Pentagon Papers and Watergate are taught as case studies and Ethical leadership under extreme pressure. They've been made into movies starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. But equally instructive was her handling of smaller crises in nineteen eighty one when a post reporter's Pulitzer Prize winning story turned out to be fake.

46:13 Graham didn't cover up or deflect. The post returned the pull it's a published a front page apology and investigated the circumstances surrounding the incident. Swift accountability preserved the paper's credibility. Perhaps most importantly, she built something that survived her. The principle she embedded

46:33 Editorial independents, financial discipline, long term thinking, public service. became part of the post DNA. When she told employees to love what you do and feel that it matters, how could anything be more fun? She was describing the culture she created. Purpose wasn't separate from profit. It was the foundation of profit. Think about her journey. The shy widow who whispered in her first board meeting became a titan who stared down the president. The woman who thought she was just holding the company together until her son could take over, built one of the most successful media empires in history.

47:10 She demonstrated that principal leadership isn't only morally right, but also practically effective. In an age of short term thinking and compromise, that may be her most Enduring. Lesson. Well, she died in two thousand and one tributes came from across the political spectrum. Warren Buffett captured her essence best. The paper, really the company, has always been the most important thing in her whole life.

47:34 This was not a step in the long dance of life. It was the whole show. The total commitment to excellence and truth made her not just a successful publisher, but one of the great American business leaders of any era. As she once said, looking back on those pressure filled decades, what I essentially did was put one foot in front of the other, shut my eyes. and step off the edge. Wow, uh I just wanna have a couple of reflections and then get into the lessons learned here. So

48:05 Catherine was such about us. She had this quiet power and and magnetism that sort of drew you into her. She faced three of the hardest decisions that happened in the 1900s, the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, the Presman Strike. how she dealt with the story that turned out to be fabricated. This was trial by fire. And this woman was there. She met every challenge. And how did she do that? I think her quote was best, right? What I essentially did was put one foot in front of the other, shut my eyes and step off the edge. And I I think that that is That is how we all are. She didn't have the confidence to get where she wanted to go, but she had the confidence to put one foot in front of the other. She had next step confidence. One of the things that strikes me when I was researching this is I got a bit nostalgic about the role of newspapers in society and the role of free press and

48:57 Catherine, there's this quote, it didn't make it into the episode, but she said the press should be the critic of the government and it's very important that they do that with a lot of responsibility. And I think that's been lost today in today's world, in a world where Media outlets receive a lot of funding from government through tax breaks, subsidies, rebates, laws, advertising, and subscriptions. They stop being what they've always sort of been, the main opposition. Politicians used to fear the press, and now to a large part they bought it and use it as a tool. And I'm really hopeful and optimistic that we can find our way back to the Washington Post of the nineteen seventies and holding government to account no matter who is in charge. This isn't a political party thing. This is about the role of a free and independent press in a democracy.

49:47 And yes, we have X and we have Substock and we have all these independent citizen journalisms. There's still a fundamental role to be played by legacy media. If they choose to take it. Okay, I wanna talk about some of the lessons here,'cause I I think there's a lot that we can take away from this that is different from other people that we've studied so far in in Outliers. So number one, the Velvet Hammer. Catherine never raised her voice.

50:12 She didn't pound tables, she didn't try to outmasculine the men, she stayed soft smoked, while becoming as hard as steel. The Nixon administration learned this too late. The quiet ones hit the hardest. Competence whispers. It doesn't shout. to values beat analysis The Pentagon Papers arrived during Catherine's Georgetown dinner party. The Washington Post had just gone public two days earlier. Everything was at stake. Publishing classified documents meant likely criminal charges, which meant losing the television licenses and

50:45 And destroying Not only the IPO that they had just had, but destroying the whole company. I mean, everybody would be out of work. It it meant that she might go to jail. Her lawyers said it was financial suicide. Her editor said Not publishing was journalistic suicide. And she remembered her father's principle. Newspapers exist to tell the truth. Let's publish, she said.

51:08 And then hung up. Three, don't care what they think. Nine months into Watergate, the post it alone. They were the only major paper digging. Everyone thought they were wrong. The Chicago Tribune and other major media outlets openly mock them. The administration went after the post, causing the stock to crash forty five percent. The president of the United States targeted their TV license. She was ostracized in Washington. Everyone thought they were crazy. The post lawyers

51:36 Begg them to stop. But Catherine kept going because she thought she was right. The rest is history. Four bounce don't break. The pressmen destroyed equipment.

51:46 beat a foreman unconscious and walked out. They expected Catherine to fold and After all, what choice did she have if she wanted to print papers, but Catherine had been preparing for months, training replacements and arranging backup presses, when picketers blocked trucks, she hired helicopters. When they marched outside, she worked the mailroom floor. It lasted one hundred and thirty nine days before she won. Five, find a teacher. Warren Buffett bought percent of her company without asking. The board panicked. Catherine ignored them. She met Buffett herself, saw his genius, and made him

52:20 Her professor. He'd bring twenty annual reports to meetings, teaching her line by line. She was humble enough to know she didn't have all the answers, and smart enough to know. Who to listen to? Six. Freedom with transparency.

52:33 Ben Bradley got total editorial freedom. The only rule was no surprises. He could fight presidents, he could spend millions and pursue any story that was in the public interest. And she never questioned his judgment. He never blindsided her. The result was the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, eighteen Pulitzers. Maximum freedom requires maximum transparency. Seven. Step off the edge. This is one of my favorite quotes. She said. What I essentially did was to put one foot in front of the other, shut my eyes, and step off the edge.

53:05 That's how Catherine described taking over the post. There was no grand strategy. There was no ninety day plan. There was just the next step. Eight years later she was staring down presidents. You'll never feel qualified for what matters. Step anyway. Eight.

53:20 Decades over quarters. Wall Street wanted quarterly earnings and exciting acquisitions. Catherine wanted to create a company that would last generations. She went against all of their wishes, buying back stock when it was cheap, and it was very uncommon to do so back then, and acquiring a boring education company, Kaplan, which would eventually generate more revenue than the newspaper. She was a public company, but operated it like it was a private one. Nine. Keep the main thing the main thing. Catherine faced constant pressure to choose profits or principals, safety or stories, shareholders or journalism.

53:53 The Pentagon Papers could have killed the IPO. Watergate bled millions in legal fees and threatened their television licenses. The pressman strike threatened the entire operations. Every crisis offered an excuse to compromise, but she never took it. The post mission to hold power to account stayed the main thing. She proved what others deny. When you keep the main thing, the main thing. Everything else follows. Principles aren't an expense, they're your compass. Ten, keep your word. When Nixon came after the post with the full force of the executive branch challenging TV licenses, crashing their stock and threatening prison, Catherine never wavered. She told her reporters to keep digging and she meant it. When the prosecutors arrived with a subpoena and demanded their notes, she took them home herself. If anyone went to jail, it would be her.

54:43 Not them. For nine months while other papers stayed silent and friends begged her to stop. She kept her word. The president of the United States couldn't make her break. Most leaders fold under pressure. She knew something they didn't. Your word is all you have. Once broken It's worthless forever. Thanks for listening and learning with us. Be sure to sign up for my free weekly newsletter at fs.blog slash newsletter. The Farnum Street website is also where you can get more info on our membership program.

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