Bob Woodward

Bob Woodward was born on March 26, 1943, in Geneva, IllinoisIllinoisIllinois is a state of the United States that borders Lake Michigan and the states of Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Iowa; its capital is Springfield and its largest city is Chicago. It was admitted to the Union on December 3, 1818, as the 21st state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 12,812,508.Open the full entry, to Jane and Alfred Woodward. His father was a prominent jurist, and he grew up in Wheaton, a suburb of Chicago.⁠[1][2]

In 1961 he entered Yale UniversityYale UniversityYale University is a research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Its predecessor, the Collegiate School, received a charter in 1701. Trustees chose New Haven in 1716; the institution became Yale College in 1718 and Yale University in 1887. Yale provides undergraduate, graduate and professional education and has 14 undergraduate residential colleges. As of October 2026, its president was Maurie McInnis, who took office in July 2024. In 2026, Yale expanded aid for incoming undergraduates and celebrated its 325th anniversary.Open the full entry on a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) scholarship, studied history and English literature, and received a B.A. in 1965.⁠[1][2]

After graduating he served a five-year tour in the U.S. Navy as a communications officer and was discharged as a lieutenant in August 1970.⁠[1][2]

In 1970 he was admitted to Harvard Law School but did not pursue a law degree, applying instead to The Washington Post. Metropolitan editor Harry M. Rosenfeld gave him a two-week tryout, which he failed, and he then spent a year at the Montgomery Sentinel, a weekly in the Washington suburbs. In September 1971 The Washington Post hired him as a reporter, and he began on the police beat.⁠[2][1]

On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington. The next morning The Washington Post published a story on the arrests under the bylines of Alfred E. Lewis, Carl Bernstein and Woodward. Soon afterward Woodward and investigators of the Federal Bureau of Investigation identified E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy as coconspirators.⁠[3]

Throughout the 1972 campaign The Washington Post ran a steady series of Watergate stories based on leads from an anonymous source known as “Deep Throat.” On October 10, 1972, a front-page article by Woodward and Bernstein described the break-in as part of a “massive campaign of political spying and sabotage” connected with Richard NixonRichard NixonRichard Nixon (1913–1994) was an American politician who represented California in the U.S. House and Senate, served as vice president from 1953 to 1961 and was the 37th president of the United States from 1969 to 1974. His administration opened relations with China, signed strategic arms limitation agreements with the Soviet Union and ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War; he resigned over the Watergate scandal on August 9, 1974, the only U.S. president to do so.Open the full entry’s re-election effort.⁠[3]

On October 16, 1972, White House press secretary Ron Ziegler dismissed the paper’s reporting as “hearsay, innuendo, guilt by association”; on May 1, 1973, Ziegler publicly apologized to The Washington Post and to Woodward and Bernstein.⁠[1]

In 1973 The Washington Post received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its Watergate reporting, with the citation “For its investigation of the Watergate case.”⁠[4][1]

All the President’s Men, which he wrote with Bernstein, was published in 1974 and became a No. 1 national bestseller before Nixon resigned. Senate and House inquiries and the special prosecutor later supported their reporting, and more than 40 people went to jail, among them H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, John Mitchell, John Dean and Herbert Kalmbach. Richard Nixon resigned the presidency on August 9, 1974.⁠[1][5]

In 1976 the book was made into a film of the same name, with Robert Redford as Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein. The Final Days, their second book together, was published in April of that year.⁠[1][2][6]

In 1979 he was named an assistant managing editor of The Washington Post. That year The Brethren, written with Scott Armstrong and giving an inside account of decisions of the Supreme Court of the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry from 1969 to 1976, was published and reached No. 1 on national nonfiction lists.⁠[2][1]

The Washington Post won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for its coverage of the September 11, 2001, attacks and their aftermath, with Woodward as the lead reporter; six of the ten prize-winning stories carried his byline.⁠[1][2]

In 2003 the University of Texas at Austin announced the Woodward-Bernstein Watergate Archive at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, holding the two reporters’ Watergate working materials from 1972 to 1976, including more than 250 notebooks of interview notes, memos between them and to Post editors, story drafts, interview transcripts and tape recordings; under the agreement, living sources who wished to remain anonymous would stay protected during their lifetimes.⁠[6]

In 2005 an article in Vanity Fair identified “Deep Throat” as W. Mark Felt, associate director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the Nixon administration. That year Woodward published The Secret Man about the source, with an afterword by Bernstein.⁠[7][1][8]

On October 15, 2024, Simon & Schuster published his book War. As of August 2024 he was an associate editor of The Washington Post, where he had worked for more than 50 years, and had written 22 bestselling books, 15 of which reached No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list.⁠[9]

In 2024 he received the Good Neighbor Award from the Harry S. TrumanHarry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman (1884–1972) was an American politician who served as a U.S. senator from Missouri and as vice president in 1945, succeeding Franklin D. Roosevelt on his death that year and serving as the 33rd president of the United States from 1945 to 1953, a period spanning the end of World War II and the early Cold War.Open the full entry Good Neighbor Award Foundation.⁠[10]

His other books include Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi (1984); Veil (1987), on William Casey’s years as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (1981–1987) and its covert operations; The Commanders (1991); The Man Who Would Be President (1992), with David S. Broder; The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House (1994); The Choice (1996); Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate (1999); and Maestro (2000), on Alan GreenspanAlan GreenspanAlan Greenspan (1926–2026) was an American economist who served as the 13th Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 1987 to 2006, after earlier serving as chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.Open the full entry and the Federal Reserve System.⁠[1]

On the George W. BushGeorge W. BushGeorge W. Bush (born 1946) is an American politician and Republican who worked in the energy business and was a part owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team before becoming the 46th governor of Texas in 1995 and serving as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009.Open the full entry administration he wrote Bush at War (2002), Plan of Attack (2004), State of Denial (2006) and The War Within (2008); his later books include Obama’s Wars (2010), The Price of Politics (2012), The Last of the President’s Men, about Alexander Butterfield, Fear: Trump in the White House (2018), Rage (2020) and Peril (2021), written with Robert Costa.⁠[2][1]

His other journalism honors include the Heywood Broun Award (1972), the George Polk Award (1972), the Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Reporting (1972 and 1986), the Sigma Delta Chi Award (1973), the William Allen White Medal (2000) and the Gerald R. FordGerald FordGerald Ford (1913–2006) was an American politician who represented Michigan in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1973 and became House minority leader in 1965. In 1973 he became the first vice president appointed under the 25th Amendment, and after Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 he served as the 38th president of the United States until 1977.Open the full entry Prize for Reporting on the Presidency (2002).⁠[1]

Bob Woodward: Official website: https://bobwoodward.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

X: Public account: https://x.com/realBobWoodward (opens in a new window).⁠[1]