Certainly he saw his whole endeavor as useless unless he could project a future for The Post in the family. The next step in the battle for civil rights was on. . He never really meant it when he spent weeks vilifying the Times for bias, he told Katharine Q. When I opened the door to a downstairs bathroom, I found him. Both Phil and Felix worked on Joe throughout our dinner, suggesting that the most important first step for the 1950s was the right to vote. Some of my deepest friendships began with an administration person whom I got to know because of my association with the paper.. These days, the Post is usually thought of as the second-best paper in the country, after the Timesor, if not the second-best, then at least tied for that honor with the Wall Street Journal and, stretching some, the Los Angeles Times. with that of the increasingly powerful conservative media (the Journal editorial page, the Weekly Standard, The American Spectator, etc. Pei was talking, and Katharine said, I didnt know that., Whats surprising about that? Agnes said. . In early 1963, Phil's condition became public. Robin Harrison Webb. Joe persuaded Phil to accompany him to urge Kennedy to offer the vice-presidency to Johnson. In effect [Bill and Steve] lost both parents at once. As he was being taken out of George Washington, he loudly proclaimed who he was and that he was a prisoner. Katharine Graham revealed in her 1997 autobiography Personal History (which her biographer Deborah Davis reviewed for Washington City Paper) that she felt her husband received inadequate treatment at Chestnut Lodge, going so far as to say that his condition required electroshock therapy. Graham was gambling every sort of inheritance that was important to her: the paper, her fortune, and, perhaps most important, the judgment of the ghosts who crowded around her. After a short while, Phil got up, saying he wanted to lie down in a separate bedroom he sometimes used. While publisher of the Post, he grew so close to L.B.J. Nobody knew what to do. friends for the Aegean cruise. We had one small cushion, a $500 wedding present from an aunt, which I thought I would use for extras like theater and travel tickets. He began actively recruiting young people with potential, as well as more established reporters and editors. Week after week, the leading figures of the Nixon Administration lambasted Graham and the Post for the Watergate stories. Best Blood Sugar Supplements 2023: Top Blood Sugar Pills That Work, Best Ebony OnlyFans To Follow For Thick Ebony OnlyFans Videos (2023), Best Dating Sites For Older People: Mature Site To Find Love, Best CBD for Dog Anxiety: High-Quality oils to Calm Your Dog, Proudly powered by Newspack by Automattic. Moreover, Graham was acutely sensitive about the image of the Post as a liberal newspaper and, as a result, had chosen a law firm with close connections to the Republican Party; not surprisingly, Grahams lawyers urged her to delay publishing or not to publish at all. From the start, she was intent on keeping the paper within the family and eventually passing it on to her children. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. As the administration got rolling, Phil and I went to the first of several dinner dances at the Kennedy White House. At a meeting of the Religious Roundtable, Howard Phillips, the head of the Conservative Caucus, warned darkly, You cannot always have Kay Graham going to your cocktail parties and smiling at you. Privacy Policy Robin Webb. And I was incredulous -- this brilliant, charismatic, fascinating man loved me! Readers like you keep our work free for everyone to read. ~ Gambling. She pursued hard the company of the well known. But in the spring of 1971 the Supreme Court had not yet declared its strong support of press freedoms to the degree that it would in the Pentagon Papers case; moreover, the Post itself did not yet have the financial standing or the self-identity to go forward simply and with confidence. Shortly after this, my father seems to have brought up with both of us the possibility of Phil's working at the paper after the war. Graham was born to a Lutheran family in Terry, South Dakota. 243 replies 897 retweets 2,932 likes Robin Webb Retweeted He has an example to follow. Philip Pannell Collapsed at a Statehood Rally. I had no understanding of the terrible depression he had gone through or the polar-opposite mood that was dominating him at the time. Phil often involved The Post in righting wrongs, as he saw them. But although I was thoroughly fascinated and charmed by Phil, I was also slightly resentful, when I thought about it, at feeling such complete dependence on another person. Soon Phil began telling his friends that he was going to divorce his wife and marry Robin Webb. . The talent level in the newsroom began to shift, and so did the culture of the place. As a result, I had no one on whom to lean for advice. There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Despite Phil s constant self-flagellation about being the son-in-law of a rich and powerful clan, he did not shy from the advantages for long. I panicked. On Oct. 28, in the middle of the night, he broke. . I can see today that his activities had become increasingly frenetic, though still fairly constructively so, the most obvious example of which was his purchase of Newsweek, then a weak, marginally profitable newsmagazine for businessmen, far behind its rival, Time. I see nothing wrong with the fact that people in power often deal with others on more than one level, she writes. But that is the way Phil Graham wanted it. He refused to be used, particularly by my mother, or to be dominated by her. Phil Graham maintained Meyer's intimacy with power. Only a few minutes later, there was the ear-splitting noise of a gun going off indoors. He would help me proofread. This is, for me, the most painful thing to look back on. Facebook gives people the power to. Its hard to remake decisions and even harder to rethink nondecisions. Because of this, he never put a name to Phil's illness. It is hard to remember now just how far in front the Times was after the Second World War. James Reston, who was then a friend of the Grahams and was the most eminent figure at the Times, repeatedly declined offers to go to the Post. On Feb. 1, Phil came home briefly. We grew less able to keep up with what was happening in the world. Under Phil Graham, the Post had a well-respected editorial page and mediocrity nearly everywhere else; it was not even the best paper in the city. Hamill interspersed a faux-sprightly account of the party (And Truman was just marvelous!) with The helicopter landed in a scrubby open field six miles north of Bong Son. It wasnt subtle, but it hit home. Until now, Katharine Graham, considering her influence, has been almost invisible. Check out the latest pictures, photos and images of Phil Graham. My father had indeed given Phil the major part of the stock, and Phil had run the company well, but it was the millions invested in the paper by my father that enabled it to survive the years of losses. Only a few minutes later, there was the ear-splitting noise of a gun going off indoors. He was quite a success. Whoops! She really does seem to believe that Watergate was an aberration. Mrs. Grahams personal relations with the powerful and the once powerful became, if anything, even more visible after Watergate. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. He told me that he wanted to preserve our marriage and our family; he said that he loved Robin but would tell her the affair was over, and that he would stay with his family. I told her that this woman, this very important woman, was gravely ill and in need of immediate medical attention. In October 1962, Phil accepted an invitation from President Kennedy to serve as an incorporator of the Communications Satellite Corp., known as COMSAT, with the understanding that he would be elected to head it. This arrangement was never an issue. Latest news and commentary on Robin Webb including photos, videos, quotations, and a biography. Once married, we were confined to running houses, providing a smooth atmosphere, dealing with children, supporting our husbands. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. . I got it for her. And he wanted many things. To find it out and tell it." Sometimes Katharine glimpsed her parents as they were dressing to go out, or as Agnes was being massaged and manicured in preparation for the evenings entertainment. Post vice president James Truitt arranged with Kennedy to send Air Force 2 to retrieve Graham, who checked in for the first of two brief stays at Chestnut Lodge, then a leading psychiatric hospital in Rockville, Md., that has since burned down. The message was that Col. Robert McCormick {the newspaper baron who had purchased the Times-Herald five years before} wanted $8.5 million for the paper. Graham eventually met Australian journalist Robin Webb, and in 1962 they began an affair. Graham instructed Bradlee to recount what he had seen and heard, and after he had done so the publisher and the three officials worked out a deal: as long as all the city pools were shut down for the time being and would be integrated the following year, the paper would print nothing more of what had happened. When I opened the door to a downstairs bathroom, I found him. Charles Colson, for one, tried to dismiss the conspiracy as fictiona charge that, if true, would probably have ruined the paper forever. Under Philip Graham's management, the newspaper, thanks to its collaboration with the CIA, experienced an upswing and its empire expanded, including the purchase of the then-moribund Newsweek magazine [1] and other media properties. . I told him I had the feeling that he thought my point of view was different from Phils, but that in general Phil and I had agreed. Phil remained loyal to Johnson until he lost the bid for the nomination. Phil Graham's descent into the abyss of manic depression accelerated, and on 24 December 1962 she discovered that he was embroiled in an affair with a Newsweek stringer, Robin Webb. Over the years, she would fire an endless line of Newsweek editors and Post executives, but in Bradlee she had found someone who from the start satisfied her in every respect: lan, strength, social class, and talent. So much of his life flowed from the year as president of the Law Review. A few days later, I was assigned to show her and her close friend Meg Greenfield, the Posts editorial-page editor, around the city that was then known as Leningrad. I have now gone. At the end of the day, everyone except Phil Graham and me had engagements, so he asked if I wanted to have dinner. In 1965, Graham helped herself and the paper immeasurably by hiring Ben Bradlee, Newsweeks charismatic bureau chief in Washington and a friend of the Kennedys. He was a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Stanley Reed while waiting to clerk the following year for Felix Frankfurter, his mentor from Harvard Law School. It was not long before he began looking around town to buy a newspaper. Please reload the page and try again. On Christmas Eve in 1962, she discovered he was having an affair with Newsweek freelance journalist Robin Webb. She did not have to. Orval Faubus ordered the National Guard to bar nine Negro students from the previously all-white Central High School in Little Rock. In his first, brief tenure at The Post, Ben Bradlee was deeply distressed by the side of Phil that used the paper to achieve his political purposes, however worthy. He was intent, however, on making his mark in public life as well as on the stock exchange. On Aug. 3, 1963, former Washington Post publisher Philip Graham, having struggled with severe bouts of depression for at least five years, went into the bathroom of his family farm near Marshall, Va., and committed suicide with a 28-gauge shotgun. 12 Phil Graham pictures. The first nights entertainment was an easy choice: the Kirov Ballet. This time, he saw his departure as final. Darren has released eleven albums to date, plus she has been featured on various other albums and compilations. The deal took only about three weeks from beginning to end, during which time he slept very little and rode a high crest, working feverishly to get it done.