community.". By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. Sometimes you dont really decide, you just move forward, and that is what I didmoved forward blindly and mindlessly into a new and unknown life. So, although he remained fairly liberal on domestic issues, he was not so on foreign policy. The Formative Years. Early the next day, Phil and Larry in Paris both wrote letters to Stanton. . He does not live in Georgetown. . 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. 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. They were both from the South. I had no understanding of the terrible depression he had gone through or the polar-opposite mood that was dominating him at the time. Instead, it appeared on Page B7. After the war, Phil Graham was even more national security conscious than before. He replied, Oh, yes, very. In the late nineteen-fifties, Phil Grahams health and behavior also presented increasingly difficult problemsproblems that might have been solved with medication, if he had not refused it. But those who worked in the Posts newsroom knew one infinitely reassuring fact about Mrs. Graham: that at the most important moments of her professional life she did the right thing. Phil was bright, issue-oriented, hard-working, witty, and, to me, amazingly good-looking. 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. Sure, we can go, I ventured, but the second act has some really great animals. I began to describe Misha the Bear, who wore skates on his hind paws and played ice hockey. You cant go. And by now helping you I believe and I pray I shall help you. Later, she developed an infatuation with the work of Thomas Mann and seems to have made endless demands on the authors time and patience. When she travelled to Paris, she quite naturally took up with Brancusi and Rodin and Stein and Satie; she took fencing lessons with Mme. 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. But hurry, she said. Around the table in Phil's office sat Secretary of the Interior Julius "Cap" Krug, Undersecretary Oscar Chapman, President Truman's special adviser Clark Clifford, and two or three others. In later years, he wanted to mold the career of his friend Senator Lyndon Johnson. Latest news and commentary on Robin Webb including photos, videos, quotations, and a biography. So does her imperious carriage. The Formative Years. Why are Vladimir Putins opponents dying? with that of the increasingly powerful conservative media (the Journal editorial page, the Weekly Standard, The American Spectator, etc. By 1968, reporting and editorials on Vietnam by Ward Just and a few others helped change the atmosphere of reverence on the pages of the Post, and that change had its effect on the thinking of the publisherso strong an effect that when the Times, thanks to Neil Sheehan and his source, Daniel Ellsberg, began printing the Pentagon Papers, on June 13, 1971, Bradlee felt wounded, and, with Grahams encouragement, pushed his staff to find its own copy of the documents. After a hurricane struck in 1926, the sugar company gave up and his father developed a dairy business on some of the land. . He remained seriously depressed but seemed to me to be quite noticeably better, even after only a week or so at Chestnut Lodge. Mrs. Grahams personal relations with the powerful and the once powerful became, if anything, even more visible after Watergate. That Christmas Eve afternoon, the world I had known and loved ended for me. 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. Phil's activities in regard to Little Rock were the first sign for me that something was wrong with him, that his powerful talents could be used in such an idealistic but confusing and irrational way. . With Webb, he traveled to a publishing convention in Phoenix and caused a stir when, taking the microphone in a manic state, he started talking about the alleged affairs of John F. Kennedy, with whom he had been closely associated for some time. He wept and wept and couldn't stop. In the summer of 1963, Phil seemed to be getting betterhe was undergoing treatment at a psychiatric center in Marylandand there was even hope of resuming a normal life at home. Around this time, my father decided to pass the paper on to Phil and me. It was very much in Felix's nature, and he was dealing with two men -- Phil and Joe -- to whom he was as close as though they were his sons. I never should have gone, she said. There was, of course, no way to press the point. She had to learn to be a publisher and, what was more, to be a far better publisher than her husband had been. He wanted Estes Kefauver to head an anticrime commission and told him so, repeatedly, until Kefauver did it. On the appointed day, I put on my good blue suit, fired up the office Volvo, and proudly drove the hairdresser to Mrs. Grahams suite at the National Hotel. Dr. Phil and Wife Robin Live in a Sprawling Mansion! It is not usually advisable, or possible, to argue with a Soviet bus, but my priorities were clear. The whole idea of buying Newsweek and adding yet another huge responsibility to his already too-full plate made me nervous. At once he became my father's close collaborator. 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. "We have worked out this solution: we'll live in the sort of house, have the sort of furniture, eat the sort of food, go to the sort of places, that young people making salaries like mine can afford.". Her gesture in retrospect seems to me undignified, considering the awful slamming we were taking from him, she writes. 1952) Mistress: Robin Webb (Newsweek journalist, 1962) High School: Miami High School, Miami, FL D.C. This was a typical example of the way Phil used power to accomplish something good. In speeches, Dole had accused her paper of waging an ideological vendetta against the President. Mrs. Graham looked quite handsome, I thought. Even now I cant sort out my feelings about this; its hard to separate what was a function of Phils terrible affliction, which manifested itself only later, and what was more basic. Graham heard him. Following the lead of my successful colleague the Latin-American correspondent, I tried to schedule every minute of the two days allotted me. I was earning about $1,500 a year. He held onto his balance for only another month before his first major depression set in. Graham supported Eisenhower in 1952 and, in the service of that support, censored the work of his greatest star, the cartoonist Herblock, in the last two weeks of the campaign. Early in 1940, I was invited by a friend to Sunday lunch with a group at the Ritz Carlton. that he wrote speeches for him and advised him on civil rights and key appointments; he even had power of attorney for Johnson and went out and found him a house to buy. Not only had I lost my husband but I was about to lose The Post. The Times was immediately in trouble with the White House and the courts. In effect [Bill and Steve] lost both parents at once. He knew everyone in the building, always taking on the problems of people who worked for him -- worrying over someone's sick child, unmet mortgage payment, health crisis. . Gradually, I became the drudge and, whats more, accepted my role as a kind of second-class citizen. Advertise with Us, Sponsored Posts from our Partners Phil's invitations often came in the form of commands, and this was one. Work Here Robin Lee Graham is seen on his boat "Dove" during his solo trip around the world in the late 1960s. Born: 18-Jul-1915 Birthplace: Terry, SD Died: 3-Aug-1963 Location of death: Marshall, VA Cause of death: Suicide . . See Photos. We now had the morning field in Washington to ourselves. By this time, Robin had returned to Paris. Join Facebook to connect with Robin Graham and others you may know. See Photos Inside His Beverly Hills Home. 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. Phil often involved The Post in righting wrongs, as he saw them. It was incredibly exciting. He felt he owned it because he had worked for 17 years to make it a success, so from his point of view the paper was his. She'd been told that Harvard was the best, so her dying wish was that he go there. the tiny fringe of arrogant litists who infect the healthy mainstream of American journalism with their own peculiar view of the world. The fact is, though, that two days after making that statement Colson talked to Howard Hunt about the need to supply more financial help to the defendants in the Watergate trial. There is plenty of material in Personal History to satisfy the most obvious expectationsall the familiar episodes of the Posts history are replayed, and famous faces bob into sight as if in a capital version of Grand Hotelbut more interesting is the degree to which this memoir is a description of the muggy intimacy of the world of Washington and the way one powerful woman learned to live her life there. In a group we remained largely silent, unable to participate in conversations and discussions. Probably the greatest debate the paper must face, both in the newsroom and as a story, is the divide between black and white. Phil firmly stated his intention to divorce me and marry Robin. Mr. Son: Stephen Meyer Graham (b. It similarly (if with less success) pursued Iran-Contra and Bill Clintons ethical droppings. It was plain white crpe with slate-colored beads around the neck and the sleeves. Only 15 years later, when things were very bad, did I look at the situation ruefully. They met earlier that year. Here was someone who combined for me the two parts of my life that I thought were inescapably separate. This arrangement was never an issue. Everything except Phil's personal expenses was carried by me from the modest trust started for each of the Meyer children by my father. I bolted out of the room and ran around in a frenzy looking for him. I rang her up and explained the situation. Philip Leslie "Phil" Graham (July 18, 1915 - August 3, 1963) was an American newspaper publisher. As a way to solidify this code, Ochs developed the idea of a paper of record.. In an otherwise blissful spring of journalistic overload, a time when the merest cough in the Kremlin merited front-page attention, it came about that the Post and its sister publication, Newsweek, were being awarded a plum: an interview with the General Secretary of the Communist Party. It was he who instilled in Phil a distrust, fear, and horror of any drugs, not to mention shock therapy, claiming that these treatments reduced people to something less than human -- something tranquilized and fishlike. He was the publisher (from 1946 until his death) and co-owner (from 1948) of The Washington Post. Coronavirus, Carry-out Critic Performance/Dance An exception is David Halberstams 1979 book, The Powers That Be, which provides a vivid group portrait of the men and women behind the Post, CBS, Time, and the Los Angeles Times. If we should ever meet again, I would like to tell you some of my thoughts on what I have come to recognize as a kind of editorial blackmail, in which persons say that if you reject a work. Museums/Galleries For whatever reason, I liked to be dominated and to be the implementer. The legends of correspondents and their varying abilities to cope with a royal visit were countless. I had begun writing so-called light editorials and laying out parts of the editorial page. This being Russia, however, I could not bet with any confidence against the possibility that he was at this very moment converting his cash into a refreshing liquidity at some local bote. Certainly he saw his whole endeavor as useless unless he could project a future for The Post in the family. They both loved power and its use for what they thought of as desirable purposes. Some of my deepest friendships began with an administration person whom I got to know because of my association with the paper.. Born Katharine Meyer on June 16, 1917, in New York City; died on July 17, 2001, in Idaho; daughter of Eugene Meyer (owner of . Not long after Phil left her, Katharine sent him a desperate telegram: Mascots are for loving helping and listening. On July 5, Johnson held a press conference at which he announced his candidacy. "Y'all are doingreallocal D.C. Simple Pleasures. In the beginning, even Richard Nixon got the same treatment. 318 Robin Webb Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images CREATIVE Collections Project #ShowUs Creative Insights EDITORIAL VIDEO BBC Motion Gallery NBC News Archives MUSIC BLOG BROWSE PRICING ENTERPRISE VisualGPS INSIGHTS BOARDS CART SIGN IN Images Images Creative Editorial Video Creative Editorial FILTERS CREATIVE EDITORIAL VIDEO He had come into a job for which he was ill-prepared. I had to face facts -- Phil was really gone. In early 1963, Phil's condition became public. In 1963, he and Webb flew to Arizona; he appeared at a . This is a surprising piece of work on every level. Without Graham working as a go-between at the 1960 Democratic Convention, Kennedy might never have picked Johnson as his running mate. He was intent, however, on making his mark in public life as well as on the stock exchange. Before making speeches, she shook with terror; in the face of unsettling news, she had the unfortunate habit of breaking down in tears. On Jan. 1, 1946, he started his postwar work at the age of 30 as associate publisher of The Post. Katharine's husband Philip battled alcoholism and mental illness throughout the marriage. Dr. Phil McGraw and Robin McGraw during TNT's "Christmas in Washington 2004" - Show and Audience at National Building Museum in Washington, DC, D.C.,. In 1962, he began an affair with Australian journalist Robin Webb, for whom he would later threaten to divorce his wife Katharine Meyer Graham. Terms & Conditions Much of his activity was related to politics. Once married, we were confined to running houses, providing a smooth atmosphere, dealing with children, supporting our husbands. Phil was born in 1915 in Terry, S.D., and moved as a boy to the Everglades, where his father, Ernest Graham, was manager of a sugar cane plantation. But there was also a certain Africa-based correspondent who carved his own career coffin by arranging for a balloon safari over the Masai Mara at dawn; just as the sun was glinting off the savanna and the balloon was rising above a herd of grazing giraffes, Mrs. Graham is said to have turned to the correspondent and announced, with a profane burr, You know, I didnt travel all the way here to be a fucking tourist. It is said that the correspondent ended up as a recipe checker in the food section. The End. Grahamone always referred to her as Mrs. Graham, even in private and at great distancesdid not travel in the style of the British Raj, but she was not arriving on a Eurailpass, either.. I heard Phil and Robin talking to each other in words that made the situation plain. Johnson worked actively to cultivate the press, and Phil was always drawn to politics. Five months later, Phil Graham, once again in a trough of depression, ended the affair and came home.}. Her beginnings were at once privileged and starved. Perhaps if the turmoil had ended there he might have been able to rest and get his strength back. If one compares the approach of the liberal media (the Post, the Times, etc.) Phil then cut a deal. See Photos. Phil felt such urgency about co-opting Stanton that he decided to send a personal messenger to ensure that the letters reached Frank in New York. Ups and Downs. Only a few minutes later, there was the ear-splitting noise of a gun going off indoors. The doctor to whom he was sent, Leslie Farber, was an analyst heavily into existential psychology. Phil and my mother also got along well. Two years later, the Grahams took control of the Post Company stock. According to Otis, who told me all of this only much later, Phil was disheveled and spinning out ideas, some of which were unintelligible. I cant write in the eloquent words he used. I almost rather died!. Mumble Sauce, About Us Robin Webb. 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