Katharine the Great: Katharine Graham and Her Washington Post Empire by Deborah Davis

Author:Deborah Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Graymalkin Media
Published: 2017-10-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Katharine’s Wars

KATHARINE WAS to become a very different newspaper publisher than Phil had been. Acutely aware of her less engaging personality, her less dazzling intellect, she cultivated a management style that was the opposite of his: logical rather than intuitive, methodical rather than sporadic and inspired, technical rather than general, and more rigid, more politically naive, more principled. In this manner she would guide the Post through the most turbulent dozen years in recent American history—supporting the Vietnam war; neither liking nor understanding the radical sixties; weeping when Lyndon Johnson refused to run for reelection; hating and fearing Richard Nixon and publishing stories that brought about his downfall; in the process creating herself. Because of Watergate, Katharine Graham is known as a “great” publisher who has mastered the contradiction between corporate interests and public service.

The shock of widowhood was diminished by her husband’s long illness, which had allowed her to prepare for life without him, but she still felt as all widows feel: numb, lonely, and confused. When the numbness faded, there was sadness, pain, anger, and guilt; she had the paper only because her husband was dead.

Psychiatrists say that a widow grieves for as long as two years, during which time she sees few people, remains inactive, and thinks about the futility of life. This mourning period is a necessary and healthy part of the recovery process; by allowing herself to experience the enormous pain of a loved one’s death, the widow learns to accept death and becomes able to love again. Katharine has never gotten over Phil. She escaped some of the feelings of the mourning period by frantic activity, dedicating herself to the Post and to her children; now every summer, near the anniversary of his death, she becomes depressed. She still has tears in her eyes when she talks about him; and although men like her, she has remained uninvolved, as if she were still married to him. “When Phil died,” she once said, “I had to choose between another husband or running the newspaper and remaining a monk.” Before leaving to meet her mother on the Aegean Sea, Katharine buried Phil in Oak Hill Cemetery, a small, wooded graveyard directly across the street from their, now her, Georgetown home. He was placed just inside the gate, near the fence, at a site she can see from her bedroom window. It is marked only with a two-foot-high rectangular stone of gray granite, engraved simply:

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