All the President's Men | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Alan J. Pakula |
Screenplay by | William Goldman |
Based on | |
Produced by | Walter Coblenz |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Gordon Willis |
Edited by | Robert L. Wolfe |
Music by | David Shire |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release dates |
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Running time | 138 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $8.5 million |
Box office | $70.6 million [1] |
All the President's Men is a 1976 American biographical political thriller film about the Watergate scandal that brought down the presidency of Richard Nixon. Directed by Alan J. Pakula, with a screenplay by William Goldman, it is based on the 1974 non-fiction book of the same name by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the two journalists investigating the scandal for The Washington Post .
The film stars Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein, respectively. It was produced by Walter Coblenz for Redford's Wildwood Enterprises.
The film was nominated in multiple Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA categories; Jason Robards won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Ben Bradlee. In 2010, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". [2] [3]
On June 17, 1972, Frank Wills, security guard at the Watergate complex, finds a door's bolt taped over to prevent it from locking. He calls the police, who find and arrest five burglars in the Democratic National Committee headquarters within the complex. The next morning, The Washington Post assigns new reporter Bob Woodward to the local courthouse to cover the story, which is considered of minor importance.
Woodward learns that the five men—James W. McCord Jr. and four Cuban-Americans from Miami—possessed electronic bugging equipment, and are represented by a high-priced "country club" attorney. At the arraignment, McCord identifies himself in court as having recently left the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the others are also revealed to have CIA ties. Woodward connects the burglars to E. Howard Hunt, an employee of President Richard Nixon's White House counsel Charles Colson, and formerly of the CIA.
Carl Bernstein, another Post reporter, is assigned to cover the Watergate story with Woodward. The two young men are reluctant partners but work well together. Executive editor Benjamin Bradlee believes that their work lacks reliable sources and is not worthy of the Post's front page, but he encourages further investigation.
Woodward contacts a senior government official, an anonymous source he has used before and refers to as "Deep Throat". Communicating secretly, using a flag placed in a balcony flowerpot to signal meetings, they meet at night in an underground parking garage. Deep Throat speaks vaguely and with metaphors, avoiding substantial facts about the Watergate break-in, but promises to keep Woodward on the right path to the truth, advising Woodward to "follow the money".
Woodward and Bernstein connect the five burglars to corrupt activities involving campaign contributions to Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP or CREEP). This includes a check for $25,000 paid by Kenneth H. Dahlberg, who Miami authorities identified when investigating the Miami-based burglars. However, Bradlee and others at the Post still doubt the investigation and its dependence on sources such as Deep Throat, wondering why the Nixon administration should break the law when the president is almost certain to defeat his opponent, Democratic nominee George McGovern.
Through former CREEP treasurer Hugh W. Sloan Jr., Woodward and Bernstein connect a slush fund of hundreds of thousands of dollars to White House chief of staff H. R. Haldeman—"the second most important man in this country"—and to former attorney general John N. Mitchell, now head of CREEP. They learn that CREEP was financing a "ratfucking" campaign to sabotage Democratic presidential candidates a year before the Watergate burglary, when Nixon was lagging behind Edmund Muskie in the polls.
While Bradlee's demand for thoroughness compels the reporters to obtain other sources to confirm the Haldeman connection, the White House issues a non-denial denial of the Post's above-the-fold story. Bradlee continues to encourage investigation.
Woodward again meets secretly with Deep Throat and demands he be less evasive. Very reluctantly, Deep Throat reveals that Haldeman masterminded the Watergate break-in and cover-up. He also states the cover-up was not only intended to camouflage the CREEP involvement, but also to hide "covert operations" involving "the entire U.S. intelligence community", including the CIA and FBI. He warns Woodward and Bernstein that their lives, and those of others, are in danger. When the two relay this information to Bradlee and tell him of the depth of the conspiracy, Bradlee realizes that a constitutional crisis is coming, but tells them to move forward with the story.
On January 20, 1973, Bernstein and Woodward type the full story, while a television in the newsroom shows Nixon taking the oath of office for his second term as president. A montage of Watergate-related teletype headlines from the following years is shown, ending with the report of Nixon's resignation and the inauguration of Gerald Ford on August 9, 1974.
Unlike the book, the film covers only the first seven months of the Watergate scandal, from the time of the break-in to Nixon's second inauguration on January 20, 1973. [5] The film introduced the catchphrase "follow the money" in relation to the case, which did not appear in the book nor in any Watergate documentation. [6]
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Redford began asking about the Watergate break-in while promoting The Candidate , then read Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate stories in The Washington Post while waiting to start filming The Way We Were. Redford first spoke with Woodward in November 1972, after the reporters' well-publicized mistake about Hugh Sloan implicating Haldeman in his testimony to the Watergate grand jury. [7]
Redford bought the rights to Woodward and Bernstein's book in 1974 for $450,000, with the idea to adapt it into a film with a budget of $5 million. [8] Ben Bradlee, executive editor of The Washington Post, realized that the film was going to be produced regardless of his approval, and believed it made "more sense to try to influence it factually". [8] He hoped the film would show that newspapers "strive very hard for responsibility". [8]
Redford hired William Goldman to write the script in 1974. Goldman has said that Woodward was extremely helpful to him but that Bernstein was not. Goldman wrote that his crucial decision regarding the screenplay's structure was to discard the second half of the book. [9] After he delivered his first draft in August 1974, Warner Bros. agreed to finance the film.
Redford was not happy with Goldman's first draft. [8] Woodward and Bernstein read it and also did not like it. Redford asked for their suggestions, but Bernstein and his girlfriend, writer Nora Ephron, wrote their own draft. Redford showed this draft to Goldman, suggesting that it might contain some material he could integrate, but Goldman later called Redford's acceptance of the Bernstein-Ephron draft a "gutless betrayal". [10] Redford later expressed dissatisfaction with the Bernstein-Ephron draft, saying, "A lot of it was sophomoric and way off the beat." [8] According to Goldman, "In what they wrote, Bernstein was sure catnip to the ladies." [10] He also said that one of Bernstein and Ephron's scenes was included in the final film; a bit in which Bernstein deceives a secretary in an attempt to see someone, which was not factually true.
Alan J. Pakula was hired to direct and requested rewrites from Goldman. In a 2011 biography, Redford claimed that he and Pakula held all-day sessions working on the script.[ citation needed ] Pakula spent hours interviewing editors and reporters, taking notes of their comments.
In 2011, Richard Stayton wrote an article for Written By magazine [11] following his comparison of several drafts of the script, including the final production draft. He concluded that Redford's and Pakula's contributions were not significant, that Goldman was properly credited as the writer, and that the final draft had "William Goldman's distinct signature on each page". [12]
Redford first selected Al Pacino to play Bernstein, but later decided that Dustin Hoffman was a better fit for the role.
Jason Robards was always Redford's choice to play Ben Bradlee. However, Bradlee had recommended George C. Scott for the role, and he was somewhat unimpressed when Robards visited the Post offices to develop a feel for the newsroom. In advance of the shoot, Bradlee told Robards, "Just don't make me look like an asshole." At first, Pakula was worried that Robards could not carry Bradlee's easy elegance and command authority. Karl Malden, Hal Holbrook (who would ultimately play Deep Throat), John Forsythe, Leslie Nielsen, Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark, Christopher Plummer, Anthony Quinn, Gene Hackman, Burt Lancaster, Robert Stack, Robert Mitchum and Telly Savalas were also considered for the role. [13]
Character actor Martin Balsam played managing editor Howard Simons. According to Bradlee, Simons felt that his involvement with the real story was greatly diminished in the script.
Bradlee teased Post publisher Katharine Graham about who would play her in the film. "Names like Katharine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall and Patricia Neal were tossed out — by us — to make her feel good," Bradlee said. "And names like Edna May Oliver or Marie Dressler, if it felt like teasing time. And then her role was dropped from the final script, half to her relief." [14]
Redford and Hoffman divided top billing, with Redford billed above Hoffman in the posters and trailers, and Hoffman billed above Redford in the film itself (in precisely the same manner in which James Stewart and John Wayne had divided top billing for John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance in 1962).
Hoffman and Redford visited The Washington Post's offices for months, attending news conferences and conducting research for their roles. [8] Because the Post denied the production permission to shoot in its newsroom, set designers took measurements of the newspaper's offices and took many photographs. Boxes of trash were gathered and transported to sets recreating the newsroom on two soundstages in Hollywood's Burbank Studios at a cost of $200,000. The filmmakers went to great lengths for accuracy and authenticity, including making replicas of outdated phone books. [8] Nearly 200 desks were purchased for $500 each from the same firm that had sold desks to the Post in 1971. The desks were painted the same color as those of the newsroom. The production was supplied with a brick from the main lobby of the Post so that it could be duplicated in fiberglass for the set. Principal photography began May 12, 1975, in Washington, D.C. [8]
In the United States, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) initially gave the film an R rating for having multiple uses of the word "fuck" and its derivatives. However, Warner Bros. and Robert Redford disagreed with the R rating and succeeded in changing it to PG on appeal. [15] [16] MPAA president Jack Valenti said that the film would have received a G rating if there was no profanity. [17]
All the President's Men grossed $7,016,001 from 604 theaters in its first week, placing it atop the U.S. box office. [18] [19] It eventually grossed $70.6 million at the box office. [1]
The film has received near-universal acclaim from many film critics, both on its release and in the years immediately following it. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 94% rating based on 64 reviews, with an average rating of 9.10/10. The website's consensus reads: "A taut, solidly acted paean to the benefits of a free press and the dangers of unchecked power, made all the more effective by its origins in real-life events." [20] On Metacritic, which gives a weighted average score, the film has a score of 84 out of 100, based on reviews from 13 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". [21]
At the time of the film's release, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film 3½ stars out of 4, writing: "It provides the most observant study of working journalists we're ever likely to see in a feature film. And it succeeds brilliantly in suggesting the mixture of exhilaration, paranoia, self-doubt, and courage that permeated The Washington Post as its two young reporters went after a presidency." [22] Variety praised the "ingenious direction [...] and scripting" that overcame the difficult lack of drama that a story about reporters running down a story might otherwise have. [23] Gene Siskel gave the film four stars. In his Chicago Tribune review, he wrote, "Director Alan J. Pakula duplicates the surprise and suspense of his Klute while avoiding the overstatement and pandering paranoia of his more recent political thriller, The Parallax View . Pakula's greatest achievement is the way he unobtrusively weaves outside events into narrative of the reporters' story." [24] Siskel also named it the best film of 1976 on his year-end list.
Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "Newspapers and newspapermen have long been favorite subjects for movie makers—a surprising number of whom are former newspapermen, yet not until All The President’s Men, the riveting screen adaptation of the Watergate book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, has any film come remotely close to being an accurate picture of American journalism at its best." [25] Rex Reed wrote, "Just to think about Watergate (and there are those, I'm told, who prefer not to) is to chatter the brain with a million details, telephone conversations, notebook jottings, investigations and technical problems that could be very dull indeed on film. Awesomely, and with tremendous intelligence, Alan Pakula, the director, has assembled each element with the panache of a mystery novelist. The result is a movie that literally keeps the audience glued to the edge of the seat with nail-biting tension and excitement." [26] Kathleen Carroll of the New York Daily News gave the film a full four-star rating and wrote that it "offers a rousing argument for the preservation of freedom of the press that precious right that allows reporters like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to ferret out the truth." [27] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called it "quite beyond anything else, an engrossing mystery movie, with atmosphere, suspense, surprise, conflict, danger, secret messages, clandestine meetings, heroes, villains and a cast of leading and supporting characters that might have emerged from an unlikely collaboration of, let us say, Gore Vidal and Raymond Chandler." [28]
Desmond Ryan of The Philadelphia Inquirer called it "not only a stunningly accurate account of the way big-city newspapers operate, down to the last paper clip and derisive curse, but it is also a superlative movie by any standard. The acting from Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein is immaculate and understated, and it is matched right down to the last bit part. It is equalled by Alan Pakula's high-tension direction and William Goldman's tautly accurate screenplay." [29] Stanley Eichelbaum of the San Francisco Examiner wrote, "People should enjoy it, since it has the knockout force of an American Z , without the heavy doses of manipulative melodrama. It's eminently entertaining, providing much the same fascination and wry humor as The Front Page , a romantic treatment of the same aspects of competitive, relentlessly aggressive journalism. The film's brilliance largely emanates from the lean, astringent, compellingly realistic, quasi-documentary style brought to it by director Alan J. Pakula ( Klute , The Parallax View , etc.) and screenwriter William Goldman. Like the book, the film has the hypnotic impact of a detective thriller in its sharp, subtle retelling of the involved story of the Watergate break-in and Woodward and Bernstein's role in unraveling the cover-up." [30]
Susan Stark of the Detroit Free Press wrote, "The circuitous, sometimes perilous, nearly always frustrating adventure of the two newsmen who broke the conspiracy of silence about the Watergate scandals makes one terrific chunk of material for a movie, Wisely, Robert Redford, who acquired screen right to the book even before it was published, stuck to his gum, leaning hard on the dramatic, as opposed to the political elements in the material. The hard dramatic approach of the film, envisioned by Redford and executed with consummate skill by Alan J. Pakula, works wondrously well, from just about any point of view. In aesthetic terms, it works because the film carries no unnecessary expository baggage. No one is preaching here; no one is pushing a message, except by implication." [31] Joe Pollack of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote, "Making a movie hero out of an investigative newspaper reporter is an extremely difficult task. Investigative reporting simply isn't very exciting, nor very dramatic. It involves a lengthy search for sources and tedious checking and cross-checking of facts, combined with an amount of telephone-calling and door-knocking that can become very dull. All the President's Men has turned these potential minuses into gigantic pluses, and comes through as a wonderful motion picture, one that explores the abuses of power and the work of the free press with a mighty magnifying glass. It glorifies the work of the reporter without making it glamorous." [32] Sally Smith of The Atlanta Constitution said, "A 'reporter' movie in the tradition of the '30s and '40s it is not. There are no fast-talking, cigar-chewing editors, no screaming telephones and no thundering presses. 'Scoop' is never mentioned. Instead, the film is close to a dramatized documentary. For those in the audience expecting an emotional catharsis it may be slightly disappointing, but this low-key realism as opposed to being a shrill polemic against Nixon is why the movie works." [33]
Clyde Gilmour of the Toronto Star called it a "fascinating movie from Warner Bros. [that] vividly but scrupulously dramatizes the almost mythological exploits of the men who uncovered the Big Cover-Up. And it does this while portraying the often-distorted world of a big-city newspaper with an honesty and fidelity seldom, if ever, approached in previous films about the press." [34] Martin Malina of the Montreal Star called it "the biggest and the best portrait of newspaper reporting that Hollywood has yet achieved." [35] Dave Lanken of the Montreal Gazette called it "a good picture and one that will undoubtedly do very well. It will both satisfy and create continuing interest in the comeuppance of the world's highest elected crime overlord." [36] Michael Walsh of The Province wrote, "Watergate challenged the free press and produced one of journalism's finest hours. All the President's Men insures that its lessons will be understood and remembered." [37]
Internationally, Patrick Gibbs of The Daily Telegraph wrote, "Mr Pakula planes implicit confidence in this story, tightly scripted by William Goldman, with only an occasional fictional touch and in his experienced actors led by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as the two reporters, though no great feats are called for in the way of interpretation." [38] Colin Bennett of The Age wrote, "Documentary is the best way to tackle a story that's so incredibly close, if it is to be made into entertainment at all. So it's a handicap that two film stars, rather than unknown faces, were deemed necessary to mime Woodstein's astonishment as each new fragment of thread in the pattern is revealed. Characterisation is totally unimportant, however; and the two actors play, it straight, sans heroics, concentrating on the stunning business in hand, the only business that really matters." [39] Romola Costantino of The Sun-Herald remarked, "This movie is sure to be a great success, but it won't necessarily be because of its brilliant reconstruction of the Watergate story. Most people have forgotten about that by now. As for the impressive skill of direction, the realistic, clear dialogue, or the fact that it relives, with mounting suspense, one of the most incredible scandals of this century not even these could have ensured this film's success away from America. There's no sex, no violence, and most of it is telephone calls or takes place behind office desks. But it can't miss, because it also offers two hours in the company of those charismatic stars, Dustin Hoffmann and Robert Redford, as the dedicated newspaper reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, from the Washington Post, who were responsible for the whole shake-up." [40]
The film continued to receive acclaim long after its release. Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly , reviewing Blu-ray releases of both this film and Network in 2011, called it "a victory lap for American journalism — the triumphant flip side to Network's self-loathing take on the media. It also anticipated our current WikiLeaks era, with Robert Redford (Woodward) and Dustin Hoffman (Bernstein) milking anonymous sources and burning shoe leather to speak truth to power. These films are timeless and essential, raising thorny questions we're still struggling to answer 35 years later. That must have been heavy stuff to be hit with at the multiplex in 1976. Maybe that's why Rocky walked away with Best Picture." [41] In a rare dissenting review published in 1985, Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader was critical of the writing, calling the film "pedestrian" and "a study in missed opportunities". [42]
Sundance Productions, which Redford owns, produced a two-hour documentary titled "All the President's Men" Revisited. [61] Broadcast on Discovery Channel Worldwide April 21, 2013, the documentary focuses on the Watergate case and the subsequent film adaptation. It simultaneously recounts how The Washington Post broke Watergate and how the scandal unfolded, going behind the scenes of the film. It explores how the Watergate scandal would be covered in the present day, whether such a scandal could happen again and who Richard Nixon was as a man. W. Mark Felt, deputy director of the FBI during the early 1970s, revealed his identity as Deep Throat in 2005, and this is also covered in the documentary.
Footage from the film is included, as are interviews with Redford and Hoffman, as well as with real-life central characters, including Woodward, Bernstein, Bradlee, John Dean, Alexander Butterfield and Fred Thompson, who served as minority counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee, in his first major public appearance. Contemporary media figures, such as Tom Brokaw (who was NBC News' White House correspondent during the scandal), Jill Abramson, Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart are also featured in the documentary, which earned a 2013 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special. [62] [63]
The Watergate scandal was a major political controversy in the United States during the presidency of Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974, ultimately resulting in Nixon's resignation. It originated from attempts by the Nixon administration to conceal its involvement in the June 17, 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters located in the Watergate Office Building in Washington, D.C.
All the President's Men is a 1974 non-fiction book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, two of the journalists who investigated the June 1972 break-in at the Watergate Office Building and the resultant political scandal for The Washington Post. The book chronicles the investigative reporting of Woodward and Bernstein from Woodward's initial report on the Watergate break-in through the resignations of Nixon Administration officials H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman in April 1973, and the revelation of the Oval Office Watergate tapes by Alexander Butterfield three months later. It relates the events behind the major stories the duo wrote for the Post, naming some sources who had previously refused to be identified for their initial articles, notably Hugh Sloan. It also gives detailed accounts of Woodward's secret meetings with his source Deep Throat, whose identity was kept hidden for over 30 years. Gene Roberts, the former executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and former managing editor of The New York Times, has called the work of Woodward and Bernstein "maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time."
Robert Upshur Woodward is an American investigative journalist. He started working for The Washington Post as a reporter in 1971 and now holds the title of associate editor.
Carl Milton Bernstein is an American investigative journalist and author. While a young reporter for The Washington Post in 1972, Bernstein was teamed up with Bob Woodward, and the two did much of the original news reporting on the Watergate scandal. These scandals led to numerous government investigations and the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon. The work of Woodward and Bernstein was called "maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time" by long-time journalism figure Gene Roberts.
A non-denial denial is a statement that, at first hearing, seems to be a direct, clearcut and unambiguous denial of some allegation or accusation, but after being parsed carefully turns out not to be a denial at all, and is thus not explicitly untruthful if the allegation is in fact correct. It is a case in which words that are literally true are used to convey a false impression; analysis of whether or when such behavior constitutes lying is a long-standing issue in ethics. British newspaper The Sunday Times has defined it as "an on-the-record statement, usually made by a politician, repudiating a journalist's story, but in such a way as to leave open the possibility that it is actually true".
Katharine Meyer Graham was an American newspaper publisher. She led her family's newspaper, The Washington Post, from 1963 to 1991. Graham presided over the paper as it reported on the Watergate scandal, which eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. She was the first 20th-century female publisher of a major American newspaper and the first woman elected to the board of the Associated Press.
Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee was an American journalist who served as managing editor and later as executive editor of The Washington Post, from 1965 to 1991. He became a public figure when the Post joined The New York Times in publishing the Pentagon Papers and gave the go-ahead for the paper's extensive coverage of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s. He was also criticized for editorial lapses when the Post had to return a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 after it discovered that its award-winning story was false.
Deep Throat is the pseudonym given to the secret informant who provided information in 1972 to Bob Woodward, who shared it with Carl Bernstein. Woodward and Bernstein were reporters for The Washington Post, and Deep Throat provided key details about the involvement of U.S. president Richard Nixon's administration in what came to be known as the Watergate scandal. In 2005, 31 years after Nixon's resignation and 11 years after Nixon's death, a family attorney stated that former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Associate Director Mark Felt was Deep Throat. By then, Felt was suffering from dementia and had previously denied being Deep Throat, but Woodward and Bernstein then confirmed the attorney's claim.
Frank Wills was an American security guard best known for his role in foiling the June 17, 1972, break-in at the Democratic National Committee inside the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. Then 24, Wills called the police after discovering that locks at the complex had been tampered with. Five men were arrested inside the Democratic headquarters, which they had planned to bug. The arrests triggered the Watergate scandal and eventually the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon in 1974.
Alan Jay Pakula was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Associated with the New Hollywood movement, his best-known works include his critically-acclaimed "paranoia trilogy": the neo-noir mystery Klute (1971), the conspiracy thriller The Parallax View (1974), and the Watergate scandal drama All the President's Men (1976). His other notable films included Comes a Horseman (1978), Starting Over (1979), Sophie's Choice (1982), Presumed Innocent (1990), and The Pelican Brief (1993).
Hugh W. Sloan Jr. was treasurer of the Committee to Re-elect the President, Richard M. Nixon's 1972 campaign committee. Previously, he was an aide to White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman.
Howard Simons was the managing editor of The Washington Post at the time of the Watergate scandal, and later curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
William Mark Felt Sr. was an American law enforcement officer who worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1942 to 1973 and was known for his role in the Watergate scandal. Felt was an FBI special agent who eventually rose to the position of Deputy Director, the Bureau's second-highest-ranking post. Felt worked in several FBI field offices prior to his promotion to the Bureau's headquarters. In 1980, he was convicted of having violated the civil rights of people thought to be associated with members of the Weather Underground, by ordering FBI agents to break into their homes and search the premises as part of an attempt to prevent bombings. He was ordered to pay a fine, but was pardoned by President Ronald Reagan during his appeal.
The Watergate scandal refers to the burglary and illegal wiretapping of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, in the Watergate complex by members of President Richard Nixon's re-election campaign, and the subsequent cover-up of the break-in resulting in Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974, as well as other abuses of power by the Nixon White House that were discovered during the course of the scandal.
The Final Days is a 1976 non-fiction book written by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein about the Watergate scandal. A follow-up to their 1974 book All the President's Men, The Final Days concerns itself with the final months of the Presidency of Richard Nixon including battles over the Nixon White House tapes and the impeachment process against Richard Nixon.
Hirsch Moritz "Harry" Rosenfeld was an American newspaper editor who was the editor in charge of local news at The Washington Post during the Richard Mattingly murder case and the Watergate scandal. He oversaw the newspaper's coverage of Watergate and resisted efforts by the paper's national reporters to take over the story. Though Post executive editor Ben Bradlee gets most of the credit, managing editor Howard Simons and Rosenfeld worked most closely with reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein on developing the story. Rosenfeld published a memoir including an account of his work at the Post in 2013.
Dick is a 1999 comedy film directed by Andrew Fleming from a script he co-wrote with Sheryl Longin. It is a comic reimagining of the Watergate scandal which ended the presidency of Richard Nixon and features several cast members from Saturday Night Live and The Kids in the Hall. Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams star as Betsy and Arlene, two warm-hearted but unworldly 15-year-old friends, who – through various arbitrary circumstances – become the legendary "Deep Throat" figure who played a key role in bringing down the presidency of Nixon. At the time of the film's release, the real identity of Deep Throat was not yet known to the public.
Martin F. Dardis was an American soldier, policeman, investigator and reporter. As the chief investigator for the Dade County, Florida, state attorney in 1972, he was a key figure in the Watergate scandal, linking the Watergate burglars to President Richard Nixon's reelection campaign. He passed this information along to Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein. Later, as a reporter for Sports Illustrated, he broke the story of baseball player Pete Rose's gambling.
Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House is a 2017 American biographical political thriller film written and directed by Peter Landesman, and based on the 2006 autobiography of FBI agent Mark Felt, written with John O'Connor. The film depicts how Felt became the anonymous source nicknamed "Deep Throat" for reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and helped them in their investigation of the Watergate scandal, which resulted in the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee is an American documentary film that premiered on December 4, 2017 on HBO. Directed by John Maggio, the film explores the life and legacy of journalist Ben Bradlee.