One of the nation’s most celebrated journalists, Carl Bernstein, will deliver the Elliot Stein Lecture in Ethics at 4 p.m. Thursday, October 23, in Graham Chapel. The Assembly Series lecture, titled “Public Ethics: The Responsibilities of Elected Officials,” is free and open to the public and is being co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values in Arts & Sciences.
As a cub reporter for the Washington Post, Bernstein was the right person in the right place at the right time to become part of the David vs. Goliath story that was the Watergate scandal.
When there was a break-in at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. on June 17, 1972, it was widely reported by the media at first, then generally dismissed as a minor incident. But two young reporters for the Washington Post did not dismiss the story, and with good old-fashioned investigative reporting, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward found themselves at the center of one of the most significant stories of 20th century politics and responsible for bringing down the presidency of Richard Nixon.
From June through October, Woodward and Bernstein plugged away, hunting down hundreds of leads despite intense criticism. They found links between the burglars and the Committee for the Re-election of President Nixon (CRP) but did not have the essential missing link to Nixon. With the help of someone called “Deep Throat,” the reporters were able to find that connection, and in an October 10 story in the Post, they disclosed that the Watergate break in was part of a larger effort to sabotage Nixon’s political opponents.
Although he left the Post in 1976, Bernstein has continued to write, analyze and comment on aspects of American culture. In addition to two books he co-wrote with Woodward about Watergate and the Nixon era, Bernstein has authored three books, including his most recent, A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
For more information on this and other Assembly Series programs, please visit the Web site at http://assemblyseries.wustl.edu, or call (314) 935-4620.