Carl Bernstein on the political climate in Washington – “The Takeout”

Author Carl Bernstein, best known for uncovering the Watergate scandal with Bob Woodward, looks back on his long career in journalism in his new memoir, “Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom.”

Bernstein, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Watergate, recalls his lifelong interest in journalism, covering the presidency of John F. Kennedy while still in high school, and years later, in as a student at the University of Maryland, helping the Washington Star report on the Kennedy assassination.

On “The Takeout” this week, Bernstein told CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett that he had just left class at the University of Maryland when he saw a group of students huddle around a radio as Walter Cronkite reported Kennedy’s death live. He rushed to work, where he was employed as a “dictator” – someone who typed up reporters’ stories that were dropped off by phone. Bernstein was assigned to type the Star reporter’s latest news in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

“My hands were shaking so much when I took his dictation that I misspelled hospital and put a [extra] ‘o’ in,” Bernstein said. Next, an editor sent Bernstein to Lafayette Square, a park adjacent to the White House, where he was tasked with monitoring a growing crowd distraught over the news.
Bernstein added that “for the next 12 hours, until Kennedy’s body returned”, he remained in the park.
“[Kennedy’s body] passed right by me, and I could see through the back window of the gray hearse, the coffin with a flag on it,” Bernstein said. “I continued this weekend to cover the assassination of the President of the United States.

Bernstein considers his book a sort of prequel to “All the President’s Men,” his book with Bob Woodward detailing how they investigated those involved in the Watergate scandal.

“Chasing History” details “everything I taught The Star about reporting…and what [Bob] Woodward and I called it the best version of the truth you can get, which is really what the story is about,” Bernstein said.

He happens to be not a fan of the habit of short-lived scandals attaching “-gate” to the end, as Bernstein says it “trivializes” the events leading up to the burglary and cover-up of the Watergate Hotel. .

“What happened at Watergate was that we had a criminal president of the United States who tried to undermine the electoral system, a familiar point today when we now have a former president of the United States. United who actually undermined the electoral system and continues to seek to undermine the electoral system under a presidency infinitely worse in many ways than the Nixon presidency,” Bernstein said.

The political climate is also worse – Bernstein noted that Congress is much different now than it was during the Watergate era.

“After our reporting at the start of Watergate, there was a unanimous Senate vote … to create the Watergate Committee, the Senate Watergate Committee,” Bernstein said. “Compare that to the conduct of [congressional] Today’s Republicans, who don’t want to investigate what happened on Jan. 6, and the deeper questions about what Trump did to stay in power in that coup I have refers to.”

Executive producer: Arden Farhi

Producers: Jamie Benson, Jacob Rosen, Sara Cook and Eleanor Watson

CBSN Producer: Eric Soussanin
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