The Canonization of Katharine Graham (Washington Post mogul )

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Facts that belong in the Graham story, but which have been consistently excluded, include:

- Graham, in a 1988 speech to senior CIA employees, said: "There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows."

- Norman Solomon has written, "Graham was a key player in the June 1971 battle over the Pentagon Papers. But such journalistic fortitude came late in the Vietnam War. During most of the bloodshed, the Post gave consistent editorial boosts to the war and routinely regurgitated propaganda in the guise of objective reporting. Graham's never comes close to acknowledging that her newspaper mainly functioned as a helpmate to the war-makers in the White House, State Department and Pentagon."

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- In the 1950s, Graham's husband, Philip, played an important role in Operation Mockingbird, a major and remarkably successful effort by the CIA to co-opt journalists. Some 25 major news organizations and 400 journalists were seconded by the agency for its purposes during this period, as admitted by the CIA itself during the Church committee hearings. As one agency operative put it, "You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month." A number of Post editors and reporters, including Mrs. Graham's own choice for Managing Editor, Ben Bradlee, and Bob Woodward, came out of CIA or intelligence backgrounds. Mrs. Graham continued the paper's close relationship with the agency.

- The Washington Post joined in the vicious attack on reporter Gary Webb, who dared to reveal aspects of the relationship between the CIA and the drug trade. Typical nasties came from Howard Kurtz: "Oliver Stone, check your voice mail." And from Mary McGrory: "The San Jose story has been discredited by major publications, including the Post." And why? Well, in part because the Post and other papers simply took the CIA's word. Wrote Marc Cooper in the LA New Times: "Regarding the all-important question of how much responsibility the CIA had, we are being asked to take the word of sources who in a more objective account would be considered suspects."

- In crushing the pressmen's strike, Mrs. Graham not only broke the back of unions at the Washington Post but set an example that would be followed by other media throughout America. The journalistic labor movement never recovered.

http://prorev.com/graham.htm

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1. kick*

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