The Life of Katharine Graham: ‘Personal History’ Is All on the Record

Katharine Graham was an extraordinary woman, living an extraordinary life in an extraordinary time. She was the owner and publisher of The Washington Post during the Nixon-Watergate scandals, a close friend to several presidents and government leaders, and her social circle included figures like Truman Capote, Mike Wallace, Art Buchwald and Warren Buffet.

Her memoir is an astonishingly frank, honest and generous book by one of America’s most famous and admired women. Katharine (Kay) Graham talks openly about intensely personal facets of her life as well as about the business of running a major newspaper while resisting enormous political and commercial pressure.

Kay was born in 1917 to Eugene and Agnes Meyer, a multi-millionaire businessman turned government official father and a melodramatic, self-absorbed activist mother. She spent much of her young life sheltered on a large estate in Mount Kisco, a town northeast of New York City, although the family also had a home in Washington, D.C. Her parents traveled and socialized extensively, so she saw very little of them in her childhood and teenage years. Little wonder that she was plagued with insecurity and self-doubt all her life despite her intelligence and inquisitive, energetic personality.

Surrounded by nannies, tutors and other servants, her childhood was one of privilege and ease so encompassing that she didn’t even realize that clothes had to be laundered until she was in college. Up until then, a maid had whisked them away after one wearing and brought them back washed, ironed and folded without her knowing anything had happened. Amazing as it might seem, she was also unaware that she was half-Jewish until she first faced discrimination during her Vassar College years.

Kay’s father bought and began to restore the bankrupt Washington Post in 1933 after resigning as chairman of the Federal Reserve. That began the Meyer-Graham family obsession with the world of publishing and communication that continues to this day with Kay’s son Donald Graham.

This is the story of how the family and the brilliant, sometimes difficult, people they hired and befriended fought to make The Washington Post and the other communications assets they bought successful.

Part of it is the story of Kay’s marriage to Phil Graham from 1940 until his death by suicide in 1963. Phil clerked for two Supreme Court justices, including Felix Frankfurter, and was a driven man famous for finding unusual solutions and persuading others to follow him. Kay learned from and adored him, although he publicly belittled her and was ruthlessly unfaithful.

Phil took over the role of Post publisher when Kay’s father stepped back and put all his considerable energy into it. He never overcame a chip on his shoulder that came with control of his father-in-law’s business, because he never believed he had earned it. Phil manifested many of the traits of the mental illness that was known in those years as manic depression. Kay avoided thinking about any of that by concentrating on her children and her role as a wife like a good woman should, she thought. Left mostly untreated, his disease eventually caused a complete breakdown and he shot himself in their home in 1963, and Kay took over his job.

With her customary self-awareness, Kay describes her determination tinged with fear and uncertainty during the time they decided to publish the Pentagon Papers and pursue the Watergate scandal, which culminated with President Nixon resigning. She tells of the months of struggle in 1975 after the pressmen set fire to and destroyed the Post presses, then walked out on strike after beating up a foreman and took other unions with them. She worked many hours alongside the crew who crossed the picket lines doing such tasks as taking classified ads over the phone in between management meetings. She was never afraid of hard work but always afraid of not being good enough.

I have admired Katharine Graham from the first time I read this book and learned who she really was as a person. I identified with the conflict she faced in loving a man who had severe mental illness. I wanted to be a success in my own right but also be acknowledged as a loving family member. Sometimes it seemed to be impossible to reconcile all the fragments. Learning about Kay made it easier. Strong women ease the way for other strong women to follow.

Katharine Graham became a respected leader in the international communications industry through dogged determination and a willingness to make mistakes. Without her accident of birth putting her in the right family at the right time, it couldn’t or probably wouldn’t have happened. Nevertheless, she overcame her awkward shyness and the constant pressure to stay in a woman’s proper place. She rose above her husband’s abuse while still loving him and having compassion for his illness and gradually blossomed after his death into the woman she was always meant to be. The coincidence of Graham taking over the Post during the 1970s at the height of the Women’s Movement helped strengthen her resolve despite having no role models.

She was the first woman on many boards, including the Associated Press, and became an advocate for gender equality both in her own companies and elsewhere.

Katharine Graham’s life was a success story on every level. She continues to be an inspiration to women of all ages in all walks of life.