Barry Sussman, left, and Mark Shields, right.
It’s ironic that on the 50th anniversary of the break-in of the Watergate that two journalists who were involved in covering the incident and the subsequent scandal that drove Richard Nixon from the White House have passed on.
Barry Sussman, the then-Washington Post’s city editor, for whom Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein worked, died on June 1. For many years, I would see Barry at the semi-annual authors dinner in Washington. On one of those occasions, Barry told me how Woodward would often go around him to “cut deals” with the Nixon White House, as well as interface directly with Post managing editor Ben Bradlee (my encounter with him will serve as a focal point of my forthcoming memoir) and publisher Katharine Graham. Initially, the Watergate burglary was treated as a city crime story and coverage, naturally, fell under Sussman’s purview. Referring to Woodward as “that son-of-a-bitch,” Barry was also miffed that he was not portrayed in the film “All the President’s Men,” which was based on the eponymously-titled book by Woodward and Bernstein, who Barry had called “Woodstein.”
In 1972, Mark Shields, who died on June 18, was the political director for the vice presidential campaign of Sargent Shriver. Shriver had replaced Senator Tom Eagleton as the running mate for George McGovern after Eagleton’s past treatment for depression had come to light. Little did Shields or others with the McGovern campaign realize in 1972 that the Watergate affair would blossom into a full-blown constitutional crisis during the two years following the drubbing of the McGovern-Shriver ticket in the ’72 election.
I would often see Mark hammering away at one of the computers in the National Press Club library. He often asked me to help him wade through the complexities of Microsoft Word. We would also often chat about the political issues of the day, which, for the ex-Marine Shields, included a discussion about the fiasco of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.
In 1972, while working for my high school newspaper in New Jersey, I closely followed the reporting on Watergate. I would have never realized that I would, in the future, come to personally know some of those who covered the scandal. For that, I am fortunate.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
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Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist, author and nationally-distributed columnist. A member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and the National Press Club. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
