Date: Wednesday, June 13, 2012, at 7 p.m.
Location: Newseum, Walter and Leonore Annenberg Theater
Tickets: $10 per person; free for Newseum members. Tickets can be purchased online or at the admission desk. For more information click here.
To mark the 40th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, the Newseum presents a special program with one of journalism’s pre-eminent investigative reporters, Bob Woodward.
Woodward will talk about his role reporting the scandal for The Washington Post, which received the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 1973 for its Watergate investigation.
The Watergate scandal — an epic tale of crime and cover-up at the highest levels of the U.S. government — pitted the Post against President Richard M. Nixon. It began June 17, 1972, with a break-in at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters at the Watergate hotel and office complex.
The Post’s coverage, led by Woodward and Carl Bernstein, attracted the attention of other news organizations and prompted Congress and the courts to investigate. The exposure of White House wrongdoing forced Nixon to resign in 1974, the first time in U.S. history that a president resigned from office.
Woodward has worked at the Post since 1971 and is currently an associate editor.
I believe that the Watergate scandal left an indelible mark on my generation — the one that was passing through junior high and high school at the time, and had its youthful idealism and naïveté about government exploded earlier than I think the previous generation had. As a sometimes middle school history teacher, I’ve endeavored to explain to my students just how disillusioning that entire period was. I put together a video summarizing the events. You can watch it at https://vimeo.com/43366697.