Mentioned prominently in it is Michael Getler who I know through Lauren and Tamur whose son Nyal and Max Getler, Michael's grandson are best friends and, of course, I know Michael and his wife through the Park.
Michael served in the US Navy and as a reporter for the Post, and as editor of the Herald Tribune in Paris, and recently as the Ombudsman for the Post and then PBS.
The book identifies Michael as a reporter not captured by the grant of access by government officials.
The characters in the story include Seymour Hersh who has always been my folk hero journalist.
He, of course, is best known for exposing the My Lai tragedy in Vietnam, but later for exposing the relationship between the press and the CIA, Abu Grahaib, and posing an entirely different version of the Osama Bin Laden story than the one extant today.
and Bob Woodward
of Watergate fame lives just behind us on Q street.
He and Hersh are polar opposites in my limited view. Woodward has always been connected...through Ben Bradlee, editor of the Post and Martha Graham, publisher of the Post...and then his own extensive contacts...but an insider, while Hersh is an outsider.
Hersh's sources more often, although not exclusively, are middle-level managers, officers, enlisted men, agents...Woodward's are Presidents, Secretaries of Cabinet-level departments.
I don't know either...Bob Woodward, I call an alley acquaintance...I actually know his wife Elsa Walsh somewhat better...she's originally from Marin County in California where we lived in the 70s.
But one day I encountered in the alley Marvin Weissberg's former wife Gloria, who married Michael Nussbaum, and lived next door to the Woodwards. Because she had a dog, I knew her through the Park and on occasions at one of Marvin's parties.
So, coincidentally, we all were in the alley at the same time...why I don't recall..it was just for a moment... and in addition to her dog, Gloria had with her Sy Hersh...who, she later explained to me was a family friend. Michael Nussbaum, Gloria's husband, a plaintiff's lawyer in Washington, represented Sy who was frequently sued because of his stories. Michael and Sy went to law school together in Chicago. He is said to have credited Michael with getting him through law school and convincing him to find another profession other than the law.
So there was this dramatic encounter in the alley in Georgetown between Q street and Cambridge Place between the two best investigative reporters... probably ...maybe ...ever... at least I think so.. Both were polite...they knew each other obviously...but were equally obviously wary... 'knew' includes actually collaborating on aspects of the Watergate story.
Sy Hersh priding himself on his independence...Woodward dependent on high-level sources and special access...Woodward rich from his books and the movie..."All the President's Men"...Sy Hersh...ok financially I suppose, but still going to work every day for writing assignments from the New Yorker and other publications...
I...with Gloria... just observing the encounter and enjoying the dynamics.
Sy Hersh, as well as Woodward, is criticized for relying on unnamed 'anonymous' sources....but it's understandable...
but here is what someone who I also admire says about Hersh:
David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, maintains that he is aware of the identity of all of Hersh's unnamed sources, telling the Columbia Journalism Review that "I know every single source that is in his pieces. ... Every 'retired intelligence officer,' every general with reason to know, and all those phrases that one has to use, alas, by necessity, I say, 'Who is it? What's his interest?' We talk it through."[64]
And Ben Bradlee said later that he wished that he had hired Sy Hersh for the Post.
One of Sy Hersh's best stories is about being scooped by Mike Wallace.
We talked a few minutes in the alley...somehow it got around to the time I worked in the Soviet Union. He wanted to hear more but we never got around to it.
