Carl Bernstein

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Lore & Background

Bernstein was born to a secular Jewish family in Washington, D.C., the son of civil-rights activists and former Communist Party USA members. He began his journalism career at age 16 as a copyboy for The Washington Star, later attended the University of Maryland but was dismissed after the fall 1964 semester for bad grades. He worked as a reporter for the Elizabeth Daily Journal, winning first prize in New Jersey's press association for investigative reporting, before joining The Washington Post in 1966. In June 1972, Bernstein was assigned with Bob Woodward to cover a break-in at the Watergate office complex. Their reporting connected the burglars to a slush fund and a corrupt attorney general; Bernstein was the first to suspect President Nixon's involvement and found a laundered $25,000 check linking Nixon to the burglary. Their work led to Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974. The two co-wrote All the President's Men (1974) and The Final Days (1976). After Watergate, Bernstein left the Post in 1977 and worked at ABC, CNN, and CBS as a political commentator. He investigated CIA-media cooperation for Rolling Stone, reported on the Israeli invasion of Lebanon for ABC's Nightline, and wrote books including Loyalties: A Son's Memoir, His Holiness (with Marco Politi), A Woman in Charge, and Chasing History. He has been married three times, including to writer Nora Ephron, and had a publicized extramarital relationship with Margaret Jay.

Reader's Guide

Carl Bernstein's significance rests primarily on his Watergate reporting with Bob Woodward, which Gene Roberts called 'maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time.' That work triggered government investigations and President Nixon's resignation, establishing a model for investigative journalism. Bernstein's career since Watergate has focused on the use and abuse of power through books, magazine articles, television reporting, and opinion commentary. He has written six books, including biographies of Pope John Paul II and Hillary Rodham Clinton, and a memoir of his early journalism years. His reporting on the CIA's secret cooperation with American media and his critique of modern journalism's 'Idiot Culture' further demonstrate his lasting influence. Bernstein remains a regular political commentator on CNN, continuing to engage with major political stories.

Did You Know?

• Bernstein was the first to suspect President Nixon was involved in the Watergate break-in and found a laundered $25,000 check linking Nixon to the burglary.
• He was dismissed from the University of Maryland after the fall 1964 semester for bad grades.
• In 1982, for ABC's Nightline, Bernstein was the first to report that Ariel Sharon had deceived the Israeli cabinet about the real intention of the Lebanon invasion.
• His 1989 memoir Loyalties revealed his parents were Communist Party members—something J. Edgar Hoover had tried and failed to prove.
• Bernstein's second wife Nora Ephron wrote the novel Heartburn based on his extramarital affair with Margaret Jay, daughter of British Prime Minister James Callaghan.

The Watergate Investigation

On a Saturday morning in June 1972, a young Washington Post reporter named Carl Bernstein was handed an assignment that would reshape American politics. Alongside Bob Woodward, he was tasked with covering a break-in at the Watergate office complex, where the Democratic National Committee kept its headquarters. Five men had been caught in the act, and four of them were former CIA operatives doing security work for the Republican Party. What began as a straightforward crime story quickly unraveled into something far more dangerous. Bernstein and Woodward traced the burglars to a massive slush fund and a compromised attorney general. Bernstein was the first among the two to suspect that President Nixon himself was entangled in the cover-up, and he uncovered a laundered twenty-five-thousand-dollar check that tied the president directly to the burglary. Their reporting set off a chain of government investigations and House Judiciary Committee hearings that culminated on August 9, 1974, when Nixon resigned to escape impeachment. Long-time journalism figure Gene Roberts later described the pair's work as perhaps the single greatest reporting effort of all time.

Roots and Early Career

Carl Milton Bernstein entered the world on February 14, 1944, in Washington, D.C., into a secular Jewish household. His parents, Sylvia and Alfred Bernstein, were both civil-rights activists and, during the 1940s, members of the Communist Party USA—a fact that would resurface decades later. At Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, the teenager already gravitated toward news, serving as circulation and exchange manager for the school paper, Silver Chips. By sixteen, he had landed a copyboy position at The Washington Star, where he climbed the ranks with unusual speed, though the paper unofficially expected a college degree before letting a reporter write. He enrolled at the University of Maryland, College Park, and contributed to The Diamondback, the campus independent daily, but was dismissed after the fall 1964 semester over poor grades. In 1965 he moved to the Elizabeth Daily Journal in New Jersey, where he swept first prize in the state press association for investigative reporting, feature writing, and deadline news. A year later he joined The Washington Post, covering the full spectrum of local news and earning a reputation as one of the paper's sharpest stylists.

Investigating Power After Watergate

Leaving The Washington Post in 1977, Bernstein channeled his Watergate-built reputation into a broader investigation of how power operates behind the scenes. He spent a year researching the secret cooperation between the CIA and American media outlets during the Cold War, a project that culminated in a twenty-five-thousand-word feature for Rolling Stone. His broadcast career flourished during television's high-growth era: he served as ABC News's Washington Bureau Chief and senior correspondent between 1980 and 1984, and later appeared as a political commentator on CNN and CBS. In 1982, on ABC's Nightline, he became the first journalist to report that Ariel Sharon had deliberately misled the Israeli cabinet about the true purpose of the Lebanon invasion—driving Palestinians out rather than merely establishing a security zone. In 1992 he penned a Time cover story exposing the alliance between Pope John Paul II and President Reagan, and in the same year he published a New Republic essay called 'The Idiot Culture,' a sharp indictment of modern journalism's drift toward gossip and sensationalism at the expense of substantive reporting.

Books and Lasting Influence

Bernstein's written output spans six books and a career-long thread examining the use and abuse of power. All the President's Men, co-authored with Woodward and published in 1974, sat on best-seller lists for six months and was adapted in 1975 into a film starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford that earned Best Picture and other Oscar, Golden Globe, and BAFTA nominations. The follow-up, The Final Days (1976), chronicled Nixon's last weeks in office. In 1989, Loyalties: A Son's Memoir revealed that his parents had been Communist Party members—a fact even J. Edgar Hoover had failed to prove. His 1996 papal biography with Marco Politi, His Holiness, argued that John Paul II's support for Solidarity in Poland and his geopolitical influence were principal factors in communism's collapse in Europe. A Woman in Charge (2007), a Hillary Clinton biography, received a 275,000-copy first printing and three weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, though CBS's year-end survey later categorized it as a commercial miss. His 2022 memoir, Chasing History, looked back on his early newsroom years, and he remains a regular political voice on CNN.