Acquisition of the Woodward-Bernstein Watergate Archive
Announcement and Press Conference
The University of Texas at Austin
April 7, 2003
I am pleased to announce that the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center here at The University of Texas at Austin will become the permanent home of an American journalistic and historical treasure: the Woodward-Bernstein Watergate Archive.
These are the papers of Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, including those materials related to their Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporting of the Watergate incident and its aftermath.
The bulk of the materials covers the Watergate investigation from 1972 to 1974. There are also notes from their co-authored books All the President's Men and The Final Days.
Filling about 75 large file boxes, the records include typescript and carbon drafts of newspaper articles, book manuscripts, more than 250 spiral notepads and loose notes, typed office memos, correspondence, clippings, several audio cassette tapes, photographs, and memorabilia.
From the beginning of the investigation, Woodward and Bernstein adhered to one rule: they threw away nothing and kept all notes and drafts of stories. The result is a meticulous record of the Watergate story from beginning to end.
The University is acquiring this archive for $5 million. The total is being entirely financed by private gifts dedicated to this specific purpose.
In conjunction with this acquisition, Woodward and Bernstein will establish an endowment to enhance the study of these papers, which will be housed permanently at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center.
A marvelous partnership of individuals and institutions is coming together to preserve this critical part of our national heritage. I have believed from the outset that it was essential for the acquisition to be financed by a broad spectrum of partners from across America, the common bond being their desire to create a secure, public archive for these materials, which are so important to our history.
Institutional contributors to date include the Cain Foundation, the Hobby Foundation, the Knight Foundation, the RGK Foundation, and the Meadows Foundation. Individual contributions have been committed to date by Lynn and Russell Dealey, Christopher Harte and Cerrito Partners, Lee and Joe Jamail, Audre and Bernard Rapoport, and Judy and Charles Tate. I thank each one of them for their commitment.
The partnership will be broadened still further in the months ahead as others join. There is room, and there is need, for additional participation. It is welcomed. Several whom I have just identified are standing behind this effort in such a way as to allow me now to assure the public that the archive will be acquired entirely through dedicated gifts. For two reasons, we are announcing the acquisition now, even though the partnership is not yet fully formed. First, we have just concluded the legal arrangements, including the critical provisions required to assure continued protection of journalistic sources, and it is in keeping with the spirit of this project to make the reality public at this earliest practical moment. Second, the announcement will, in itself enable a broadening of the supporting partnership. In the early phase, where financial and legal feasibility was tested in confidence, we necessarily relied principally on trusted and proven friends of this university. But, in the end, this must be a broadly American project about an essential element of American heritage.
About a year from now, when the archive is in place and catalogued, and can be opened to the public, we will have a moment when the full partnership can be identified and celebrated. In the meantime, I express my deepest appreciation for the early supporters, who made it possible to reach this day.
I also wish to express appreciation to publisher of The Washington Post, Bo Jones, who has cooperated with us and facilitated this development in several ways. In the Watergate story, the leadership of the Post displayed extraordinary courage and skill. The name of The Washington Post will be forever linked with this chapter in history and with this archive. I thank Mr. Jones for the trust that he has displayed, through his cooperation, in The University of Texas at Austin.
Special thanks also go today to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and his staff, who gave careful personal attention to some of the important legal issues involved with this acquisition.
This is a monumental day in the history of the Ransom Center -- and a cause for celebration at our University. But it is an important day in the life of America, too, because on this day we assure future generations that these materials will be professionally preserved--and will be preserved together--in one archive readily accessible to scholars and to the public.
And this morning we are very pleased to be joined by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein themselves. I welcome them to our campus and to the partnership we are forging today. We will have an opportunity to hear from them in a few moments.
The Watergate story is one of the most important in American history -- not only because of the drama of its revelations in a volatile era, but also because of its impact on the relationship between government and the media, indeed on the relationship between government and the people. The story shaped its own time, but also has an enduring weight. Watergate has forever influenced how Americans regard ethics in government, the freedom of information, the concept of "full disclosure," and even campaign finance reform. Stories of such power and scale are rare indeed.
Through the very principles of this acquisition, The University of Texas at Austin affirms the essential practices of a free press, particularly the protection of sources, in a constitutional society. We also affirm the central importance of ethical leadership.
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward both believe in the strongest terms in their continuing responsibilities toward sources to whom they made pledges and who are still alive. The contractual arrangement with the Ransom Center includes a formal mechanism for sustaining those responsibilities. The privacy of sources still pledged protection will be protected and preserved.
It is appropriate that this archive should come to a major public university. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein have taught more than one generation already, and through their lasting tie with The University of Texas at Austin, they will teach generations more.
I know you have questions and we will be happy to answer them shortly. But first I want to turn the press conference over to Dr. Thomas Staley, the director of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, for his comments.
The German novelist Gunther Grass once wrote,
"Letters that vex us
End up in Texas."
He was referring to the Ransom Center and its vast repository of literary correspondence and author's archives. And so it is perfectly appropriate that the vexing original Watergate papers of Woodward and Bernstein -- including their material on the identity of Deep Throat -- will end up in Texas. From an early moment, Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, and their advisor in this matter, Glenn Horowitz of New York, judged that the Ransom Center was an especially well-chosen institution for this archive. Its international recognition as a research library, its superior conservation abilities, its accessibility to the public, and the eminence of its director were all priorities for housing their combined papers. Here to explain more about this acquisition is the director of the Ransom Center, Dr. Thomas Staley.
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