I've been in the business since I'm 16

[book excerpt, All-Pres. Men]----------- As Woodward began making phone calls, he noticed that Bernstein, one of the paper's two Virginia political reporters, was working on the burglary story, too.

Oh God, not Bernstein, Woodward thought,
recalling several office tales about Bernstein's ability to push his way into a good story and get his byline on it.

That morning, Bernstein had Xeroxed copies of notes from reporters at the scene and informed the city editor that he would make some more checks.  The city editor had shrugged his acceptance, and Bernstein had begun a series of phone calls to everybody at the Watergate he could reach -- desk clerks, bellmen, maids in the housekeeping department, waiters in the restaurant.

Bernstein looked across the newsroom.  There was a pillar between his desk and Woodward's, about 25 feet away.  He stepped back several paces. 

It appeared that Woodward was also working on the story.  That figured, Bernstein thought. 

Bob Woodward was a prima donna who played heavily at office politics.  Yale.  A veteran of the Navy officer corps.  Lawns, greensward, staterooms and grass tennis courts, Bernstein guessed, but probably not enough pavement for him to be good at investigative reporting.  Bernstein knew that Woodward couldn't write very well. 

One office rumor had it that English was not Woodward's native language.

Bernstein was a college dropout. 

He had started as a copy boy at the Washington Star when he was 16, become a full-time reporter at 19, and had worked at the Post since 1966.  He occasionally did investigative series, had covered the courts and city hall, and liked to do long, discursive pieces about the capital's people and neighborhoods.

Woodward knew that Bernstein occasionally wrote about rock music for the Post.  That figured. 

When he learned that Bernstein sometimes reviewed classical music, he choked that down with difficulty. 

Bernstein looked like one of those counterculture journalists that Woodward despised.  Bernstein thought that Woodward's rapid rise at the Post had less to do with his ability than his Establishment credentials.

They had never worked on a story together.  Woodward was 29, Bernstein 28.

The first details of the story had been phoned from inside the Watergate by Alfred E. Lewis, a veteran of 35 years of police reporting for the Post....

The five men arrested at 2:30 A.M. had been dressed in business suits and all had worn Playtex rubber surgical gloves.  Police had seized
a walkie-talkie,
40 rolls of unexposed film,
two 35-millimeter cameras,
lock picks,
pen-size tear-gas guns, and
bugging devices that apparently were capable of picking up both telephone and room conversations.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like the pine trees lining the winding road
I've got a name, I've got a name
Like the singin' bird and the croaking toad
I've got a name, I've got a name

And I carry it with me like my daddy did
But I'm livin' the dream that he kept hid

Movin' me down the highway
Rollin' me down the highway
Movin' ahead so life won't pass me by

Like the north wind whistlin' down the sky
I've got a song, I've got a song
Like the whippoorwill and the baby's cry
I've got a song, I've got a song

And I carry it with me, and I sing it loud
If it gets me nowhere, I'll go there proud

Movin' me down the highway
Rollin' me down the highway
Movin' ahead so life won't pass me by...

===============
{book excerpt:  All The President's Men.  Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward.  Copyright 1974.  Simon & Schuster--New York.}
{song excerpt:  "I Got a Name" -- written by Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox; recorded by Jim Croce.  On two albums:  1973's I Got A Name, and Photographs and Memories - His Greatest Hits, 1974.}

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