Overview

Katherine Graham's story has all the elements of the phoenix rising from the ashes, and in Carol Felsenthal's unauthorized biography, Power, Privilege, and the Post, Graham's personal tragedies and triumphs are revealed. The homely and insecure daughter of the Jewish millionaire and owner of The Washington Post, Eugene Myer, Kay married the handsome, brilliant and power hungry Phillip Graham in 1940. By 1948 Kay's father had turned control of The Washington Post over to Phil, who spent the next decade amassing a media empire that included radio and TV stations. But, as Felsenthal shows, he mostly focused on building the reputation of the Post and positioning himself as a Washington power-player. Plagued by manic depression, Phil's behavior became more erratic and outlandish, and his downward spiral ended in 1963 when he took his own life. Surprising the newspaper industry, Kay Graham took control of the paper, beginning one of the most unprecedented careers in media history. Felsenthal weaves her exhaustive research into a perceptive portrayal of the Graham family and an expert dissection of the internal politics at the Post, and a portrait of one of a unique, tragic, and ultimately triumphant figure of twentieth-century America.

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9781888363869

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“Power is a terrific newspaper book ... [It] is also an excellent business case history.” –Michael Stern, San Francisco Chronicle “This is a lively biography about an ugly ducking who grew up to become a swan, or, possibly, given Mrs. Graham's wealth and power, an eagle.” –The New Yorker “For sheer reading pleasure and a brilliant picture of a complex woman, pick up Power, Privilege, and the Post: The Katherine Graham Story. In my view, it has already won a prize for one of the best biographies of this, or perhaps, any year.” –Robert Holsinger, Atlanta Journal-Constitution “In Power, Privilege, and the Post, Carol Felsenthal has given us more than a biography of a single woman. This is a book that places its subject within a swirling context of newspaper publishing and American politics and helps us understand the power and privileges of the media in our time.” –Linda Simon, Chicago Tribune

In her latest of a series of studies of formidable women, Felsenthal (Alice Roosevelt Longworth, 1988, etc.) profiles the longtime Washington Post and Newsweek publisher, often called the most powerful woman in the world. As the now-retired Graham writes her memoirs, she will surely feel aggrieved by this massive, often unsparing biography. A journalistic diamond in the rough, the book is far too long, sometimes bland, and without analysis of the Post's strengths or shortcomings. But Felsenthal has found the devil in the details. She has gotten scores of people to spill the beans on her subject, including many male editors who, sometimes because of their own sexism, were unceremoniously sacked by this unmerry widow. ( God must have loved Newsweek editors, cracked one victim. He made so many of them. ) Dozens of incidents reveal Graham in the worst moments of her infinite variety: capricious, snobbish, and, when necessary, ruthless (her crushing of the rival Washington Star and of her own paper's union helped her roll up huge profits in the 1980's). Yet, astonishingly enough for a woman born into privilege as the daughter of financier-publisher Eugene Meyer, Graham also wins admiration here for her attempt to overcome the effects of her turbulent family life. Humiliated by both her pretentious mother and her charismatic but manic-depressive husband Phil Graham, she wasn't prepared to assume control of the Post and Newsweek after the latter's suicide in 1963. But despite her lingering insecurity, Graham invariably made the right decision when the chips were clown - in entrusting the Post to editor Ben Bradlee, in publishing The Pentagon Papers, and in risking the Nixon Administration's wrath with her paper's Watergate coverage. She ended her career as the only female head of a Fortune 500 company. Skin-deep on the Post's influence - yet compulsively fascinating on the woman who constantly surprised the men who underestimated her. (Kirkus Reviews)

Power is a terrific newspaper book ... [It] is also an excellent business case history. -Michael Stern, San Francisco Chronicle This is a lively biography about an ugly ducking who grew up to become a swan, or, possibly, given Mrs. Graham's wealth and power, an eagle. -The New Yorker For sheer reading pleasure and a brilliant picture of a complex woman, pick up Power, Privilege, and the Post: The Katherine Graham Story. In my view, it has already won a prize for one of the best biographies of this, or perhaps, any year. -Robert Holsinger, Atlanta Journal-Constitution In Power, Privilege, and the Post, Carol Felsenthal has given us more than a biography of a single woman. This is a book that places its subject within a swirling context of newspaper publishing and American politics and helps us understand the power and privileges of the media in our time. -Linda Simon, Chicago Tribune

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CAROL FELSENTHAL is the author of several acclaimed biographies, including the best-selling Power, Privilege, and the Post- The Katharine Graham Story; Princess Alice- The Life and Times of Alice Roosevelt Longworth; and The Sweetheart of the Silent Majority- The Biography of Phyllis Schlafly.

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