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Phil Graham | |
|---|---|
 Graham in 1961 | |
| Born | Philip Leslie Graham (1915-07-18)July 18, 1915 Terry, South Dakota, U.S. |
| Died | August 3, 1963(1963-08-03) (aged 48) Marshall, Virginia, U.S. |
| Resting place | Oak Hill Cemetery Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Education | University of Florida (BA) Harvard University (LLB) |
| Occupation | Newspaper publisher |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 5, includingLally andDonald |
| Relatives | Bob Graham (half-brother) |
Philip Leslie Graham (July 18, 1915 – August 3, 1963) was an Americannewspaperman. He served as publisher and later co-owner ofThe Washington Post and its parent company,The Washington Post Company.
During his years with the Post Company, Graham helpedThe Washington Post grow from a struggling local paper to a national publication and the Post Company expand to own other newspapers as well as radio and television stations. He was married toKatharine Graham, a daughter ofEugene Meyer, the previous owner ofThe Washington Post.
Graham, who hadbipolar disorder, died by suicide in 1963, after which Katharine took over as publisher, making her one of the first women in charge of a major American newspaper.
Graham was born to aLutheran family inTerry, South Dakota. He was raised inMiami where his father,Ernest R. ("Cap") Graham, made a career in farming and real estate, and was elected to theState Senate. His mother, the former Florence Morris, had been a schoolteacher in theBlack Hills of South Dakota. Graham was one of four children. One half brother,Bob Graham, was a former governor of the state ofFlorida (1979–1987) and a formerUnited States Senator representing Florida from 1987 to 2005.
Graham attendedMiami High School and graduated from theUniversity of Florida in 1936, with aBachelor of Arts degree in economics, and fromHarvard Law School, where he was editor of theHarvard Law Review and earned amagna cum laude degree, in 1939. Graham was a member of bothFlorida Blue Key andSigma Alpha Epsilon (Florida Upsilon chapter) and was both afraternity brother and roommate of the late SenatorGeorge A. Smathers whom he had been close to since attending Miami High School with Smathers. In 1939–1940 he was law clerk toUnited States Supreme Court JusticeStanley F. Reed, and the following year he was clerk to JusticeFelix Frankfurter, who had been one of his professors at Harvard.
DuringWorld War II, Graham enlisted in theUnited States Army Air Forces as a private in 1942 and rose to the rank of major by war's end. He worked as an assistant toWilliam Donovan, head of theOffice of Strategic Services (OSS). In 1944 Graham was recruited into the "Special Branch, a super-secret part of Intelligence, run by Colonel Al McCormick". He later worked under General George Kenney, commander of the Allied Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific. His wife followed him on military assignments toSioux Falls, South Dakota andHarrisburg, Pennsylvania up until 1945, when he went to thePacific theater as an intelligence officer of theFar East Air Force, which was created in August 1944.
In 1946, when his father-in-law,Washington Post publisherEugene Meyer, was named the first president of theWorld Bank, he passed the position of publisher to Graham.[1] When Meyer left the World Bank later that year, he took the title of chairman of the board of theWashington Post Company, leaving Graham as publisher.[2]
In 1948, Meyer transferred his actual control of the Post Company stock (the company was privately owned) to his daughter and her husband. Katharine Graham received 30 percent as a gift. Phil received 70 percent of the stock, his purchase financed by his father-in-law. Meyer remained a close adviser to his son-in-law until his death in 1959, at which time Graham assumed the titles of President and Chairman of the Board of the Post company.
While running theWashington Post and other parts of the Post Company, Graham played a backstage role in national and local politics.
In 1954, Graham was the leading force behind the founding of theFederal City Council, a highly influential group of business, civic, education, and other leaders interested in economic development in Washington, D.C.[3]
In 1960, he helped persuade his friendJohn F. Kennedy to takeLyndon Johnson on his ticket as the vice presidential candidate, talking frequently to both during the1960 Democratic National Convention inLos Angeles, California. During the 1960 campaign, he wrote the drafts for several speeches that Johnson gave. After Kennedy and Johnson were elected in November, he successfullylobbied for the appointment ofDouglas Dillon as Secretary of theTreasury, and frequently discussed other appointments with Kennedy. In the years after Kennedy's inauguration, he wrote occasional drafts of speeches, primarily for Johnson, but also for the President and forRobert F. Kennedy.
In 1961, Kennedy named Graham to serve as an incorporator for the Communications Satellite Corporation, known asCOMSAT, a joint venture between the private sector and government for satellite communications. In October 1961, he was appointed chairman of the group.
In Katharine Graham's bookPersonal History, she notes that her husband was always intense and spontaneous, but occasionally lapsed into periods ofdepression. In 1957, he had a severemanic episode and, at the time, no medicines were available for effective treatment. He retired to the couple's farm inMarshall, Virginia, to recuperate. Thereafter, periods in which he functioned brilliantly alternated with periods in which he was morose and erratic and isolated himself. He often drank heavily (something he had done prior to 1957), and would become extremely argumentative and blunt.
Through the Post Company'sNewsweek arm, Graham eventually metAustralian journalist Robin Webb, and in 1962 they began an affair. In 1963, he and Webb flew toArizona; he appeared at a newspaper publishing convention inebriated and/or manic. At the microphone he made a number of provocative comments, including the revelation that President Kennedy was sleeping withMary Pinchot Meyer. His assistant,James Truitt, called for his doctor, Leslie Farber, who flew in by private jet, as did (subsequently) Graham's wife. Graham wassedated, bound in astraitjacket, and flown back to Washington. He was committed for five days toChestnut Lodge, apsychiatric hospital inRockville, Maryland.
Graham then left his wife for Robin Webb, announced to his friends that he planned todivorce his wife and immediately remarry, and indicated that he wanted to purchase sole control of the Post Company. In June, in a fit of depression, he broke off his affair and returned home. On June 20, 1963, he entered Chestnut Lodge for the second time, and was formally diagnosed with manic depression (now calledbipolar disorder). He was treated withpsychotherapy.
Graham later made repeated requests of his doctors to be allowed a short stay away from the hospital, and was "quite noticeably much better", according to his wife. On August 3, 1963, he was permitted to go to their farmhouse in Virginia, Glen Welby, for the weekend. There, Graham killed himself with ashotgun while his wife was in another part of the retreat.[4] His body was found in a bathroom about 1:00 pm.[4] He was buried atOak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C.[5]
Duringprobate, Katharine Graham's lawyer challenged the legality of her husband's lastwill, written in 1963 in favor of his mistress.[6]Edward Bennett Williams testified that Graham had not been of sound mind when he had instructed Williams to draw up his final will. Williams said that he had, at the same time he prepared the will, written amemorandum for the file stating that Graham wasmentally ill, and that he was preparing the will at Graham's direction only to maintain their relationship. The judge in the case ruled that Graham had diedintestate. A compromise was eventually reached wherebyKatharine Graham gave up part of her inheritance in favor of her children.
On March 16, 1970, theABC affiliate station inMiami,Florida (then WLBW-TV), changed their call letters to honor Phil to WPLG-TV; The Washington Post Company (later called Post-Newsweek Stations, and now known as the Graham Media Group) owned the station until it was sold toBerkshire Hathaway in 2014.
In April 1963, Graham delivered a speech to the overseas correspondents ofNewsweek inLondon:
So let us today drudge on about our inescapably impossible task of providing every week a first rough draft of history that will never really be completed about a world we can never really understand ...
The phrase "first rough draft of history" may have been popularized by Graham, but it did not originate with him. It had been used repeatedly in thePost in the 1940s and the earliest known use was byAlan Barth: "News is only the first rough draft of history,"[7][8] and earlier expressions of similar sentiments dating to the first decade of the 20th century.[9]
On June 5, 1940, he marriedKatharine Meyer, a daughter ofEugene Meyer, a multi-millionaire and the owner ofThe Washington Post, then a struggling newspaper. The couple settled down in a two-storyrow house.
Their first baby died at birth. Four children followed:Elizabeth ('Lally') Morris Graham, now Weymouth (born July 3, 1943),Donald Edward Graham (born April 22, 1945), William Welsh Graham (1948–2017), and Stephen Meyer Graham (born 1952).
| Media offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Publisher of "The Washington Post" 1946 - 1961 | Succeeded by |
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| National | |
| Other | |
