Carol Felsenthal

Katharine Graham, b. 1917. I found Felsenthal's biog to be very readable. She includes notes and sources, so I'm not sure what the previous reviewer means by "not well researched" since the reviewer doesn't say. Graham was a wealthy, powerful woman. I didn't much like her. She once said to a reporter who worked for her, "You mean you have to live on your salary?" Yet for all that she had, the power and the privilege, she was still a very insecure person. The Washington Post was her father's newspaper. Her husband, Phil Graham, married the boss's daughter, which is how Phil Graham became publisher of the newspaper.

This biography covers a lot of recent newspaper history and is a fascinating look at the convergence of journalism and politics, particularly from about the 1960s-1980s. How did journalism get to where it is today in 2010? Books like these help to make that more understandable.… (mere)

2464 Alice Roosevelt Longworth, by Carol Felsenthal (read 1 Oct 1992) This is a poorly written, gossipy book, but it was readable. I had not known that apparently her only child, Paulina, was not fathered by her husband, Nicholas Longworth, but by Senator Borah! The book revels in all the oddities and incongruities of the world it talks of. So many of the people are so odd. This book just prattles on, making no effort to try to figure out why people were as they were. This book usually portrays Alice as a vicious person, who is wholly unadmirable--until the 1960's when she became a "character" rather appealing in her oddity. Alice was a pagan, though her father was a moral person.… (mere)

2700 Power Privilege and the Post: The Katharine Graham Story, by Carol Felsenthal (read 2 Feb 1995) This book is full of gossip, and at times it is fascinating. After Phil Graham shot himself on Aug. 1, 1963, Katharine took over the Post, including Newsweek, and this book tells how she turned from being a very insecure doormat to her husband and mother into the most powerful woman in Washington. The book is not well-researched, and I don't know how much one can trust it but the account of Phil Graham's career shows it as repulsive and almost unbelievable. The book indicates JFK had an affair with Ben Bradlee's sister-in-law, Robert McNamara had an affair with Tom Braden's wife, and maybe Katharine Graham had an affair with Howard Buffett.… (mere)