Bob Woodward

American investigative journalist and non-fiction author
October 25, 2005 - 4:30pm

About Bob Woodward

Bob Woodward has worked for The Washington Post since 1971. He has won nearly every American journalism award. The Pulitzer Prize was given to the Post in 1973 for the reporting of Woodward and Carl Bernstein on the Watergate scandal. In addition, Woodward was the main reporter for the Post’s articles on the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks that won the National Affairs Pulitzer Prize in 2002. Woodward won the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency in 2003. The Weekly Standard called Woodward “the best pure reporter of his generation, perhaps ever.” In 2003, Albert Hunt of The Wall Street Journal called Woodward “the most celebrated journalist of our age.” In 2004, Bob Schieffer of CBS News said, “Woodward has established himself as the best reporter of our time. He may be the best reporter of all time.”

Woodward has co-authored or authored ten #1 national best-selling non-fiction books — more than any contemporary American writer. They are:

  • All the President’s Men (1974) and The Final Days (1976), both Watergate books, co-authored with Bernstein
  • The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court (1979), co-authored with Scott Armstrong
  • Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi (1984)
  • Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987 (1987)
  • The Commanders (1991) on the first Bush administration and the Gulf War
  • The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House (1994)
  • Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate (1999)
  • Bush at War (2002)
  • Plan of Attack (2004)

Woodward’s other three books, The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat (2005), The Choice (1996) on the presidential election, and Maestro: Greenspan’s Fed and the American Boom(2000), were national best-sellers for months.

Newsweek magazine has excerpted five of Woodward’s books in headline-making cover stories; 60 Minutes has done pieces on five of his books; three of his books have been made into movies.

Woodward was born March 26, 1943 in Illinois. He graduated from Yale University in 1965 and served five years as a communications officer in the U.S. Navy before beginning his journalism career at the Montgomery County (Maryland) Sentinel, where he was a reporter for one year before joining the Post.