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Wash. Post's Graham dies
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July 17, 2001: 3:56 p.m. ET
Veteran newspaper executive Katharine Graham dead at 84 after a fall
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Katharine Graham, who deftly steered the Washington Post through the tumult of the Pentagon papers and Watergate and built it into a leading force in American journalism, died Tuesday after suffering a head injury.
Graham, chairman of the executive committee of the newspaper, had been unconscious and in critical condition after a fall last weekend on a concrete walkway outside a condominium in Sun Valley, Idaho, where she was attending a conference of business leaders. She was 84.
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Washington Post executive Katharine Graham dies at 84. | |
As chairman of Washington Post Co. (WPO: Research, Estimates) for two decades, she built the paper her father had purchased at a bankruptcy auction into a media empire with magazine, broadcast and cable holdings including Newsweek.
CNNfn's Myron Kandel said Graham at some point was probably the most powerful woman in America, but she always was able to remain humble. (233KB WAV)(233KB AIFF)
Graham took over the top position at the Post in 1963 after the suicide of her husband, Philip L. Graham, who suffered from manic depression. She remained chairman of the board from 1973 to 1993, when she handed the reins to her son, Donald E. Graham. At the time, the company was ranked 271 on the Fortune 500.
CNN.com: Henry Kissinger's memory of Graham
In the tumultuous 1970s, Graham supported the newspaper's decisions to publish the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret government study of the Vietnam War. And in 1973, two Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, broke the news of a break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington.
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VIDEO
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 CNN's Tim O'Brien takes a look at Katharine Graham's life. |
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The report uncovered the Nixon administration's involvement in the scandal. President Nixon resigned the following year, and the Post won a Pulitzer Prize for its relentless investigative coverage of the Watergate case.
Journalism aside, Graham's career was equally notable for the business sense with which she built the Washington Post Co. into a profitable conglomerate.
Graham's autobiography, "Personal History", won a Pulitzer Prize in 1998. She was born on June 16, 1917, in New York City. 
-- from staff and wire reports
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