Being an outsider was the key to her greatness. Not because she used it as a tool in some way, but simply because it gave her a perspective others in similar positions never had.
From Newsweek, An American Original, Evan Thomas 7/29/01
Katharine Meyer Graham was not, by a long shot, an Everywoman. She employed a personal French chef, and NEWSWEEK correspondents, escorting her to see various world leaders, learned to make sure that the hairdresser and driver were on time. Her dinner parties for official Washington at her imposing house on R Street in Georgetown had an almost imperial air. When her mouth tightened and her eyes flashed, she could be imperious. But she was at other times vulnerable and painfully shy. Standing, a bit wobbly, at a cocktail party before a black-tie bash for Washington journalists and bigwigs a couple of years ago, the woman generally regarded as the social arbiter of the nation's capital said to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, "I hate these things. I never know what to say."
Mrs. Graham's occasional awkwardness could be off-putting and intimidating. But in a complicated human way, her weakness became a source of strength. Her sense of herself as an outsider, of not really belonging, was ultimately a key to her greatness. She often said she felt dowdy and dull next to her dashing, brilliant husband, the late Philip Graham. But she turned out to be a better journalist. Phil Graham wanted to be a player and kingmaker, not a mere publisher. When the Kennedy White House embarrassed the United States by staging a failed CIA-backed invasion of Cuba in 1961, Graham crossed the line between the publisher's office and the newsroom to water down a NEWSWEEK cover story about the fiasco. The Post's publisher was a patriot, but at the same time he did not want to go too hard on his close friend President Kennedy or his buddies in the CIA. A decade later his widow showed no such deference toward the Nixon administration--and struck a blow for all time against the abuse of power.
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When George W. Bush came to Washington last winter as the 43d president, one of his first acts, arranged through a go-between, was to get himself invited to Mrs. Graham's for dinner. Characteristically, she gathered 100 of the most powerful business and media leaders in America, including Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. When Bush arrived, she ushered him around, careful to make sure that the president was never "trapped" for too long with a boring guest. An old friend observed how nervous she had been that everything go right, how she fretted all day long over the smallest details.
The most celebrated hostess in America never got over her social anxiety. But her friends thought that she had obtained a measure of peace in her last few years, especially after the publication of "Personal History." The reviewers gushed: her literary skills, they testified, exceeded those of any of the "professionals" on her payroll. The book went straight to No. 1 on the best-seller list and stayed there. Bantering as usual with Ben Bradlee, she would inquire about the sales of his memoir, "A Good Life." He'd answer, and she would say, triumphantly, "Well, I've sold more!" The success surprised and pleased her, especially when she won the Pulitzer Prize. "Now do you believe you've written a good book?" her pal Meg Greenfield wryly asked as they stood in the cheering Post newsroom. She did, and she may have even realized why. "Personal History" will live on long after the memoirs of most statesmen because it is honest. It is hard to imagine a powerful man, especially one who worked all his life in Washington, displaying such self-knowledge. From it, she found true power
