Background
Sussman, Barry was born on July 10, 1934 in New York City. Son of Samuel and Esther (Rosen) Sussman.
(No American history, government, or journalism collection...)
No American history, government, or journalism collection is complete without this new edition of "The Great Coverup: Nixon and the Scandal of Watergate," by Barry Sussman, the best account of the fall of Richard Nixon. It is a dramatic case study of tenacious reporting and suspenseful twists and turns in the political crime of the century. John Dean, Nixon’s White House counsel, said ten years after the break-in, “When people ask me which book they should read to understand Watergate, I recommend this one… Serious Watergate students report this is the best overview of the subject. I heartily agree. Anyone who wants to understand Watergate, and not make a career of it, should read "The Great Coverup." (Reviews and excerpts are here: http://www.watergate.info/sussman/.) A key Nixon goal was to limit the Watergate investigation to the break-in alone, making it appear to be little more than politics as usual. But by September, 1973, as Sussman, who was the Washington Post’s special Watergate editor, spells out: “Under Nixon the CIA had been dragged into domestic affairs; the investigation and findings of the FBI had been subverted; the Justice Department had engaged in malicious prosecutions of some people and failed to act in instances where it should have; the Internal Revenue Service had been used to punish the President’s alleged enemies while ignoring transgressions by his friends and by the President himself; the purity of the court system had been violated; congressmen had been seduced to prevent an inquiry into campaign activities before the election; extortion on a massive scale had been practiced in the soliciting of illegal contributions from the nation’s great corporations; the President had secretly engaged in acts of war against a foreign country… and agents of the President were known to have engaged in continued illegal activities for base political ends." "The Great Coverup" was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times and the Washington Post when first published. Wrote David Halberstam: "From the start, the Post was thus unusually lucky. It had the perfect working editor at exactly the right level." In their book, Woodward and Bernstein noted that Sussman was “given prime responsibility for directing the Post's Watergate coverage,“ and added: "Sussman had the ability to seize facts and lock them in his memory, where they remained poised for instant recall. More than any other editor at the Post, or Bernstein and Woodward, Sussman became a walking compendium of Watergate knowledge, a reference source to be summoned when even the library failed. On deadline he would pump these facts into a story in a constant infusion, working up a body of significant facts to support what otherwise seemed like the weakest of revelations. In Sussman’s mind, everything fitted. Watergate was a puzzle and he was a collector of the pieces." If there was a “politics as usual” aspect to Watergate, Sussman writes, it was in the help Nixon got from members of both political parties. Therein lies one of the book’s many lessons: Watergate would have been brought to a close much sooner except “for the help powerful men on Capitol Hill extended to their President.”
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004LROTHI/?tag=2022091-20
(No American history, government, or journalism collection...)
No American history, government, or journalism collection is complete without this new edition of The Great Coverup: Nixon and the Scandal of Watergate, by Barry Sussman, the best account of the fall of Richard Nixon. It is a dramatic case study of tenacious reporting and suspenseful twists and turns in the political crime of the century. John Dean, Nixon’s White House counsel, said ten years after the break-in, “When people ask me which book they should read to understand Watergate, I recommend this one… Serious Watergate students report this is the best overview of the subject. I heartily agree. Anyone who wants to understand Watergate, and not make a career of it, should read The Great Coverup." (Reviews and excerpts are here: http://www.watergate.info/sussman/.) A key Nixon goal was to limit the Watergate investigation to the break-in alone, making it appear to be little more than politics as usual. But by September, 1973, as Sussman, who was the Washington Post’s special Watergate editor, spells out, Watergate was clearly the ultimate in political crimes…Under Nixon the CIA had been dragged into domestic affairs; the investigation and findings of the FBI had been subverted; the Justice Department had engaged in malicious prosecutions of some people and failed to act in instances where it should have; the Internal Revenue Service had been used to punish the President’s alleged enemies while ignoring transgressions by his friends and by the President himself; the purity of the court system had been violated; congressmen had been seduced to prevent an inquiry into campaign activities before the election; extortion on a massive scale had been practiced in the soliciting of illegal contributions from the nation’s great corporations; the President had secretly engaged in acts of war against a foreign country… and agents of the President were known to have engaged in continued illegal activities for base political ends. Soon afterward Nixon fired the special prosecutor investigating him, the first act in the Saturday Night Massacre, and a few days after that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in an ominous cold war message, announced that American armed forces had been put on alert because of Soviet troop and military equipment movement. It was to some the most serious incident since the Cuban missile crisis, but to others a ruse, a crude attempt to get support for a President in a time of crisis. The Great Coverup was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times when first published. Wrote David Halberstam of Sussman: "From the start, the Post was thus unusually lucky. It had the perfect working editor at exactly the right level." In their book, Woodward and Bernstein noted that Sussman was “given prime responsibility for directing the Post's Watergate coverage,” and added: Sussman had the ability to seize facts and lock them in his memory, where they remained poised for instant recall. More than any other editor at the Post, or Bernstein and Woodward, Sussman became a walking compendium of Watergate knowledge, a reference source to be summoned when even the library failed. On deadline he would pump these facts into a story in a constant infusion, working up a body of significant facts to support what otherwise seemed like the weakest of revelations. In Sussman’s mind, everything fitted. Watergate was a puzzle and he was a collector of the pieces. If there was a “politics as usual” aspect to Watergate, Sussman writes, it was in the help Nixon got from members of both political parties. Therein lies one of the book’s many lessons: Watergate would have been brought to a close much sooner except “for the help powerful men on Capitol Hill extended to their President.”
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0983114005/?tag=2022091-20
Sussman, Barry was born on July 10, 1934 in New York City. Son of Samuel and Esther (Rosen) Sussman.
Bachelor, Brooklyn College, 1956.
His book, The Great Coverup: Nixon and the Scandal of Watergate, was named by the New York Times as one of the best books of the year in 1974. Now regarded as a Watergate classic, it is in its fourth edition, available in print and ebook versions. Among other awards, Sussman was named editor of the year by the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild for his work on Watergate, and he has lectured widely on the subject.
Sussman is one of a small number of journalists profiled and interviewed in Investigating Power: Moments of Truth, an online tribute to coverage of some of the most important events in recent American history.
While initially a close supervisor of the acclaimed journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, in later years Sussman became estranged from them. He is also the author of What Americans Really Think, published by Pantheon in 1988, based on columns he wrote while pollster and public opinion analyst at the Washington Post, and Maverick, A Life in Politics, written with and about the former United States. Senator and governor of Connecticut, Lowell P. Weicker, Junior., published in 1995 by Little, Brown.
From 2003 to 2012 he was editor of the Watchdog Project of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, and managed a website, niemanwatchdog.org, which was aimed at improving news reporting on public policy issues. Sussman started in journalism in 1960 as a reporter at the Bristol (Virginia-Tenn) Herald Courier, a daily with a circulation of about 25,000.
He left after 16 months but soon returned as managing editor before going to the Washington Post in 1965.
He was a state-suburban editor, then District of Columbia editor, with a staff of 40 to 45 reporters and, after Watergate, he founded the Washington Post poll, designing and conducting opinion surveys and reporting on the results. in 1981 he was in charge for the Post in establishing and directing the Washington Post/American Broadcasting Company News poll, again designing surveys and doing most of the reporting on the findings. Sussman left the Post in 1987 to become managing editor for national news at United Press International, in charge of 800 reporters and editors across the United States. and 40 more in United Press International"s Washington Bureau. He left United Press International after less than one year, however, and set up shop as an independent pollster, continuing to focus on public policy issues.
Clients included trade associations, the American Federation of Labor-Congress-Chief Information Officer, and other interest groups.
In the 1990s he became active as an international news media consultant, with assignments at newspapers in Spain, Portugal and seven Latin American countries.
(No American history, government, or journalism collection...)
(No American history, government, or journalism collection...)
Member American Association for Public Opinion Research (executive council 1985-1987), American Society Newspaper Editors.
Married Peggy Earhart, January 20, 1962. Children: Seena, Shari.