Bob Woodward

As metro editor of the Washington Post, Bob Woodward used to exhort his young charges to produce stories so astonishing that readers would cry "Holy Sh**!"Woodward has passed the "Holy Sh**!" test numerous times himself. The reporter who almost singlehandedly brought down the Nixon presidency is now an enormously successful author. His behind-the-scenes Washington blockbusters typically yield a slew of astonishing revelations.His latest, "The Choice" (Simon & Schuster. 426 pages, $26.), is about the 1996 presidential race.

MY FIRST run-in with Adm. Bobby Inman came after I praised him in a 1980 column. As America's chief eavesdropper, he had overheard a suspicious call by President Carter's brother, Billy, to the Libyan embassy, and properly brought the wiretap to the attorney general for criminal investigation.But praise from me brought him glares from the White House, and Admiral Inman -- recorders whirring -- called me to denounce "irreparable harm you have done by revealing our sources and methods." It was hard to believe that the Libyans did not know that all embassy phone lines were routinely tapped, but I respectfully asked if he would entertain one question.

"Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate," by Bob Woodward. Simon & Schuster. 592 pages. $27.50.You may already know the story of the endless Whitewater investigation, but you probably do not know which government official, in private conversation, called someone else a bleeping bleep. You may remember the Iran-Contra investigation, but you may not know that at one meeting to discuss his plight, President George Bush wore a striped shirt with a white collar and banged on his desk with a plastic mallet.

Just when you thought conspiracy theories about the 1963 assassination of John Kennedy could not possibly take any more new twists or turns, along comes TV producer George Paige and his show, "The JFK Conspiracy," scheduled to air at 8 tonight on WNUV-TV (Channel 54).Paige says he will prove on-air tonight that the Kennedy assassination was connected to Watergate and that Richard Nixon was involved. Furthermore, Paige says, he will reveal the identity of "Deep Throat" during his syndicated show, with James Earl Jones as host and broadcast live from studios across the street from the White House.

Just when you thought conspiracy theories about the 1963 assassination of John Kennedy could not possibly take any more new twists or turns, along comes TV producer George Paige and his show, "The JFK Conspiracy," scheduled to air at 8 tonight on WNUV-TV (Channel 54).Paige says he will prove on-air tonight that the Kennedy assassination was connected to Watergate and that Richard Nixon was involved. Furthermore, Paige says, he will reveal the identity of "Deep Throat" during his syndicated show, with James Earl Jones as host and broadcast live from studios across the street from the White House.

JOURNALISM THE SECRET MAN: THE STORY OF WATERGATE'S DEEP THROAT By Bob Woodward. Simon & Schuster, 249 pages. First off, The Secret Man, Bob Woodward's account of his dealing with Deep Throat, his legendary secret source, only adds incrementally to the vast body of knowledge already known about Watergate (thanks immeasurably to Woodward's own reporting in The Washington Post and his previous books). But as a portrait of the taut, complicated relationship between a reporter and confidential source who, overcoming his own conflicted motivations, puts everything at risk to disclose what he knows, it is a provocative, even stirring contribution.

THE COMMANDERS. By Bob Woodward. Simon & Schuster. 398 pages. $24.95.IF YOU believe Bob Woodward, the Bush administration wenwar with Iraq on the wings of President Bush's emotions rather than on the basis of well-defined national purpose.The decision-making that led to war was as fuzzy as a new tennis ball. Even Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, a key participant in the preparations, couldn't put his finger on the moment of decision."Cheney didn't think the decision to go to war had occurred in a definite moment or sequence of moments," Woodward relates in a telling passage of his book on the people and planning involved in preparing the invasion of Panama in 1989 and the war against Iraq.

Bush at War, Bob Woodward, (Simon & Schuster) 352 pages, $28 With his occasional malapropisms, nervous laughter and goofy jokes, President Bush has been an easy mark for urban liberals and the intellectual elite. But the commander in chief we see in Bush at War is anything but fodder for late-night comedy routines. He's a real commander. Bush has a laser-like focus on the war on terror, in Bob Woodward's latest book, boring in on everything from war plans to public relations to diplomacy.

WHEATON, Ill. -- She was one of those high school teachers you never forget, an inspiring instructor who went out of her way to learn about her students' lives outside the classroom.In her class, she pushed them to excel.She never married. The only "family," as she called them, she had besides six siblings from rural Iowa were the thousands of students who passed through her English and literature classes at the old Wheaton Community High School, now Wheaton Central, from 1929 to her retirement in 1965.

Bob Woodward, one of the country's most celebrated reporters and an assistant managing editor at The Washington Post, apologized yesterday to his editor for having waited more than two years before revealing that a White House official disclosed to him in 2003 the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Woodward, who with Carl Bernstein helped to unearth the Watergate scandal that brought down the presidency of Richard M. Nixon, testified Monday under oath about his role in the Plame case.