Bob Woodward

COLLEGE PARK - The two men onstage were old enough to be her grandfather, and neither possessed the Hollywood good looks of, say, a young Redford or Hoffman, but University of Maryland freshman Jennifer Gee listened raptly - and not just because there'll be a quiz Tuesday. "Woodward and Bernstein?" most of her friends in the dorm had asked when Gee told them where she was going. Law firm? Jewelry store? The names meant nothing. To Gee, a journalism major from Severna Park, they did. There's hardly a journalism class that doesn't mention the two young Washington Post reporters who, 30 years ago, started investigating the Watergate break-in and its cover-up by the Nixon administration.

SAN FRANCISCO -- We Americans have had our flappers, our boomers, our hippies, our yippies, our yuppies. Now, as the millennium dawns, it is altogether appropriate that our English language respond to a new group for statisticians to ponder and economists to dissect: those young multimillionaires running dot-com businesses. What DOES one call 36-year-old Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, a wunderkind whose company has set book-buying on its ear? Or Yahoo's Jerry Yang, who was 27 when that Internet stock went public in 1996?

"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.

You could almost hear the collective sign of relief from the news crews in Washington last night when President Clinton finally appeared and gave them a real newsmaker on which to focus.It had been a tough day, so devoid of real news and saturated with empty speculation that the truth about channels that sell themselves as all-news was all too apparent: What they mostly have is not news, but rather endless talk about news. And the talk is often uninformed chatter passed off as "exclusive" inside information or "expert" analysis.

Bob Woodward, a member of Chestnut Ridge Country Club in Lutherville, not only caught a glimpse of Tiger Woods at yesterday's Buick Open Pro-Am Tournament, but he also got to play in his group.Woodward, former general manager of WXYV (102.7 FM) and WCAO (600 AM), teed off with Woods and three amateurs yesterday morning at Warwick Hills Golf and Country Club in Grand Blanc, Mich.Woods shot a 74 and his four amateur partners, who paid $3,250 each to play in the event, finished at 14-under in the best-ball format, placing them fourth among the morning groups.

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.

In "The Agenda," Bob Woodward uses as his springboard a pledge that Bill Clinton made at the Democratic National Convention in 1992, namely, to use the presidency to re-energize America's economy.The tale that follows is an insider's glimpse into the remarkable angst of the Clinton White House as it lurched unsteadily toward production of a budget bill that the president and his loyalists have touted as one of their great accomplishments.Privately, they thought much less of their own budget package, Mr. Woodward reveals.

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.

MUCH more is to be learned about the secret political-media power connections of Ross Perot.1. The Rockefeller Connection. On Feb. 2, 1973, New York state's welfare department chose three data-processing companies to bid on a contract; because Ross Perot's company had a poor record in other states, it was not selected to be a bidder.To the amazement of professionals in the field, the state welfare commissioner was summoned to the office of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to explain to Mr. Perot, who was sitting there, why his firm was not on the list.

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.