#152 Katherine Graham (Washington Post)

**David Senra** (0:00)
Phil very much wanted to go to the farm for a break from the hospital, and had started to work on the doctors to obtain their permission.
There was a sharp difference of opinion among the doctors about whether this was a good idea, but no one ever asked me if there was liquor or sleeping pills at the farm, nor did I think to mention the guns we had there.
I, who certainly knew the farm was stocked with guns that Phil used for sport, was completely deluded by his seeming progress, lack of visible depression, and his determination to get well.
In fact, I was optimistic about his ability to do so.
And I must say I was glad. He wanted so much to go to the farm, and I got caught up in thinking how good it would be for him.
On Saturday, August 3rd, Phil's driver picked him up, and then they came to get me. We had lunch on the back porch while chatting and listening to some classical records. After lunch, we went upstairs to our bedroom for a nap.
After a short while, Phil got up, saying he wanted to lie down in a separate bedroom that he sometimes used.
A few minutes later, there was the ear-splitting noise of a gun going off in doors.
I bolted out of the room and ran around in a frenzy looking for him.
When I opened the door to a downstairs bathroom, I found him.
It was so profoundly shocking and traumatizing. He was so obviously dead, and the wounds were so ghastly to look at that I just ran into the next room and buried my head in my hands, trying to absorb that this had really happened.
This dreadful thing that had hung over us for the last six years, which he had discussed with me and with his doctors, but which he had not been talking about in recent weeks, when he was obviously most seriously thinking about it.
The sight had been so appalling that I knew I couldn't go back in.
What I was agonizing about was that I had let him leave the bedroom alone.
I can only say that he seemed so much better that I had stupidly was not worried enough.
It never occurred to me that he must have planned the whole day at the farm to get to his guns as a way of freeing himself forever from the watchful eyes of the doctors and the world.
He left no note of any kind.
And that was an excerpt from the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Personal History, The Autobiography of Katherine Graham. Before I jump into the book, I want to tell you how I came to discover. I actually was listening to Jeff Bezos' talk, and he actually, before he bought the Washington Post, which is the business that Katherine's now going to run after the suicide of her husband, he read this book, said it was a fantastic book, and one of the Pulitzer, I think, in 1998 It's one of the highest-reviewed books that I've ever come across, and I could see why. It was an absolutely fantastic read. So I heard Jeff Bezos say that later on, when I was reading The Biography of Warren Buffett, Snowball. I think I covered that on Founders No. 100
Katherine Graham is a, I wouldn't say a main character, but she's definitely, she's in the book a lot. She's a supporting character in The Biography of Warren Buffett because he makes an investment in the 1970s in The Post and he becomes a very close friend. Some say they had an affair actually, of Katherine Graham. And so he talks in The Biography, I guess he's not the one writing it, but the author talks a lot about the relationship that Katherine Graham had. And it was in that book, Snowball, that he discovered the story of Katherine Graham where she's in her 40s, she has four kids, she's married to Phil Graham. Her father had bought The Washington Post a couple decades earlier. At the time, it was very uncommon for women to be running large companies. In fact, Katherine Graham is the first ever CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a female CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
But her father, when he's ready to retire, he actually passes the business instead of giving it to her, he gives it to her husband. And so her husband is running that up until the point that he commits suicide. So the reason I was interested in reading the book, besides Bezos obviously saying, hey, you should read this book, which is usually a good enough reason on its own, right? Is I just, I cannot imagine what that experience must have been like. She did not see this coming. I'll talk more about that as we get into the book. But this idea where you could be in your 40s, you know, not really have at the time it was, she was involved in her family, civic activities, but did not have any business experience. Your husband kills himself, you discover it, you see the aftermath. And then now not only you have to take over the family company, because no one else is there to run it, while taking care of your kids and yourself. I just cannot imagine what that experience would be like. And so reading that this book is my way of finding out what that experience is like. And I think the title, Personal History, is really interesting, because this book is a large book. I have the paperback version. It's 625 pages. And what this feels like you're reading is her personal diary, where she goes into great detail of her life, mostly in chronological order. And it feels like you're...