Carl Bernstein’s waypoints and loyalties

I was happy to see Carl Bernstein’s name back on the front pages of newspapers.  Carl grew up in the Northwest D.C. and Silver Spring/Takoma Park neighborhoods and was a graduate of Montgomery Blair High School.  I came across his family along with the Gerwitzs, Pinksons Becks, Paskoffs and Samols shortly after I came to this area in 1963 to attend graduate school at the U of MD.  Many of their children were members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).  That’s when I first heard the reference to “progessive” – a code name for “fellow travelers” and members and sympathizers of the Communist Party.

To those of us new leftists of the 1960’s, the Trotskyites and Communist of the previous generation seemed to be the most understanding and supportive of our attempts to bring about change.  It was they, in fact, who had pioneered the sit-ins, marches and protests against segregation and injustices in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s.

In 1964, after participating in a summer of voter registration and freedom schools locally and in the South, I was invited to speak at the Shule, on upper Georgia Ave. and share my experiences with the children and parents of the group formally known as the Cooperative Jewish Children’s School of greater Washington.  Carl, his mother, Sylvia Bernstein, Helen and Casey Gerwitz and some of the earlier mentioned families were all part of the Shule, a school that stressed the ethical lessons of the Bible – Moses the liberator, oppressed by Pharoah.  Micah and Jeremiah, the revolutionary prophets.  And the union organizers, poets, emancipators, resisters and various Jews who raged against the machine in the name of justice and ethics (rather than a God-centered religion).

So, in the mid ‘60’s, I found myself briefly employed by the Montgomery County Department of Welfare in Rockville, MD. and Carl Bernstein was working for the Washington Post also in Rockville.  Carl, along with other writers and activist and I ate regularly at Roy’s in Rockville’s old downtown and commiserated about politics, activism, music, women and whatever else politicos discussed back then. 

I saw Carl at demonstrations in the late ‘60’s.  His coverage was always sympathetic and fair.  Once, a group of us formed an alternative to the United Way.  We raised money for the Washington Free Clinic, a women’s center and The Black Panther Defense Fund.  We had invited Murray the K, who became popular as a New York DJ but at that time was employed at a Bethesda-based radio station, to emcee a sock hop fund raiser event.  At the last minute he backed out and Carl graciously agreed to fill in.  Carl showed up with slicked-back hair and a pack of cigarettes rolled up in his t-shirt.  He was perfect!
After that, he became famous for his Watergate coverage but he also fell from grace in progressive circles.  His book, Loyalties – a Son’s Memoirs was published in 1989, over the strong objections of his parents who did not want to be outed as former Communists.  And, during the Washington Post pressman’s strike, Carl crossed the picket line disappointing many progressives and family friends.
Carl went on to mix with the likes of Bianca Jagger, Elizabeth Taylor, Philip Roth, Eve Ensler and Victor Navasky and squandered millions of dollars earned from his Watergate writings and movie deal.

And now his new book, “A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton” has been published.  It’s already brought him close to $1 million and a return to the front page of the Washington Post Style Section.
The Post piece (June 20, 2007, Style), portrays him as a Shakespearian tragic character who is fated to fall and fail.  I believe that there’s a basic nobility and redemptive quality in Carl.  Before he became cynical and disillusioned and his anger led him in negative directions, he had his positive role models, I.F. Stone, his parents, all those who resisted during the McCarthy period, his sense of justice from the Jewish secular Shule.  Perhaps he, like the legendary Job, when confronted by evil, is still capable of reclaiming his past faith, rejecting arrogance and ego and reclaiming a life of charity, modesty and eventual fulfillment.

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