The Kay We Loved

HENRY A. KISSINGER FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE’A SYMBOL OF THE PERMANENT WASHINGTON'

The friendship Nancy and I shared with Kay Graham is one of the legacies of my government service that we cherish most. Unlike so many Washington relationships that end with the exercise of power, it grew in intensity in the decades after I left office. Yet The Washington Post had been a relentless critic of many aspects of the administrations in which I served. Nor were we on the same side of several issues afterward.

This seeming paradox dissolved in the face of the admiration and affection I came to feel for Kay as a person. Strong and, at the same time, somewhat shy, appreciative of humor, unobtrusively purposeful, never bitter and always brave, matter-of-factly loyal to her friends and deeply devoted to her family, Kay ennobled all her human relationships. Who can forget the somewhat mischievous way she and Meg Greenfield would comment on the foibles of Washington, or, even more so, the exquisite tenderness with which Kay looked after Meg in the difficult last years of Meg’s life.

After a great personal tragedy, Kay took over The Washington Post with no previous experience and not a little diffidence and built it into one of the world’s most respected newspapers. She fiercely defended its freedom of expression and was a seminal figure in the battle to submit even the highest officials to ethical and judicial norms.

Kay was also a symbol of the permanent Washington that transmutes the partisanship of the moment into national purpose and lasting values. In that role, she tended to look with a certain wonder at the prominence fate had brought her and to treat it as an obligation, not so much to impose her will as to build the basis for eventual healing. The Kay of the permanent establishment never lost sight of the fact that societies thrive not by the victories of their factions but by their ultimate reconciliations.

Kay and I met in 1969 at the home of Joe Alsop, another member of Washington’s permanent establishment. Technically a Washington Post columnist, Joe saw his calling in protecting the nation from the depredations of the ignorant. Though his views rarely intersected those of his publisher, Kay treated Joe with affection and respect, occasionally tinged with exasperation. For his 70th birthday, Kay gave him a big party to celebrate his contributions to our nation, however at odds they were with the Post’s editorial policy. A few weeks after I arrived in Washington, Joe invited me to meet Kay at his house for dinner for the three of us “because you cannot be in Washington, dear boy, without knowing Kay Graham.”

Unfortunately, the evening did not turn out as Joe had planned. The president had called me into his office just as I was preparing to leave, and I had instructed my secretary to call Joe periodically to explain the delay. Joe considered a telephone call from a secretary a social offense, a subject on which he held forth at great length and with considerable passion when I arrived an hour late. So it happened that Kay was obliged to spend much of the evening calming the irate Joe. This she achieved with customary grace and some humor, gradually reducing Joe’s successive eruptions to manageable proportions.

As the months went by, Kay remedied the initial lack of dialogue between us. She would invite me to small dinners with one or two people–Bob McNamara, Nelson Rockefeller and Meg Greenfield come to mind–to evoke, with persistent questioning, a discussion about the nation’s future beyond the issues of the day.

In the midst of a divisive Vietnam debate in which The Washington Post had been quite unsympathetic to the administration in which I served, Kay telephoned and said: “You need some rest. Let’s go to the movies.” Ever thorough, she sent over Post reviews of the choices available.

During yet another crisis, Kay telephoned with a comparable message: “Things are tough right now. Why don’t you use my house in Virginia for a weekend?”

It was her way of asserting the permanent Washington in which human relations mattered more than the controversies of the day and in which the political battles were a prelude to a new elaboration of national purpose.

As the decades went by, the bonds between Kay and Nancy and me became ever stronger. We exchanged annual, what diplomats would call reciprocal, weekend visits in the summer, for the timing and guest lists of which negotiations usually started in February.

I saw Kay for the last time about three weeks ago when she spent a weekend at our house in Connecticut. She was in good form, relaxed, interested, humorous. Thunderstorms prevented her from leaving as she had planned, so we watched a movie together, and then she mused aloud about her family. She wanted to buy a present for Lally’s birthday, and she was not sure whether to surprise her or whether, in order to be sure of Lally’s approval, to let her help pick it out. Kay spoke with pride and warmth of Lally’s success as a writer, of Steve’s sense of humor and work in the theater, of Bill’s role in the financial world and of Don’s surefootedness at the helm of The Washington Post. She was clearly at peace with herself.

It is hard to believe that Kay is no longer among us. But, in a way, she will never leave us. Her place in this country will not be filled, nor the void her death leaves in the lives of her friends and family. Yet, in the pain of the moment, none of us would trade places with those whose lives were never touched by Kay Graham.

ARTHUR SCHLESINGER JR. : HISTORIAN’IN VINDICATING HERSELF, SHE BECAME A QUIET REVOLUTIONARY'

We first met, Katharine and I, at the end of the war, when Phil Graham came back from the Pacific and I came back from the European theater and joined my then wife at a house near the Grahams in Georgetown.

Phil was an astonishing man–truly a dazzler, brilliant, funny, filled with restless energy, with initiatives and ideas and passion. Only John Kennedy among my contemporaries had comparable gifts of intelligence and charm. But Phil was also harried by demons, swinging from manic exuberance to the destructiveness generated by clinical depression.

Kay, when I first met her, was quietly charming and welcoming, transparently adoring of her irresistible husband. She was the daughter of two powerful figures. Her mother was an overwhelming force, deeply self-centered, bearing down on her children like a galleon in full sail, all guns firing. Her father, the banker, public servant and newspaper publisher Eugene Meyer, was emphatic and imperious; but his love for Katharine and his faith in her gave his daughter reserve strength and the capacity not just for survival but, ultimately, for victory.

Kay was never altogether a doormat. She showed independence and resolve from an early age. She left a proper patrician college in the Northeast for a great urban university in the Midwest and, on graduation, went still farther west to join a rowdy tabloid in San Francisco. While her husband was overseas during the war, she worked at her father’s paper, The Washington Post. But on his return she receded from a journalistic career into the patterned roles of wife and mother.

The 1960s were Kay’s time of testing. Phil became more wayward, out of control, hectic, unhinged. The life enhancer turned into a life destroyer. In August 1963 he took his own life, leaving Katharine with four children, a newspaper, a weekly magazine (NEWSWEEK), sundry radio and television stations–and terrible questions about the future.

Though tormented by self-doubt, Kay steeled herself and decided to carry on the family properties. For a while she sat silent and bemused at meetings, not knowing what she was supposed to say or do. She consulted with her staff and with old friends in the newspaper world–Walter Lippmann and Scotty Reston. Her confidence grew. She brought Ben Bradlee onboard, developed skills she did not know she had and firmly and gracefully established her authority. By 1966, to her wry amusement, Truman Capote gave her a coming-out party in the famous Black and White Ball.

She met more serious challenges with remarkable courage–the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, labor troubles, so much else. She enlarged the size and wealth as well as the influence of the communications empire she inherited. Her leadership, integrity and fortitude set a standard for media lords in America and beyond.

In vindicating herself, she became a quiet revolutionary on behalf of all women. Brought up to expect a career of marriage and motherhood, she helped transform the expectations that so long had cramped and confined her sex. From ending the archaic Washington ritual of separation of the sexes after dinner to breaking into a business that men regarded as their private property and showing that women can beat men at their own game, she emboldened other women to enter forbidden fields.

Her wonderful memoir tells with uncommon honesty and delicacy the travail and triumph of an American woman. Katharine Graham was a very gallant lady.

BENJAMIN C. BRADLEE, FORMER POST EDITOR’THE STORY RAN. NO ONE SUED.'

What made me really fall for Katharine Graham was her excitement and enthusiasm. She loved it all. Once she got over feeling nervous, stopped thinking she would bring the Post and NEWSWEEK to the brink of failure, she had this wonderful enthusiasm that was very contagious. She relished being a reporter and being in the middle of the story.

She used to give us tips and then defend us when her friends got mad. In the 1980s, the United States was tapping Soviet undersea cables. We’d had the story for months, and Bob Woodward had it confirmed. But Bill Casey, the head of the CIA, said he was going to sue our asses under for publishing secret information. So we went back and forth and did more checking, and finally we were ready to publish, when President Reagan called Kay.

Her maid had to get her out of the shower. She got out, got a towel, found a pen, found a piece of paper, got it wet, found a dry piece of paper, and said hello to the president. As he talked about the gravity of the situation, national security and all that, she took notes. She loved it! She was being a reporter. As she listened, she began realizing the president was repeating himself. He was obviously reading from cue cards, and he had gotten to the bottom of the pile and was now rereading the card on the top. She called me and told me this and we had a laugh. She was so excited!

The story ran. No one sued us. She would always say, “It’s your call.” Time and time again. Of course, after a few crash landings, she did say it might be better if she was also there for the takeoff. During Watergate, we were taking a beating for something, George Bush Sr. or Bob Dole [the heads of the Republican Party] was giving us a lot of s–t, she came down to the newsroom and said with a deep sigh, “All I want to know, if this is such a great story, where the hell are the other newspapers?” It showed me I wasn’t the sacred cow to her, that we weren’t scared of each other.

No one would have guessed that anything was wrong with Katharine Graham that happy evening at New York’s 21 Club 40 years ago. A few hours before, her husband, Phil, had bought NEWSWEEK, named Ben Bradlee its Washington bureau chief and me as editor. Along with Fritz Beebe, the lawyer–and later company chairman–who had shepherded the deal, we and our wives were all laughing it up, toasting one another and basking in the glow of a cloudless future.

What none of us knew that bibulous night was that Kay, not yet 44, had been diagnosed with tuberculosis, a fact she chose to keep secret lest Phil be distracted in his negotiations for NEWSWEEK. Doctors ordered her to bed for six weeks.

Two and a half years later, when her world had fallen apart, Katharine Graham’s thoughtful self-control was on display once again. After Phil’s awful death–and a day before his funeral–Kay appeared before the all-male board of The Washington Post Company. Looking ashen, dressed all in black, she reassured us that the company was not for sale.

Gingerly, she felt her way into the foreign folkways of NEWSWEEK. Sometimes she would sit by my desk until the wee hours on closing night, watching as layouts were changed, pictures cropped, stories edited or killed.

She never gave orders, only occasional suggestions and frequent keen insights into Washington affairs. Once she suggested I hire an almost unknown speechwriter, one William Safire, as a columnist. I never followed up. My mistake. To new acquaintances she could seem imperious. While romancing Tom Wolfe as a prospective NEWSWEEK columnist, I took him to lunch one day with Kay in her executive dining room. Wolfe finally signed a contract, but then vanished; he never wrote a word for us. Years later, I asked him why. “It may have been that lunch with Mrs. Graham, and all those salad forks,” he said.

Kay had a great sense of the ridiculous. In 1965 we took a trip around the world together. First stop: Japan, where we were granted an audience with Emperor Hirohito. It was an awkward half hour, and later Kay guffawed with laughter when her old friend the comedian Danny Kaye re-created the stilted dialogue from his all-too-accurate imagination (“Your Majesty, Mr. Elliott was in Japan during the wa… I mean, years ago…”).

When we arrived in Hong Kong, it was Chinese New Year, and Kay jumped in fright when a firecracker exploded nearby; it reminded her, she said, of Phil’s fatal gunshot. In Vietnam she clambered in and out of helicopters that took her to a Green Beret outpost atop Black Virgin Mountain and to strategic hamlets in the Mekong Delta.

In Cambodia we climbed the ruins of Angkor Wat, dined with royalty in Thailand, and, in India, interviewed the population minister. Kay stifled a laugh as this gentleman, tapping his teeth with an IUD inserter, proclaimed: “Many of the ladies, when they use the IUD, complain of headaches, but I… think the headaches come from the in-laws.”

Powerful people seldom fazed Kay. Her friend Lyndon Johnson, enraged by a NEWSWEEK account of his less-than-successful meeting with the pope, dispatched his confidant Jack Valenti to vent his anger. Kay calmly told Valenti to call the editor. At a dinner with NEWSWEEK editors, Spiro Agnew complained about a Washington Post editorial that compared his selection as vice president to Caligula’s appointment of a horse as consul of Rome. Kay later joked that at least Caligula had the sense to appoint the whole horse.

Katharine Graham took her job very seriously. She worked like hell. She worried a lot. She used to talk about “picking the wool off the blankets” at night. She worked that hard, and worried that much, because she cared so deeply.

We met in New York during the war, when our husbands were gone, and I liked her right away. She had a quick wit. But that great laugh came later. We didn’t gossip much then–we didn’t know much gossip, and Kay wasn’t really interested. Every moment of her day was given over to what would make Phil happy. He took charge of what was being said, what was being done, and she agreed with him. If she argued, he’d shut her up. She watched him constantly with adoration, I always thought. She deferred to Phil in everything. She was almost desperately in love with him. We had the same friends, Joe and Stew Alsop from journalism, Chip Bohlen from the State Department, Dickie Bissell from the CIA [Polly’s husband, Frank Wisner, was a top CIA official]. We talked about the events of the day, and she was interested, but she didn’t say much. Joe Alsop tried to help her decorate her house and show her how to be a good hostess. “You don’t need a cook, you need a chef,” Joe told her. But she didn’t want one. She was obsessed with not appearing to be a grande dame.

Phil was very difficult, all hopped up. You could hardly stand it, the tension was so strong. Yet her love became even stronger as she watched him, so carefully. When he was really sick and had an affair, she moved to an inner life. Yet when he died she had an inner strength when she needed it. It must have been there all along.

CORAZON AQUINO, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINES’I FELT COMFORTABLE. NO AIRS.'

I first met Katharine Graham in 1986, during the presidential election [Aquino ran against Ferdinand Marcos]. She and Meg Greenfield came here to observe. I invited them to an intimate lunch at my brother’s place. I immediately felt comfortable with her. No airs. She didn’t do much talking, she didn’t look down on people. She was simple. I talked about the campaign and she wanted to see me perform and have a feel of it. So she and Meg joined me at a rally. It was a big crowd and we had to go through it. Katharine lost her watch! Instead of casting aspersions on the people, getting angry, she was so polite. She said she must have dropped it and told me not to worry about it. She was such a lady. But she was firm. Noblesse oblige.

As president, when I made my visit to the United States, I wrote Meg about it. That was in September 1986. Katharine hosted dinner for me in her home in Georgetown. I felt so privileged! I was so impressed, Katharine Graham listening to me. Also, it was the first time I ever tasted white chocolate mousse. I really liked it. I don’t remember much of what we talked about. I found it amazing that she took the trouble to visit the Philippines and to entertain me. More than what she said or told me, it’s what she did for me. I don’t equate myself with her, but we’re similar in a way. We stuck to home and children, focused on our duties as mother and wife. We led sheltered lives. But when we lost our husbands, a whole new world opened.

HENRY GRUNWALD: FORMER EDITOR OF TIME MAGAZINE’ONE OF THE LAST GREAT OWNER-PUBLISHERS'

I first encountered Kay Graham as a competitor. My magazine was Time and hers was NEWSWEEK–of course, along with the whole rest of The Washington Post Company. For years NEWSWEEK had been widely regarded, even by itself, as very much second to Time. When I became Time’s managing editor in 1968, that picture had changed. NEWSWEEK was expanding the traditional news-magazine formula, and in the estimation of Madison Avenue it was becoming very hot indeed. Much of this was due to the leadership of its editor, Osborn Elliott, a Time alumnus, but I realized very quickly that behind Oz there was Katharine Graham, a shy and self-deprecating woman with a fierce will. Despite a period during which the top men at NEWSWEEK rose and fell as quickly as Italian prime ministers (she admitted this herself, if not in these words), when she found editors she trusted she backed them fully and courageously and gave them the resources they needed.

Eventually, despite a certain initial wariness, we became friends. This happened partly because we both spent much of our summers on Martha’s Vineyard, where her presence made the atmosphere more exciting and surprising. To that quirky little island she attracted presidents and First Ladies, past and present, secretaries of State and foreign leaders. At her sprawling but unpretentious compound, businessmen, writers and artists, plus the occasional pop star, mingled with the members of her family. She liked nothing better than to gather her guests around a table, asking good questions and freely disagreeing with bad answers. Until fairly recently she played tennis with passion and drove herself all over the island, alone, day or night, visiting galleries, dropping in on parties. She could not enter a room without producing an air that somehow combined warmth and dignity. I will sadly miss talking to her, as she switched effortlessly from politics and world affairs to children, friends and gossip. As she grew older and less cautious she would judge people and things she disliked, never nastily but with a mischievous touch.

She had a sly sense of humor. She and I began writing autobiographies at about the same time, and we often complained to one another about the hard work. Whenever I asked her how she was doing she would say: “I think I’m in Chapter 11.” And then before anyone knew it she had finished a book that deservedly won a Pulitzer. Many people were too awed by her to recognize her sense of fun. Once during a hurricane all the electric power on the island failed and the freezers in her house began to defrost. “We can’t let all that food spoil,” she said, and assembled friends for an uproarious candlelight dinner.

Kay Graham was one of the last great owner-publishers, who know that their power must be paid for with responsibility. It is the duty of the publisher to be loyal to the byline as well as to the bottom line, that is to the individual journalists and their work as well as to the corporate need to make a profit. She knew how to keep that very difficult balance at a time when, in many places, it is in grave danger. She was not grandiose and, unlike my late boss Henry Luce, she probably could not have invented “the American Century.” But she helped build it, safeguard it and perpetuate it. Sometimes a familiar phrase is inevitable: “We shall not see her like again.”

NANCY REAGAN, FORMER FIRST LADY’WITH GREAT FRIENDSHIPS, YOU DON’T TRY TO FIGURE THEM OUT'

I’m certain, over the years, someone has asked, “Kay Graham and Nancy Reagan–friends?” After all, Kay owned the paper that wasn’t very friendly to Republicans and I was the wife of a man who many thought could be the next Republican president.

Well, it’s true we were friends and it all began years ago, when a mutual friend of ours thought we should meet. Ronnie had just been elected governor of California and we were attending the National Governors Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. I remember coming into a room and there was Kay, standing by the fireplace, and we struck up a conversation. That began a friendship which continued for nearly 35 years.

I can’t explain the magic or chemistry, but with great friendships, you don’t try to figure them out, you simply enjoy them, because they are so rare in life.

When Ronnie was elected president in 1980 and we moved to Washington, Kay was one of the first to call and set up a time to get together. We decided to have a “secret” lunch, regularly, which we did during those eight years, adding Meg Greenfield after the first few. They were so wonderful–full of laughter and gossip and talk about movies, books, families and all the things you love to share with people you enjoy.

After we left Washington, our regular lunches ended, but we did continue to see each other when I was on the East Coast or Kay came out to California to see her children. And, of course, there was always the phone. When it became apparent that Ronnie was suffering from Alzheimer’s, Kay was immediately there to console, listen and give me some of that wonderful strength that she had gained in her earlier years.

One of the things that I admired about Kay was that I always knew that our friendship was not based on politics–we simply left that at the door. It was about each other and giving and sharing and being there, whatever. I think that was one of the reasons she admired Ronnie, that down deep, he liked people and disagreed about issues.

I already miss Kay’s calls, her concern for me, her advice and counsel, but most of all, I miss that great huge laugh that came somewhere from inside her and rolled across a room, bringing smiles to everyone.

I know all the things that are being said about her–her strength, her power, her great gifts of management–they are all true. But I miss her as my friend.

BARBARA WALTERS, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT’THE STRUGGLE AND TRIUMPH'

Katharine Graham once told me that she had led two separate lives: “Doormat wife and working woman.” When all the tributes and deserved praise for her amazing accomplishments as a publisher are put aside, there remains the struggle and triumph of Katharine Graham, the woman.

She wrestled early with many of the same concerns that millions of women now face and was brutally honest about them in her autobiography. After her husband’s tragic death, when she took over the reins of The Washington Post Company, she worried, as so many working women do, that she was not spending enough time with her four children. She also feared that she wouldn’t be adequate in the high-powered world of business and finance. She conquered that fear by working harder. She steeled herself to make the tough decisions required of her. Yet she didn’t want to appear tough or harsh. It was important to her to maintain her femininity.

Kay fought to have some balance in her life. She cherished her old friends and nourished new ones. She loved gossip, new movies, parties and a good laugh. She had a full life outside of the office.

As a working woman myself, I could identify with some of her struggles. So could the millions of working women who read her autobiography, even though her life was lived on a higher plane than most. That is why we are so especially admiring of her accomplishments and why she will continue to inspire.

VALERY GISCARD D’ESTAING, FORMER PRESIDENT OF FRANCE’SHE HAD GREAT DISCIPLINE'

The first time I met her and had a chance to talk with her was in 1976. I was in the United States for the Bicentennial. There was a dinner with Kissinger, and I was sitting next to her. We never talked about American internal policy, although I knew she had opinions. She was a very sober person, a person of class.

One also had the feeling when one met her that she was a very cautious person. What was surprising about her was her apparent coldness. She almost never seemed to confide her emotions. But I found proof to the contrary in her memoir. It was excellent. She sent it to me, and I started reading out of a sense of duty, then with passion. There was a very surprising and emotional passage about her childhood, which I found interesting, and when I saw her at a dinner I asked her to tell me more about it. She talked about her father, who was an extremely important person in her life. He came from a French family and obliged her to speak French. And deep inside her, she said, she always kept this French identity because it was so important to her father.

Her personality could have quite a surprising impact on people. For instance, while Reagan was president, she was George Shultz’s tennis partner. At the time, he was secretary of State, and I remember his interrupting a conversation I had with him one day because he said he had to go to a tennis match with Katharine Graham.

She had great discipline. She belonged to this disappearing category of leaders that were part of the cultural evolution in the United States. Her paper was her passion, her life, the sacred part of her life.

NOOR AL HUSSEIN: QUEEN OF JORDAN’A SEASONED DIPLOMAT'

I was privileged to know many Kays; first the family friend made when my father moved us back to Washington in 1960 to work for President Kennedy, and later the more intimidating personality I met as a young, shy “First Lady” of an Arab Islamic state grappling with Washington’s policies on the Middle East. Twenty-three years later, I counted her among my dearest friends, as we compared similar challenges as wives, mothers, widows and working women.

She was a consummate hostess with the grace and dignity of a seasoned diplomat–a supreme facilitator of dialogue among institutions, nations and cultures. I will always remember the substantial but intimate gatherings she hosted for King Hussein and me during his arduous and often painful struggle to mediate the Arab-Israeli conflict, and her clear understanding of his belief in a comprehensive and enduring peace.

And of course there was the Kay Graham with the journalist’s inquiring mind and boundless energy. In one of our last visits together, when I presented her with my newly published book containing thousands of photographs of my husband’s life and work, she insisted on examining it closely, questioning every detail–historical, political and personal. Her passionate desire for knowledge of every sort seemed to intensify over the years and enabled her to contribute profoundly to our larger world. This Kay was indefatigable–driven not only by a need to prove herself but also by a sense of duty to serve.

But the Kay I will remember with the most affection, even when she was the grandest of grande dames, was a young girl at heart, never convinced of her success on any level, always asking what she might have done better to accomplish her work, to nurture her family or to please her friends. She would agonize over the smallest details that might affect the happiness or success of others, unaware that she was naturally one of the most delightful and accomplished presences in our lives.

VERNON JORDAN, PROMINENT ATTORNEY’SHE WAS A CONVENER'

In the life of Washington, Katharine Graham played a vital role: she was a convener. She invited to her table people of vastly different views, men and women who otherwise would never have had a reason to sit in the same room. And when the invitation came, no one ever said no. Her home was neutral ground, a venue for honest and lively discussion.

Yet I will miss even more the friend I knew simply as Kay. The friend I went to movies and meals with on Sunday nights, and called just to chat about nothing in particular. She came to see me at home when I was ill. She listened patiently to my stories about my mother. On Martha’s Vineyard, I would sometimes phone her and ask, “What are you doing for lunch?” And often, the most powerful woman in Washington would answer, “I have no lunch date.” So I would go over, and we would spend the afternoon sitting outside and talking.

It was a measure of Kay’s friendship that politics never got in the way. Even when I was appearing before the grand jury a few years back–and The Washington Post was writing about it, and NEWSWEEK was writing about it, and I didn’t always like it–that never interfered. There was no friction. There were still lunches, and movies, and many, many hours of good conversation.

OSCAR DE LA RENTA, FASHION DESIGNER’KATHARINE NEVER WANTED ANYTHING TOO FRILLY OR SILLY'

I was at the black and White Ball in 1966 because I knew Truman well, but I didn’t really know Kay. It’s funny: a lot of people at that ball didn’t know who Katharine Graham was. She’d been living a completely different life, and was suddenly launched into the spotlight. It was extraordinary how well she learned to cope with it, to live with it and to enjoy it.

I have known Kay’s daughter, Lally, for many, many years, because she and my wife, Annette, are the closest of friends. It was Lally who brought Kay to me. Kay used to dress a great deal with Halston. After Halston died, in 1990, Lally was the one who told her, “Why don’t you go to Oscar?” Kay always liked simple clothes. She never wanted anything too frilly or silly. She was a very feminine person by nature–and always took the time to look her best–but dressing up was not as important to her as it might be for other ladies. When she would come to my showroom in New York to choose her clothes, she would say, “I can do this myself. You have too many things to do.” She would not want me to spend any time on her. Many times, I would arrive at my place and find that she’d been there trying on clothes and had insisted that no one tell me.

Kay came to my fashion shows, even though it was not her bag at all. She just wanted to be nice to me. But what touched me most is that every year she would come to the luncheon we give in Washington to raise money for an orphanage called La Casa del Nino here in the Dominican Republic. The luncheons are called “Christmas in September.” Every year Kay would come, and every year she would be extremely generous, writing a check or giving Washington Post stock to the orphanage.

I remember one year, Princess Diana came to Washington and the British Embassy threw a big luncheon for her. Kay loved Princess Diana–and Princess Diana loved her–but Kay refused to go to the embassy luncheon because she had already accepted an invitation to Christmas in September. I had to call her and say, “Kay, I don’t want you at the lunch! I absolutely insist you go to the embassy because Princess Diana is going to be very, very upset that you will not be there.” It took a lot of convincing.

The thing I would like to say, above all else, is how much I loved Kay–and how, in a very gentle way, she marked the lives of the people she knew. She hated idle conversation. What she loved was to be with people who had something interesting to say. Last Christmas, Kay was here with us in the Dominican Republic. Because of the operations she’d had, it was difficult for her to get around, but still she wanted to go and swim in the sea every day. Julio Iglesias is a neighbor of ours, and he came over and he was singing to her and she was loving it. Later, Julio was touring in Europe when he heard Kay had been rushed to the hospital, and he called me immediately to find out how she was. She had totally, absolutely captivated him, just as she captivated everyone who ever sat next to her.

BILL GATES, MICROSOFT COFOUNDER, CHAIRMAN’SHE STOOD HER GROUND'

Kay Graham had a hostess’s charm, a reporter’s inquisitiveness and the acumen of someone who had made a lot of tough decisions in the business world. She had an incredible curiosity about people and issues. This, combined with her charisma and social graces, and the amazing range of people she knew from the world of politics and business, made for some memorable times.

One of the things I enjoyed about Kay from the first time I met her 10 years ago was her delight in good conversation. I grew up in a family where meals were a time to talk about world or local events. Kay came from a similar tradition where people sit together and in earnest discuss the issues of the day and what to do about them.

She particularly loved bringing together people from diverse backgrounds in politics, government, business and the media–and relished the conversations that would ensue. She was a fabulous storyteller herself–there was always something interesting she’d share about LBJ or Richard Nixon or the publishing business. But she also liked to keep the conversation lively. I remember one dinner at her summer place on Martha’s Vineyard where a leading political figure was holding court… for quite some time. Although the one-sided conversation was quite interesting, Kay at one point nodded toward me and interjected, ever so skillfully, “Bill, I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on the technology industry one of these days.”

One of the things that always struck me about Kay was her modesty and her selflessness. Though she dined with national and world leaders and oversaw an influential publishing business herself, she was one of the most accessible, unassuming people I have known. Several years ago, my then fiancee, Melinda, was having breakfast at Kay’s Washington, D.C., home before a business meeting. When it came time for Melinda to leave, her taxi was late. Kay insisted on driving Melinda herself through the clogged streets of the capital to get her to her appointment. (We later learned that Kay hadn’t driven in years; her driving was the one thing she did that deserved modesty.)

I’ve met a lot of impressive people in the business world over the years, but Kay was unique. She was thrust into a career in publishing and business with virtually no experience. She drew on her native instincts, her strength of character and her personal charm to forge what today is one of the country’s leading media businesses. Along the way she stood her ground on issues of principle where others would have caved. She surrounded herself with smart, capable people who shared her vision yet were encouraged to think on their own and stand up for what they believed. And she was an outstanding role model for women around the world, even if she was reluctant to acknowledge the significance of her achievements.

Katharine Graham embraced her life, her work, her family and her friends. Along the way she grew and learned, and shared that knowledge and wisdom with others. I feel incredibly privileged to have known Kay, and fortunate to have spent time in the presence of someone who truly made the world a better place.

ROBERT GOTTLIEB: EDITOR AND WRITER’SHE HAD THE ONE ESSENTIAL THING'

Most writers are vulnerable and insecure, and Kay Graham was more so than most. After all, although she had been a journalist in her youth, she had never attempted anything as challenging as a book–and she had a reverence for books that probably reflected her years at the University of Chicago and its Great Books curriculum. It was back in the mid-’80s that she first contemplated writing a memoir, but she gave up the idea; I think she felt it was too pretentious. And no doubt it was too disturbing as well: if she was going to do it, truths would have to be told, and some of those truths were going to be hard to confront.

A few years later, she decided to go ahead–I suspect she thought it was her duty–and in her typically organized way, she found the perfect editorial assistant, Ev Small. Together, they began to interview more or less everyone Kay had ever known–the great, the near-great and the not-great-at-all. Only after three years, in 1989, did she actually begin to write–on long yellow pads, by hand. And she wrote for seven years.

Her first question to me when we started working together, after I’d read some pages, was whether she needed a co-writer; she was pretty sure she did. I think she was really surprised when I said that she had the one essential thing she needed to write her own book: a strong, individual voice. (Of course, she also had the will, the rigor and the energy, but they were never in doubt.) She took my word and never looked back.

I’ve never worked more happily with an author. Because she doubted herself (unnecessarily) as a writer, she was never surprised at being asked to cut, expand, rewrite; she expected more editing, not less. There were very few passages she defended–one was an extended account of her service on the Brandt Commission: meetings, policies, recommendations. It was also one of the very few passages that were acutely boring. In that wary, tactful way in which editors point out such things to writers, I let her know it needed to be eliminated or cut to the bone. Meg Greenfield, her great pal (and mine, dating back to Cambridge), put it somewhat differently in the margin of the manuscript: “Three lines will do for this.” Most writers would bridle. Kay thought it was hilarious and told the story over and over, always with that deep roar of laughter that her friends so loved. She took her work seriously, but she certainly never took herself seriously.

Her generosity about sharing credit for the book was extraordinary. I don’t think she ever gave an interview or a speech about it (including her Pulitzer Prize acceptance speech) in which she didn’t wildly exaggerate the part that Ev Small and I had played in helping ready the book for publication. This was modesty that went way beyond the call of duty, because every word of the book was hers and hers alone. It was Katharine Graham’s own voice, her obvious sincerity, honesty and decency, that drew hundreds of thousands of people to “Personal History”; those are things that editors can’t put in.

Besides, Ev and I had our real reward in the pleasure she took in the book’s success–and not only its sales, though she was certainly competitive enough to enjoy being No. 1 (even outselling Ben Bradlee!). It was the effect the book had–and went on having–on readers that deeply stirred her. The hundreds, perhaps thousands, of letters she received (and answered) amazed and delighted her. And why not? Yes, she had rescued The Washington Post, but it had been her father’s and her husband’s. “Personal History” was completely her own, and she felt all the glee in its success that only a truly modest person can feel.

RICHARD M. SMITH, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, NEWSWEEK’DAMN IT, LET’S GET ON WITH IT'

Kay Graham hated to talk about herself. So it was with some trepidation that almost 20 years ago I asked her to speak to NEWSWEEK bureau chiefs about her life and her early days in the business. My question came without warning, and I knew it to be a harrowing story, but she tackled it in the only way she knew how: with candor, self-deprecation and more than a little humor. For an hour and a half, prompted by her curious listeners, she spoke of the agony of her husband’s suicide, her terror at taking charge of The Washington Post Company, her life as a woman at the highest levels of the corporate man’s world and much, much more. The group was riveted. If a book publisher had been in the room, he or she would have instantly seen the makings of a powerful best seller. That, of course, would come later. But as Kay and I walked out, she asked: “Do you think anyone was really interested in all that?”

Much has been written in recent days–all of it true–about Kay Graham’s unique blend of vulnerability and strength, shyness and statesmanship. She had come of age in a world of wealth and privilege, but no one worked harder at her job or prepared more diligently for every challenge. She was a certified media mogul, the “most powerful woman in America” (a label she loathed), yet she reveled in good gossip, a good laugh and took a warm, caring and–there’s no other word for it–maternal interest in the lives of the people who worked for her. And while she was NEWSWEEK’s staunchest advocate, a true believer in its mission of joining “mass and class,” she could also be our toughest critic, restlessly and relentlessly urging us to examine what we’d done–and how to do it better next time.

She was every bit as demanding of herself. Whether preparing for an interview, a speech or even a dinner party, she left nothing to chance. There was always one more briefing to do, one more expert to consult, one more moment to look at the seating chart. On the foreign reporting trips she did with NEWSWEEK and Washington Post editors, Kay could easily have sat back and let the editors carry the ball. But she always did her part, taking prodigious notes and often leaning in to ask the tough, embarrassing–and central–question the rest of us had been dancing around. She worked just as hard in her business role. On a visit to Tokyo in 1986 to launch our Japanese-language edition, NEWSWEEK’s promotion people had put together a merciless schedule of press and TV interviews. Sensing that she was badly jet-lagged, I said: “You know, you don’t really have to do all of these.” A fierce, impatient look crossed her face. “A long time ago I had to decide whether to be a lady who lunched or a woman who worked,” she snapped. “Damn it, let’s get on with it.”

Foreign correspondents soon learned never to build too much “free time” or, God forbid, sightseeing into her itineraries. Still, a few of us could occasionally tease her about her gusto for a packed schedule. During a marathon two-week trip through Eastern Europe in 1990, our group had been interviewing from morning till night. Late one afternoon, Kay, her great pal Meg Greenfield, the late NEWSWEEK columnist and editor of The Washington Post editorial page, and I had just finished a particularly dreary hour with a Hungarian party boss. When the session ended, his deputy pulled Kay aside. She came rushing over to us. “The deputy’s got time!” she announced enthusiastically. Meg and I groaned in unison: “We don’t!” Later, we managed to convince ourselves that Mrs. Graham had at least smiled.

She loved to laugh. She relished nothing more than spending time with reporters, hearing their war stories and getting–and giving–good “dish.” Her best laughs came at the expense of pomposity or simply at the improbable situations she often found herself in. After a tense, two-hour Moscow interview with Mikhail Gorbachev that ran well past the lunch hour, Kay called everyone in our traveling party, announcing: “We’ve got pizza!” For an hour, we scarfed slices like college kids and irreverently dissected the talk with the maximum Soviet leader. Earlier, on a visit to Beijing, she found herself in the courtyard of the fabled Forbidden City, where the dowager empress had ruled. When Ken Auchincloss, then our managing editor, dropped to his knees and gave our own empress the full kowtow treatment, Kay’s throaty, explosive laughter nearly brought in the security guards.

As a boss, her own instincts, not textbook teachings, shaped her management style. She didn’t suffer fools–and didn’t hide it. But when a staffer was sick, dealing with a troubled child or struggling with a marriage gone sour, she was always eager to know. Not just to know, but to help by making a call, sending a comforting note or personally lining up a top physician for a second opinion. She had a special feeling for young women on the staff, and often sought them out to see how they were juggling the demands of work and family. Recalling that her return to work had come late in life, she marveled at how they coped. “I just don’t know how you do it,” she often said. And then she shared her own past doubts. “Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and ask yourself whether you’ve done the right thing, or made the right decisions?” one editor recalls her saying. There was little doubt that Kay, herself, had spent many such sleepless nights.

She had tough questions for herself and for us: “Did we get it right? Are we being fair? How could we have done it better?” If she thought an editor was being defensive or trying to spin her, there would be a flash of temper. But if we had a good explanation or admitted that we’d blown it, the storm passed, and she’d simply ask: “What have you learned?” As always, Kay got to the heart of the matter.

Her loyalty to NEWSWEEK never wavered. When an influential official or a corporate chieftain called or wrote to complain about something in the magazine, Kay and I repeated a minor ritual. “What do you want me to say?” she’d ask, with a great gleam in her eye. “Just don’t agree with him,” I’d respond. She knew, of course, just what to say. The message came wrapped in soothing, almost regal charm, but it was always laser-guided by her own unerring sense of honesty and integrity. She understood that good journalism got under people’s skins–and that such was the price of seeking truth and speaking truth. And she deeply believed that the public good served by honest reporting was more than worth an occasional awkward moment.

In 1997, I tried–and failed–to put Kay on the cover of NEWSWEEK. After reading the galleys of her remarkable memoir, “Personal History,” I was sure it would be a best seller, and that it was worth a cover. “In all these years, I’ve never, ever, told you not to run a cover,” she said (truthfully). “But don’t you dare do this one.” An excerpt from the book ran inside the magazine that week. A few days later, I had two mock covers made up that carried her picture. She kept one; the other hangs on my office wall. This week, that same picture of our beloved friend appears on 4 million copies of the magazine. It’s a beautiful image, filled with all her warmth, intelligence and vitality. But as much as I loved the cover four years ago, it fills me with nothing but sadness this week. All the people of NEWSWEEK felt far, far better when there were only two copies.