Dustin Hoffman: Carl Bernstein

All the President's Men

Carl Bernstein

Howard Simons: Then can we use their names?
Carl Bernstein: No.
Ben Bradlee: Goddammit, when is somebody going to go on the record in this story? You guys are about to write a story that says the former Attorney General, the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in this country, is a crook! Just be sure you're right.

John Mitchell: [on phone] All that crap you're putting in the paper? It's all been denied. You tell your publisher, tell Katie Graham she's gonna get her tit caught in a big wringer if that's published. Good Christ, that's the most sickening thing I ever heard.
Ben Bradlee: [later] He really said that about Mrs. Graham?
Carl Bernstein: [nods]
Ben Bradlee: Well, I'd cut the words "her tit" and print it.
Carl Bernstein: Why?
Ben Bradlee: This is a family newspaper.

Carl Bernstein: Boy, that woman was paranoid! At one point I - I suddenly wondered how high up this thing goes, and her paranoia finally got to me, and I thought what we had was so hot that any minute CBS or NBC were going to come in through the windows and take the story away.
Bob Woodward: You're both paranoid. She's afraid of John Mitchell, and you're afraid of Walter Cronkite.

Carl Bernstein: I think it's Magruder.
Bob Woodward: I think it's Magruder too.
Carl Bernstein: Why do you think it's Magruder?
Bob Woodward: Because he was second in command under Mitchell. Why do you think it's Magruder?
Carl Bernstein: [Carl gets up and goes to open a jar of cookies] I think it's Magruder because at one time he was the temporary head of the Committee to Re-Elect before Mitchell.
[he flings one at Bob who, still furiously typing away, catches it without missing a beat]
Bob Woodward: I don't want a cookie.

Harry Rosenfeld: Bernstein, why don't you finish one story before trying to get on another?
Carl Bernstein: I finished it.
Harry Rosenfeld: The Virginia legislature story?
Carl Bernstein: I finished it.
Harry Rosenfeld: All right, give it to me.
Carl Bernstein: I'm just polishing it.

Sally Aiken: Ken Clawson told me he wrote the Canuck letter.
Carl Bernstein: The letter that said Muskie was slurring the Canadians.
Bob Woodward: Clawson.
Carl Bernstein: The deputy director of White House communications wrote the Canuck letter. When'd he tell you this?
Sally Aiken: When we were having drinks.
Carl Bernstein: Where were you?
Sally Aiken: My apartment.
Carl Bernstein: When did you say he told you?
Sally Aiken: Two weeks ago.
Carl Bernstein: What else did he say? He didn't say anything? Come on, you're hedging.
Bob Woodward: Do you think he said it to impress you, to try to get you to go to bed with him?
Carl Bernstein: Jesus!
Bob Woodward: No, I want to hear her say it. Do you think he said that to impress you, to try to get you to go to bed with him?
Carl Bernstein: Why did it take you two weeks to tell us this, Sally?
Sally Aiken: I guess I don't have the taste for the jugular you guys have.

Carl Bernstein: Bob, listen, I think I've got something, I don't know what it is. But somewhere in this world there is a Kenneth H. Dahlberg, and we gotta get to him before the New York Times does, because I think they've got the same information.

Bob Woodward: Segretti crisscrossed the country, at least a dozen times. And always stayed in cities where there were Democratic primaries.
Carl Bernstein: So if the break-in was just one incident in a campaign of sabotage that began a whole year before Watergate...
Bob Woodward: Then for the first time the break-in makes sense.
Carl Bernstein: This isn't so crazy. This whole thing didn't start with the bugging of the headquarters.
Bob Woodward: Segretti was doing this a year before the bugging.
Carl Bernstein: And a year before, Nixon wasn't slaughtering Muskie, he was running behind Muskie, before Muskie self-destructed.
Bob Woodward: *If* he self-destructed!

Carl Bernstein: I was wondering if Hugh Sloan was being set up now as a fall guy for John Mitchell? What do you think?
Bookkeeper: if you guys could just get John Mitchell, that would be beautiful.

Kay Eddy: My only chance of getting that story is if see him. I don't want to see him again.
Carl Bernstein: Do you have to see him?
Kay Eddy: Sure, I have to see him.
Carl Bernstein: No, do you have to see him that way? Can't you just call him up on the telephone and say you want to have a drink with him? Just feel him out? You say the relationship is over. What the hell do you have to lose?

Debbie Sloan: This is an honest house.
Bob Woodward: That's why we'd like to see your husband.
Carl Bernstein: Facing certain criminal charges that might be brought against some people that are innocent, we just feel that it would be...
Bob Woodward: It's really for his benefit.
Debbie Sloan: No, it's not.
Bob Woodward: No. It's not.
Hugh Sloan Jr.: Deborah, tell them to come in.

Carl Bernstein: [Walking up to the Sloans' house] All these neat, little houses and all these nice, little streets... It's hard to believe that something's wrong with some of those little houses.
Bob Woodward: No, it isn't.

[Woodward is woken up by a call from Bernstein]
Carl Bernstein: Woodward, What did you find out? What did he say?
Bob Woodward: What time is it?
Carl Bernstein: You fell asleep?
Bob Woodward: Oh God dammit!
[Woodward hangs up and runs out the door, realizing that he forgot about his secret meeting with Deep Throat]

Bob Woodward: A guy can come up to me on the street.
Carl Bernstein: Yeah.
Bob Woodward: And he can ask me an address. Now, is the man interrogating me or is he lost? What kind of story do I write? What kind of deduction do I make from that?

Carl Bernstein: You can talk to us. We don't reveal our sources.
CRP Woman: You people, you think you can come into my home and ask me a few questions, have me destroy the reputations of men that I work for and respect? Do you understand loyalty? Have you ever heard of loyalty?

Bob Woodward: How can you write that there's a cover up? We don't know that there's a cover up.
Carl Bernstein: Well, then, I don't know what the hell you need? So, you tell me what you need.
Bob Woodward: I need more fact for a story is what I need and I think you should need the same thing.

Carl Bernstein: If you get in a car.
Bob Woodward: We're in a car.
Carl Bernstein: Okay, and there's music playing in the car, hypothetically.
Bob Woodward: Yeah.
Carl Bernstein: And there's music playing in the car for 10 minutes and there's no commercials. What can you deduce from that? Is it AM or FM?