Carl Milton Bernstein, born February 14, 1944, is a Pulitzer-winning journalist and novelist from the United States.

Bernstein was born in Washington, D.C., to a secular Jewish household, the son of Sylvia (née Walker) and Alfred Bernstein. In the 1940s, both of his parents were civil rights campaigners and Communist Party members. He went to Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, and acted as the circulation and exchange manager for the school newspaper, Silver Chips. He commenced his journalism career as a copyboy for The Washington Star at the age of 16 and rose fast through the ranks. The Star, on the other hand, unofficially demanded a college degree in order to write for the daily.

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He worked as a reporter for the University of Maryland, College Park’s independent newspaper, The Diamondback. Bernstein, on the other hand, was expelled from the institution following the autumn 1964 semester due to poor academic performance.

Bernstein departed the Star in 1965 to work as a full-time correspondent for the Elizabeth Daily Journal in New Jersey. He won first place in the New Jersey Press Association for investigative reporting, feature writing, and breaking news on a deadline while there. Bernstein departed New Jersey in 1966 to work for The Washington Post, where he reported on all aspects of local news and became renowned as one of the paper’s top writers.

On a Saturday in June 1972, Bernstein and Bob Woodward were assigned to cover a break-in at the Watergate office complex that had occurred earlier that morning. Five burglars were apprehended in the complex, which housed the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters; one of them revealed to be an ex-CIA agent who worked security for the Republicans. Bernstein and Woodward eventually linked the intruders to a large slush fund and an unscrupulous attorney general in a series of stories that followed.

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Bernstein was the first to assume Nixon was involved, and he discovered a laundered check that connected Nixon to the burglary. Bernstein and Woodward’s findings prompted additional investigations into Nixon, and on August 9, 1974, during House Judiciary Committee hearings, Nixon quit to avoid impeachment.

Bernstein and Woodward published All the President’s Men in 1974, two years after the Watergate burglary and two months before Nixon resigned. The book was based on notes and information gathered while writing pieces about the scandal for the Post, and it “remained on best-seller lists for six months.”

In 1975, it was adapted into a film starring Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein and Robert Redford as Woodward, which was nominated for many Oscars (including Best Picture), Golden Globes, and BAFTAs. Bernstein and Woodward followed up with The Final Days, a book that chronicled Nixon’s final days in office.

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Bernstein has now been married three times: first to Carol Honsa, a fellow Washington Post reporter; once to writer and filmmaker Nora Ephron from 1976 to 1980; and once to former model Christine Kuehbeck since 2003.

Bernstein met Margaret Jay, daughter of British Prime Minister James Callaghan and wife of Peter Jay, then UK ambassador to the United States, during his marriage to Ephron. In 1979, they had a highly publicised extramarital affair. Margaret went on to become a cabinet minister in her own right. Bernstein and his second wife Ephron already had an infant son, Jacob, and she was expecting their second son, Max, when she discovered her husband’s affair with Jay in 1979. After learning the truth, Ephron gave birth to Max prematurely. The incidents influenced Ephron’s 1983 novel Heartburn, which was adapted into a 1986 film starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep.

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Bernstein rose to prominence in the 1980s as a single man who dated Bianca Jagger, Martha Stewart, and Elizabeth Taylor.

Although they collaborated to bring the Watergate issue to the public’s attention, Bernstein and Woodward had very distinct personalities. Woodward was raised in a conventional Republican household and has been labeled as gentle. He started at The Washington Post after graduating from Yale University, and nine months later was assigned the Watergate break-in story. Bernstein, on the other hand, was born into a Communist Jewish household. He was rebellious, which caused him to drop out of college. When the controversy broke, he was ten months further along in his career than Woodward.