Alice Roosevelt Longworth was only a few years older than my mother but outlived her by a decade, dying in 1980. From the time they met, in 1917, they were lifelong friends of sorts, though each was a bit wary of the other.
Family ownership provides the independence that is sometimes required to withstand governmental pressure and preserve freedom of the press.
My mother seemed to undermine so much of what I did, subtly belittling my choices and my activities in light of her greater, more important ones.
Being a woman in control of a company - even a small private company, as ours was then - was so singular and surprising in those days that I necessarily stood out. In 1963, and for the first several years of my working life, my situation was certainly unique.
I remember the Washington in which I grew up as a genuine small town. Maybe this is true for everyone, that we all feel that the times in which we grew up were simpler, less complex.
If we had failed to pursue the facts as far as they led, we would have denied the public any knowledge of an unprecedented scheme of political surveillance and sabotage.
