Howard Simons (3 June 1929-13 June 1989) was the managing editor of The Washington Post at the time of the Watergate scandal.
Biography[]
Howard Simons was born in Albany, New York on 3 June 1929, and he received a bachelor's degree from Union College in Schenectady in 1951 and a master's degree a year later from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Simons served in the US Army during the Korean War, and he later became a science reporter in Washington DC for several news organizations. In 1961, he joined The Washington Post as a science writer, becoming assistant managing editor in 1966 and managing editor in 1971. Simon nurtured talented young reporters such as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and he dubbed informant Mark Felt with the nickname "Deep Throat" in reference to a porn film of the same name. In 1984, he left The Washington Post to serve as curator at The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. He stepped down in 1989 on medical leave, and he died of pancreatic cancer three weeks later.