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Bob Levey on Katharine Graham ~\n\n"If you look back at what Katharine Graham accomplished, it is really, as the kids say, awesome. She built a Fortune 500 company centered around this newspaper. She made it profitable. I ate breakfast today, thanks to Katharine Graham, and the profit sharing plan that she put into place. Thank you, Mrs. Graham."\n\nBob Levey, Washington Post Columnist, Retired and National Champion Bridge Player with Andy Ockershausen in studio interview\n\nAndy Ockershausen:\tThis is Andy Ockershausen. This is Our Town. I keep saying this from time to time, but I mean it. This is very special to me, and for Our Town, to have Bob Levey come back to WMAL, where he starred\n for years and years in radio, but also everything else he did. Bob is an icon in Our Town, of a man that's been around for a long time, and is still active. I'm so very delighted for us to have this chance to talk about what you and I grew up in as radio television. \nBob Levey:\tAndy, I appreciate the chance to be here, but what are we going to do? My ears are burning from that introduction. Do you have a fire extinguisher? \nAndy Ockershausen:\tNo, no money. \nBob Levey:\tWell that's no different from the old WMAL, right? \nAndy Ockershausen:\tThe old WMAL. I used to have the argument all the time about the talent, and I said look, we're not in business to make you money. We're in business to make The Evening Star money to keep \u2018em alive, and we did for a while. \nBob Levey:\tYou did for a long while-\nAndy Ockershausen:\tThat's another story.\nBob Levey:\tIt is a long story, it is another story. \nThe Washington Post - How Bob Levey Became Ben Bradlee's First Hire\nAndy Ockershausen:\tBut you lived through it. You lived through the golden days of The Washington Post, and every day I think about how great The Post has been to Our Town, and to our people. Like it or love it, some people hate The Post, some people love it. But it's been a rock in Our Town. \nBob Levey:\tA lot of people don't understand exactly why it has been a rock in Our Town. It certainly had to do with the unbelievably great Ben Bradlee, whose first hire at The Washington Post, by sheer accident, was me. \nAndy Ockershausen:\tNo way.\nBob Levey:\tYeah. It did happen. \nAndy Ockershausen:\tHe realized he made a mistake.\nBob Levey:\tHere was the story: I had a job interview lined up with J. Russell Wiggins, who was the Editor of The Post, and a couple of weeks out, he said come in on Monday morning at 9 a.m. But over the weekend, President Johnson named him the Ambassador to the United Nations, so this new dude took over at 9 a.m. Monday morning, and he inherited Wiggins' calendar. The first guy he had to see was me. I walked in, and we didn't know quite what to do with each other, so he hired me on the spot. It was the first of a lot of lucky breaks in my life. \nAndy Ockershausen:\tTo think about the great life you had up until then, I mean you were not out of the business. You started at six years old. That's kind of young to start in the journalism business, but you did. Then, when I'm reading about you, Bob, I didn't know ... You grew up in New York-\nFrom Growing Up in New York City to College at University of Chicago\nBob Levey:\tNew York City.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tHigh school and New York in the city. Then, going to the University of Chicago, which, to me, never meant journalism.\nBob Levey:\tThere was no journalism program at the University of Chicago, but on my first day on campus somebody said, "You really ought to check out the student newspaper for two reasons. One, it's a whole lot of fun; and two, there are a whole lot of girls there." I said, "You got the value of this backwards, but I'll show up." That began my serious, absolutely over-caffeinated, overwhelming love for the business. \nAndy Ockershausen:\tYou had not done that in New York. You discovered that at Chicago?\nBob Levey:\tNo, I was too busy being other things when I was in high school.