Howard Simons

He stepped down from the Nieman position on May 25, 1989, on medical leave, and succumbed to pancreatic cancer three weeks later, aged 60.

Simons authored Jewish Times: Voices of the American Jewish Experience, (Houghton-Mifflin, 1988), and Simons' List Book (1977). He edited two books with Joseph A. Califano, Jr., The Media and the Law and The Media and Business, and in 1986 wrote a spy novel with Haynes Johnson called The Landing.

Simons left The Post for a position as Curator at The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University in 1984.

Simons was portrayed by Martin Balsam in All the President's Men, the 1976 film based on Bernstein and Woodward's 1974 book of the same name, depicting the Post's investigation of Watergate. He was later played by David Cross in the 2017 film The Post.

According to Carol Felsenthal of Politico Magazine, Simons took the first phone call, on June 18, 1972, from Democratic National Committee general counsel Joseph Califano Jr., about a break-in, the night before, at DNC headquarters at the Watergate complex. Simons took charge and with help from fellow editors Barry Sussman and Harry Rosenfeld, guided Woodward and Bernstein, and championed the young reporters for what became a national story.

Simons was born to a Jewish family and raised in Albany, New York, and received a BA from Union College in Schenectady in 1951 and a master's degree a year later from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. After service in the Korean War, he became a science reporter in Washington for several news organizations, and joined The Post as a science writer in 1961. He became assistant managing editor in 1966 and managing editor in 1971.

Howard Simons (June 3, 1929 – June 13, 1989) was the managing editor of The Washington Post at the time of the Watergate scandal, and later curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.