UT archives add Woodward and Bernstein collection for 5 mil

Mielke liked what he saw, and soon Horowitz had successfully brokered a deal that was offered only to the University of Texas. The pair would get $5 million and give the university $500,000 to care for the papers and hold symposiums. The $5 million price tag, which private donors covered, made it one of the largest purchases of its kind in U.S. history, especially for the works of living writers. At a dinner before the sale was announced in April 2003, Harry Middleton, former director of the Lyndon Johnson presidential library based on the Texas campus, turned to Bernstein, now gray, and Woodward, graying at the temples, both noticeably thicker than when they helped topple a president three decades ago. Neither man was yet sixty, but they were damn close. "He looked at Bob and Carl and said that they must now understand, as they enter their seventh decade, that they are as much a part of the story of Watergate and historical record as any of the people they reported on," said Horowitz. "In many ways, that was a humbling moment for them. They had entered a different sphere of the public consciousness."