During a visit to President Lyndon B. Johnson's Texas ranch in 1964, Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham grew outraged at angry criticism the president directed at the first lady in her presence, and she reminded Johnson that Lady Bird "got you where you are today," writes USA Today opinion writer Robin Gerber in the new book "Katharine Graham: The Leadership Journey of an American Icon."

When Johnson continued lambasting his wife about her planning of his birthday barbecue, writes Gerber, "Katharine erupted. 'Oh, shut up, er ... Mr. President,' she told a chastened Johnson."

That episode, Gerber suggests, indicated that Graham, who had been verbally and physically abused by her husband, the late Phillip Graham, had by that time found new courage with men and a new sense of entitlement to stand up for herself.

"She was under attack, subtle but pernicious, from men on many fronts. Her consciousness of the gender stereotyping underlying her treatment had barely emerged, but after years of Phil's abuse, she could identify the oafish, ungrateful, and sexist behavior of husbands toward wives," Gerber writes.

That incident, which seemed to signal dramatic change in Graham, occurred less than a year after Katharine Graham stepped into the leadership role at the Post after her bipolar husband killed himself.

When Graham assumed the leadership of the Washington Post, the newspaper her father, Eugene Meyer, and her husband had shepherded toward national prominence was a citadel of masculinity.

Where Gerber excels is in her analysis of the factors in Graham's character that enabled her to overcome her insecurities and become a leader capable of making difficult hiring and firing decisions, running the risks inherent in making major acquisitions, attacking sex discrimination within her company and elsewhere and taking on the federal government on matters of principle.

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