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introduced him to West Virginia’s Secretary of State Jay Rockefeller, whom Rosenfield considered a rising political star. Soon, the Buffetts were hosting the Rockefellers for dinner in Omaha; Rockefeller, in turn, introduced Warren to Charles Peters, an idealist whose start-up magazine, the Washington Monthly, seemed like the right national voice to express viewpoints on important ideas. Buffett talked to Gilbert Kaplan, who ran Institutional Investor magazine, to get a handle on magazine publishing.9 Then he wrote to Rockefeller: “You have found my Achilles’ heel. I am a pushover for publishing deals—when I like the product…. I might mention that my enthusiasm for publishing adventures is in exact inverse proportion to my calculated assessment of their financial probabilities.”10

Buffett introduced Fred Stanback and Rosenfield to the idea of investing in the Washington Monthly, warning them that it was unlikely to be a financial table-pounder. But the scandals it might uncover—the ideas it could promote—the minds it could awaken—the exposés it could expose! They put in a little money.11

In short order, the Washington Monthly ran through its initial capital stake. Buffett held out the possibility of another $50,000. Then he and Peters had a fifty-minute phone conversation. And, “Oh God,” says Peters. “As an investment it reeked of the potential for failure. There was his instinct as a hard businessman, and his philanthropic, good-citizen instinct on the other side, and they were clearly at war. He was worried about his business reputation and would come within an inch of pulling out, and I would slowly try to pull him back. Warren kept finding new plausible escape routes, and I tried to block the exits. But the glorious thing was, he ended up staying in.”12 Buffett added the condition that the editors had to put in some of their own money while Peters raised some outside, which Buffett said he would match eighty percent.13

Peters was a better journalist than an accountant. They raised the money; the checks went out; then nobody heard from the Washington Monthly for months. “They just vanished,” says Buffett. “Fred Stanback complained that he was getting IRS forms late, and had to amend his tax returns.”14 Although the Washington Monthly was indeed putting out strong stories—as Buffett had wanted—it wasn’t enough. He had known from the beginning that it would not make money, but he thought it ought to be accountable for the money that it had. He was embarrassed at having drawn Stanback and Rosenfield into a bear hunt. The investors felt they were being treated like bank tellers. Buffett wanted to be a partner in journalism, a fellow newshound, not just the guy who bankrolled idealism.

Yet even with mixed results, Buffett was now pursuing the personal concerns of which he had spoken in his October 1967 letter to his partners. Meanwhile, the market continued to dry up and deprive him of opportunities. Spending part of his time as a publishing magnate was no help in adjusting to that reality. Whatever else occupied him, he remained wholly committed to the partnership, too, and it turned out that a “less compulsive approach” to investing was not in his nature. So he started to figure out the best way to wind down the partnership. He says he received offers from a couple of people to buy the management firm, which would have meant the opportunity to sell at a large profit, but he thought this was not right. It was unusual for a money manager to forgo a large sum of money, even in those days, and so far, Buffett had shown no inclination to avoid getting richer. But he had always stayed on the same side as his partners, harnessing his avarice to their benefit as well as his own. Around Memorial Day 1969, Buffett wrote the partners to tell them that simply lowering his goal hadn’t lessened his intensity:

“If I am going to participate publicly, I can’t help being competitive. I know I don’t want to be totally occupied with outpacing an investment rabbit all my life. The only way to slow down is to stop.”15 And then he delivered