His parents were Katharine Graham, later a publisher of The Washington Post, and her husband, Philip Graham. His maternal grandmother, was Agnes Meyer. His maternal grandfather, was Eugene Meyer. He bought the bankrupt Post shortly after stepping down as Chairman of the Federal Reserve in mid-1933. Graham's mother had a Jewish father and Lutheran mother and was baptized as a Lutheran but attended an Episcopal church. His father was also a Lutheran. Graham graduated from St. Albans School and then attended Harvard College. In 1965, he was elected president of The Harvard Crimson, the college's breakfast daily. After graduation in 1966, he volunteered for military service and served in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. There "he worked as an information specialist with the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968." From January 1969 to June 1970, Graham joined the Washington Metropolitan Police Department as a patrolman and was sent to the Ninth Precinct in Northeast Washington.
''The Post''
, Graham's maternal grandfather, bought The Washington Post at a bankruptcy sale in 1933. Graham's father was publisher of The Washington Post from 1946 until 1961 and president of the Washington Post Company from 1947 until his death in 1963. Graham's mother, Katharine, was the head of The Washington Post newspaper for more than two decades, overseeing its most famous period, the Watergate coverage that helped bring down President Richard Nixon. She has been widely described as one of the most powerful American women of the 20th century. In 1971, Donald Graham joined The Washington Post as a reporter, and went on to hold various news and business positions at the Post and Newsweek, until it was sold to Jeff Bezos in 2013. He was elected to the board of the company in September 1974 and was made executive vice president and general manager of the Post in 1976. Graham became publisher of The Washington Post in 1979, succeeding his mother, who retained her corporate positions of chairman of the board and CEO of The Washington Post Company. The Company owns the newspaper, as well as the educational services provider Kaplan, Inc., Post-Newsweek Stations, Cable One, Slate magazine, and other smaller companies. Donald Graham became CEO in 1991 and chairman of the company in May 1993, while Katharine Graham assumed the position of chairman of the executive committee of the Washington Post Company. In September 2000, Graham was elected chairman of the newspaper and passed the position of publisher to Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr.
In 1967, Graham married Mary Wissler. Wissler earned a J.D. degree from Georgetown University Law Center and a bachelor's from Harvard-Radcliffe, where they met. She is a research fellow at the Kennedy School's Taubman Center at Harvard focusing on such issues as health and safety regulations. In 2007, they announced that they were separating. They have four children. On June 30, 2012, he married Amanda Bennett, the director of Voice of America, and former executive editor at Bloomberg News, who was in charge of a global team of investigative reporters and editors. His daughter Laura is married to Tim O'Shaughnessy, former CEO of LivingSocial, and current president of Graham Holdings Company.
