[1] After receiving a degree in English and history from Brooklyn College in 1956, Sussman worked for a New York City advertising agency.

[3] While initially a close supervisor of the journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein involved in the Post's coverage of Watergate, Sussman later became estranged from them.

In the 1990s, he became active as an international news media consultant, with assignments at newspapers in Spain, Portugal and seven Latin American countries.

[11] Sussman is one of the journalists profiled at Investigating Power,[12] a website covering events in recent American history.

[22] He is also the author of What Americans Really Think, published by Pantheon in 1988, based on columns he wrote while pollster and public opinion analyst at The Washington Post, and Maverick: A Life in Politics, written with and about the former U.S.