Simons was born to a Jewish family[1] and raised in Albany, New York, and received a BA from Union College in Schenectady in 1951 and a master's degree a year later from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
[2] According to Carol Felsenthal of Politico Magazine, Simons took the first phone call, on June 18, 1972, from Democratic National Committee general counsel Joseph Califano Jr., about a break-in, the night before, at DNC headquarters at the Watergate complex.
Simons took charge and with help from fellow editors Barry Sussman and Harry Rosenfeld, guided Woodward and Bernstein, and championed the young reporters for what became a national story.
Simons was portrayed by Martin Balsam in All the President's Men, the 1976 film based on Bernstein and Woodward's 1974 book of the same name, depicting the Post's investigation of Watergate.
A well-known quotation attributed to Simons: He stepped down from the Nieman position on May 25, 1989, on medical leave, and succumbed to pancreatic cancer three weeks later, aged 60.