Ben Bradlee had, by all accounts, an eventful life at the helm of The Washington Post, and as a result he was a frequent subject for other publications. Stories by and about him from various decades illuminate not only what made Bradlee tick as a newsman, but also his enormous and enduring impact on journalism. Beyond the lengthy obituaries, these must-reads from a long life in newspapers show us Bradlee busy reinvigorating an old publication, wrestling the Pentagon Papers and Watergate, and recounting his life through documents and anecdotes.
1969
Bradlee reinvigorated the Post’s feature section with his own sensibilities. Noted by The Washington Post, “Nothing pleased Bradlee more than a piece that nailed the corrupt, pricked a narcissist, uncovered a creep, exposed a phony, felled a climber and really told it like it was,” Martha Sheyrill, a former Style writer, recounts.
1971
The release of the Pentagon Papers and stepping toe to toe with the US government was a key moment in Bradlee’s career at the helm of The Washington Post. For our September/October 1971 issue, CJR asked Bradlee, together with editors at The Boston Globe and The New York Times about their decision to publish the documents and being enjoined by the government.
1973
While Watergate was still unfolding, CJR’s July/ August 1973 cover story explored how The Washington Post developed its investigations into the scandal. The story leads with an anecdote about Bradlee, and other Post staffer’s, reactions as political heads started rolling: “For a split second, Ben Bradlee’s mouth dropped open with an expression of sheer delight.”
1995
Four years after retiring as executive editor of The Post, Bradlee recounted a life in newspapers in his 1995 autobiography A Good Life: Newspapering and other Adventures, which was chronicled in tweets by the Post’s Carlos Lozada following the news of Bradlee’s passing.
When the book was published in 1995, a New York Times review noted, “Mr. Bradlee is nothing if not likable: honest, enthusiastic, unpretentious and willing to play the fool even to the point of revealing how as a Harvard undergraduate he was once involved in a mild car collision while intoxicated and wearing ‘a hula costume, complete with black wig, plus falsies under a Hawaiian shirt, and a grass skirt.’”
2012
In Bradlee’s 2012 interview with his wife, Sally Quinn on life, destiny and God, she asks “How would you like to be remembered?” His reply: “To leave a legacy of honesty, and I guess to live a life as close to the truth as I can.”
2012
Journalist Jeff Himmelman, who had worked closely with both Ben Bradlee and reporter Bob Woodward, published his Bradlee autobiography in 2012, Yours in Truth: A Personal Portrait of Ben Bradlee. The biography caused some controversy by highlighting Bradlee’s occasional doubts about Woodward and his Deep Throat source, although its critical stance also earned the book praise. A New York Magazine excerpt of the biography tells Himmelman’s story of gaining access to piles of Bradlee’s old documents and letters: “Then Ben mentioned that he had a bunch of boxes in storage someplace and had no idea what was in them. ‘Would you like to look at those?’ he asked. ‘I would love to look at those,’ I said.”
2014
Amidst a flurry of tributes from around the media world to Bradlee, the cornerstone of the Post’s coverage is a sweeping account of Bradlee’s life, from World War II, to convincing The Post to buy Newsweek, and his friendship with John F. Kennedy.
The Editors are the staffers of the Columbia Journalism Review.