Ben Bradlee

By Tom Kirvan

Harvard-educated Ben Bradlee, executive editor at The Washington Post when the newspaper published a series of articles exposing the Watergate scandal, titled his memoir in fitting terms: “A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures.”

When he died on October 21, 2014 at age 93, Bradlee was remembered as one of the titans of journalism, praised for his transformative role in helping guide The Post to new heights as it went toe-to-toe with the Nixon administration over its coverage of the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate investigation that eventually cost President Richard Nixon his job.

In a May 1973 letter about the paper’s work on the Watergate story, Bradlee wrote: “As long as a journalist tells the truth, in conscience and fairness, it is not his job to worry about the consequences. The truth is never as dangerous as a lie in the long run. I truly believe the truth sets men free.”

Bradlee, the son of an investment banker, was born and raised in Boston and began his career in journalism at The New Hampshire Sunday News. He joined The Post and Newsweek in 1948, spending four years (1953-57) as a foreign correspondent with the weekly magazine’s Paris bureau before becoming its Washington bureau chief. In 1965, Bradlee rejoined The Post as managing editor and became executive editor in 1968 just as U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War turned into a political flashpoint on college campuses from coast to coast.

Ben Bradlee*

Four year later, Bradlee presided over the paper’s coverage of the Watergate break-in, a bungled burglary at the Democratic National Headquarters that made household names of Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who unraveled a criminal conspiracy involving the 1972 election and a cover-up that led back to the inner circle of the White House. Their work, and Bradlee’s role in overseeing the investigative series, became the stuff of journalistic legend in book and movie form, “All the President’s Men.”

“It changes your life, the pursuit of the truth,” Bradlee said. “You never monkey with the truth.”

As a longtime mentor to many young journalists, Bradlee also offered this piece of career advice: “The real spiel I have for you is to have a good time while you are in your jobs. Have a good time. The newspaper will be great if you’re having a good time.”

*John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons