Remembering Ben Bradlee

Ben Bradlee was the kind of quintessential newspaper editor, complete with crisp shirt and rolled up sleeves, who you’d find in the movies. During his 26-years at the helm of The Washington Post, his fierce support, with publisher Katharine Graham, of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s reporting on the Watergate break-in led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. The Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for that reporting—one of many the paper would receive during his tenure there. Bradlee died yesterday at the age of 93. He spoke with Leonard in September 1995 about his career as a newspaperman and about his memoir, A Good Life.

He told Leonard, "I like white collar crime, I have a special place in my heart for that."

Bradlee also talked about some of the things that make a newspaper strong. He said "The first requirement for a good editor is the good owner." He added that the owners have to support editors and, more important, they  be liberal with spending money on them.

Although The Washington Post wasn't the first to publish the Pentagon Papers in 1971, the paper still suffered fallout. "The Nixonian people challenged [The Washington Post's] ownership of three television stations, repeatedly, as punishment for publishing the Pentagon Papers. Stakes were high."

On Jacqueline Kennedy, Bradlee said, "I think she was OK with me as a friend, but not as a journalist. She thought I was a threat to her equanimity."