Ben Bradlee
Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (August 26, 1921 – October 21, 2014) was an American journalist who served as managing editor and later as executive editor of The Washington Post, from 1965 to 1991.[1] He became a public figure when the Post joined The New York Times in publishing the Pentagon Papers and gave the go-ahead for the paper's extensive coverage of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s. He was also criticized for editorial lapses when the Post had to return a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 after it discovered that its award-winning story was false.
For his son, see Ben Bradlee Jr.
Ben Bradlee
October 21, 2014 (aged 93)
Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, D.C., U.S.
Newspaper editor
publication of the Pentagon Papers and reporting the Watergate scandal
Jean Saltonstall
(m. 1942; div. 1956)
Antoinette Pinchot
(m. 1957; div. 1977)
Frederick Josiah Bradlee, Jr.
Josephine de Gersdorff
Second Fleet
After his retirement, Bradlee continued to be associated with the Post, holding the position of Vice President at-large until his death. In retirement, Bradlee was an advocate for education and the study of history, including his role as a trustee on the boards of several major educational, historical, and archaeological research institutions.[1]
Early life and education[edit]
Ben Bradlee was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Frederick Josiah Bradlee, Jr., who was from the Boston Brahmin Bradlee family and who was an investment banker, and Josephine de Gersdorff, daughter of a Wall Street lawyer. His great uncle was Frank Crowninshield, founder and first editor of Vanity Fair.
Bradlee was the second of three children; his siblings were older brother Frederick, a writer and Broadway stage actor,[2] and younger sister Constance. The children grew up in a wealthy family with domestic staff.[3] They learned French from governesses, took piano and riding lessons, and went to the symphony and the opera;[4] but the stock market crash of 1929 cost Bradlee's father his job, and he took on whatever work he could find to support his family, including selling deodorants and molybdenum mining stock "for companies founded and financed by some of his rich pals", according to his son Ben Bradlee. His father's career opportunities improved later, serving as a financial consultant to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and being appointed to the Massachusetts State Parole Board in 1945, of which he was president for ten years until his retirement in 1957.[4][5][6]
With the help of wealthy relatives, Bradlee was able to continue his education at Dexter School, and to finish high school at St. Mark's School, where he played varsity baseball.[3] At St. Mark's he contracted polio, but sufficiently recovered to walk without limping.[3] He attended Harvard College, where his father had been a star football player, and graduated in 1942 with a combined Greek–English major.[4]
World War II service[edit]
Like many of his classmates, Bradlee anticipated the United States would eventually enter World War II and enrolled in the Naval ROTC at Harvard.[4] As a result, he received his naval commission on the same day he graduated. He was assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence, and served as a communications officer in the Pacific. He was assigned to the destroyer USS Philip based off the shore of Guam and arriving at Guadalcanal with the Second Transport Group, part of Task Group 62.4, commanded by Rear Admiral Norman Scott. Bradlee's main battles were Vella Lavella, Saipan, Tinian, and Bougainville. He also fought in the biggest naval battle ever fought, the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines Campaign, in the Borneo Campaign, and made every landing in the Solomon Islands campaign.[7]
Activities and awards after retirement[edit]
Bradlee retired as the executive editor of The Washington Post in September 1991 but continued to serve as vice president at large until his death.[4] He was succeeded as executive editor at the Post by Leonard Downie Jr., whom Bradlee had appointed as managing editor seven years earlier.
In 1991, he was persuaded by then–governor of Maryland William Donald Schaefer to accept the chairmanship of the Historic St. Mary's City Commission and continued in that position through 2003. He also served for many years as a member of the board of trustees at St. Mary's College of Maryland,[1] and endowed the Benjamin C. Bradlee Annual Lecture in Journalism there. He continued to serve as vice chairman of the school's board of trustees.[17]
In 1991, Bradlee delivered the Theodore H. White lecture[18] at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. His message: Lying in Washington, whether in the White House or the Congress, is wrong, immoral, tearing at the fiber of our national instincts and institutions — and must stop. He said, "Lying has reached such epidemic proportions in our culture and among our institutions in recent years, that we've all become immunized to it." He suggested that the deceit was degrading the respect for the truth.
Bradlee had an acting role in Born Yesterday, the 1993 remake of the 1950 romantic comedy.
In 1988, Bradlee received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.[19]
His autobiography, A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures, was published in 1995.
In recognition of his work as editor of The Washington Post, Bradlee won the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism in 1998.[20]
In the fall of 2005, Jim Lehrer interviewed Bradlee for six hours on topics from the responsibilities of the press to Watergate to the Valerie Plame affair. The interviews were edited for an hour-long documentary, Free Speech: Jim Lehrer and Ben Bradlee, which premiered on PBS on June 19, 2006.
On May 3, 2006, Bradlee received a Doctor of Humane Letters from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Prior to receiving the honorary degree, he taught occasional journalism courses at Georgetown. Bradlee received the French Legion of Honor, the highest award given by the French government, at a ceremony in 2007 in Paris.[21]
Bradlee was named as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama on August 8, 2013,[22] and was presented the medal at a White House ceremony on November 20, 2013.
Marriages and children[edit]
Bradlee was married three times. His first marriage was to Jean Saltonstall. Like Bradlee, Saltonstall also came from a wealthy and prominent Boston family.[23] They married on August 8, 1942, the same day Bradlee graduated from Harvard and entered the Navy.[4] They had one son, Ben Bradlee Jr.,[24] who later became first a reporter, then a deputy managing editor at The Boston Globe.[25]
Bradlee and his first wife divorced while he was an overseas correspondent for Newsweek. In 1957, he married Antoinette 'Tony' Pinchot Pittman. Together, they had a son, Dominic, and a daughter, Marina.[4] This marriage also ended in divorce.
Bradlee's final marriage was to The Washington Post reporter Sally Quinn in 1978.[4] Quinn and Bradlee had one child, Quinn Bradlee (born 1982) when Quinn was 40 and Bradlee was 60.