Ben Bradlee (1921–2014)

Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (born August 26, 1921) is the vice president of The Washington Post. As executive editor of the Post from 1968 to 1991, he became a national figure during the Presidency of Richard Nixon, when he challenged the federal government over the right to publish the Pentagon Papers and oversaw the publication of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's stories documenting the Watergate scandal. A member of the Boston Brahmin Crowninshield family, Bradlee was born in Boston, Massachusetts August 26, 1921. Bradlee married Jean Saltonstall, and received his naval commission two hours after graduating from Harvard in 1942. After the war, in 1946, Bradlee became a reporter at the New Hampshire Sunday News, a venture he helped launch. In 1948 he started working for The Washington Post as a reporter. He got to know associate publisher Philip Graham, who was the son-in-law of Eugene Meyer, publisher of the newspaper. In 1951 Graham helped Bradlee become assistant press attaché in the American embassy in Paris, France. As a reporter in the 1950s, Bradlee became close friends with then-Senator John F. Kennedy, who lived nearby. In 1960 he toured with both Kennedy and Richard Nixon in their presidential campaigns. He later wrote a book, Conversations With Kennedy (W.W. Norton, 1975), recounting their relationship during those years. Bradlee was, at this point, Washington Bureau chief for Newsweek, a position from which he helped negotiate the sale of the magazine to the Washington Post holding company. Bradlee maintained that position until being promoted to managing editor at the Post in 1965. He became executive editor in 1968 and married fellow journalist Sally Quinn in 1978. Bradlee retired as executive editor in September 1991, but continues to serve as (Vice President At Large) of the paper.