Ben Bradlee
Benjamin Crowninshield "Ben" Bradlee (born August 26, 1921 in Boston , Massachusetts , † October 21, 2014 in Washington, DC ) was an American journalist . He was the editor-in-chief of the Washington Post .
Life
Ben Bradlee graduated from Harvard University in 1942 . He then married Jean, the daughter of US Senator Leverett Saltonstall . During the Second World War he was a liaison officer in the naval intelligence service . From 1948 he worked for the Washington Post . From 1950 he became friends with the Senator (and later President ) John F. Kennedy . Later he was a member of its campaign committee.
In 1951 Bradlee assisted the American press attaché in Paris . In 1957 he conducted an interview with members of the Algerian liberation organization FLN , which at the time waged a guerrilla war against the French. This interview made him known.
From 1965 to 1991 he was editor-in-chief of the Washington Post . As such, he was also responsible for the publication of the secret Pentagon papers on the Vietnam War (secretly leaked by Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg - which in turn led to the establishment of the illegal "plumbers" of the White House under US President Nixon and later to the Watergate scandal ).
Under his responsibility, the two young reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were able to uncover the Watergate scandal. Although both were actually local reporters, Bradlee prevailed with his position of leaving the Watergate story to the two newbies and not giving it to older reporters who were more experienced. Bradlee was one of four people who knew the true identity of "Deep Throat" ( Mark Felt ) since the story began in the Washington Post .
In 1978 he married the reporter Sally Quinn. In 1995 Bradlee published his memoir (A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures) .
In the film The Untouchables (1976) with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as the reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, which showed the Watergate scandal from the reporter's point of view, Ben Bradlee was portrayed by the actor Jason Robards . Tom Hanks plays him in Die Verlegerin (2017) and Alfred Molina plays him in Der Spitzenkandidat (2018) .
Publications
- Conversations with Kennedy . WW Norton & Co, New York City 1984, ISBN 0-393-30189-3 .
- A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures . Simon & Schuster, New York City 1995, ISBN 0-684-80894-3 .
Web links
- Ben Bradlee in the Internet Movie Database (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bradlee, Ben |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bradlee, Benjamin Crowninshield (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American journalist, Vice President of the Washington Post |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 26, 1921 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Boston , Massachusetts |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 21, 2014 |
| Place of death | Washington, DC |