Woodward & Bernstein “polishing” sad obit of late great Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee – dead at 93.
Bradlee died at his home from natural causes.
As editor of the Washington Post he supervised the biggest stories of the 20th cCntury after taking charge of the newsroom in 1965.
When reporters Bob Woodard & Carl Bernstein first brought him the Watergate burglars’ break-in orchestrated by President Richard Nixon’s closest advisors, he defied his publisher to report the truth.
That initial item kicked off The Post’s exhaustive investigation into the break-in and subsequent coverup that led to Nixon’s resignation in disgrace in 1974.
With publisher Katharine Graham’s approval Bradleee also made the decision to publish the controversial Daniel Ellsberg’s “Pentagon Papers” and helped put an end to the war in Viet Nam.
In the film version of the Woodward & Bernstein book “All the President’s Men’ Bradlee was memorably played by Jason Robards, Jr. which garnered the thesp a Best Supporting Oscar in 1976.
Ben, this one’s for you.
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