The Washington Post Editor, Ben Bradlee, who helped to expose the corruption of Richard Nixon in the Watergate Scandal, and also published the Pentagon Papers in 1971, which exposed the truth of our involvement in Vietnam, died yesterday at the age of 93 of natural causes.
Bradlee was one of the greatest newspaper editors of all time, and made the Washington Post a newspaper competitive with the New York Times.
Bradlee was not afraid to challenge official Washington, DC, and was often threatened by Nixon henchmen, but he was persistent in exposing the truth.
Bradlee hired Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who were rookie reporters who did the underground “dirty work” to develop the story behind the Watergate Break In on June 17, 1972, which brought down a Presidency two years later.
Bradlee did so much for investigative journalism, and will always be remembered for his courage, guts, principle, and long range impact on journalism.
Sadly, however, we will, probably never see his kind again, certainly not in the old system of print journalism!