Jeff Himmelman’s book,Yours in Truth: A Personal Portrait of Ben Bradlee,debuted last month to much fanfare and a certain amount of controversy. Here, the author digs through his files to find his favorite zingers from the mind and pen of his feisty subject.
Over the four years that I spent with former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee—often buried in his archives, but also sitting with him in his office or at his dinner table—I always enjoyed his verbal style, which blends the high and the low in a way that only Ben can pull off. As his secretary, Carol Leggett, once put it, “Ben hits the nail on the head.” It’s part of what makes being around him so much fun. Assembled below are some of my favorite moments of his, some of which made the book and some of which didn’t. The best make you laugh and think at the same time. (Leggett’s favorite story: her son met with Ben once for some advice, and after their long meeting was over, Ben told her son, for all of The Post’s seventh floor to hear: “Keep your pecker up.”)
1*. To a newspaper publisher who called him “arrogant”:*
To the Publisher:
Editors do run the risk of appearing arrogant if they choose to disagree with anybody who calls them arrogant.
You sound like one of those publishers who aims to please his pals in the community and give them what they want.
No one will call you arrogant that way. No one will call you newspaperman, either.
- From the close of a letter to his friend Peter Wyden, whom he addressed as “Manny,” in June 1973, right after The Posthad won the Pulitzer Prize for its Watergate reporting (he’s giving Wyden shit):
. . . Where are you big? You understand, of course, that I am big everywhere.
Yours in truth,
- From Tom Lippman, Postreporter, at Ben’s retirement roast in thePostnewsroom, July 31, 1991:
I had become a sort of freelance guru on style and grammar and usage for people around the newsroom. One day I had an almost hesitant, almost blushing visit from Debbie Regan, who many of you will remember . . . was Ben’s secretary at the time. Ben had been dictating a letter on that little tape recorder, I guess, which Debbie had to transcribe, and she came over to my desk looking extremely uncomfortable.
She hemmed and hawed a little bit and she said, “Look, I have to ask you something.”
I said, “Yeah, what is it, Debbie?”
She said, “Is ‘dickhead’ one word or two?”
- From a letter to George Crile, February 22, 1985:
If I could give you a piece of advice, one which I did not follow after [a long lawsuit] but which I wish I had followed, it is simply this: Don’t gloat; understand this key thought of Albert Camus—“There is no truth, only truths”; and get on with it.
- From a letter of reference, September 21, 1976:
Now as to the practicalities, on an urgent basis call Ken Johnson of the Dallas Times Herald. He is the editor and was the night managing editor there. Tell him that I suggested you call. Tell him that you have this letter from me. Show it to him. He’ll understand that it is a letter of recommendation, because I don’t fuck around with young people who don’t interest me.
- Ben to me in his office at The Post in mid-2007, of a certain social-climbing couple in D.C.:
Me: What do you think of them?
Ben: I always got the sense that she was a real ball breaker . . . and that the balls that she had broken were his. 7. To Howard Bray, about the strike at The Postin 1975–6:
We’re talking about a bunch of criminals who slash tires and smash presses and hit women over the head with two-by-fours. I have no lint left in my navel for that.
- Ben to me, November 5, 2008, describing Ernest Lindley, who used to (basically) run the D.C. bureau ofNewsweek*:*
A great bearded asshole.
- Mary Hadar, editor of the Style section, once presented a long profile to Ben right before he left for the night. When he came in the next morning, he told her that it was too long, and that she needed to cut it in half:
“Run it in two parts,” he told her.
“Ben, you can’t just take the story and cut it into two parts. It has arc. It has development.”
He said, “Yes, you can.”
She said, “How?”
And he took it, ripped it in half, and said, “Like that.”
- From an interview between Ben and Scotty Reston, the former D.C. bureau chief of The New York Timesand a journalistic institution in his own right, December 18, 1989:
They were talking about “cablese,” where you used as few words as you could to convey a message on the old cable/wire system. One guy was taking too much crap from the home office, and finally wrote in from Tokyo: “Upstick job asswards.”
- From Ben’s handwritten “editor’s rules”:
No. 6: Pick your fights. Don’t duck ’em, but don’t fight second-rate opponents.
- Of his journalistic mission:
I really wanted to get The Post out of the “cause” business. I asked Katharine Graham to split the editorial page off, so no one could accuse me of whatever the fucking editorial policy was. It wasn’t in me to preach. I can say somebody's a horse’s ass, but I can’t tell people what to do.
- Whenever people around Ben are worried about something that he doesn’t think is overly important, he will often say, as a way of providing context:
When the history of the world is written, this will not be in it.
- Ben to Mort Zuckerman, recommending a friend:
She has run into a roadblock of someone else’s making here and is casting about for something interesting and challenging. I’m not sure you qualify as either interesting or challenging, but I think your businesses do . . .
- From This Week with David Brinkley, January 10, 1982:
Brinkley: Ben, you quit smoking?
Ben: I did. May 25th, 1975.
Brinkley: You take some pride in it, I gather?
Ben: I do, and I’ve been trying to get you to quit for a long time. If you had any guts, you’d do it.
Brinkley: [ending show] Thank you very much, our time is up. . . .
- Speech, April 30, 1990:
There really isn’t enough time in the day to convene a task force on every little decision. If you’re publishing 140,000 words five times a day you’ve got to decide. And you’ve got to get it off the table and get on to the next one before you go crazy. You’ll never go home and you won’t be in any shape when you get home.
- On the importance of respecting the ownership of whatever publication you happen to be working for:
One of the lessons I learned in journalism is that you don't argue with the A shares.
- Ben at Columbia Journalism School graduation, May 2007:
The real spiel I have for you is to have a good time while you are in your jobs. Have a good time. The newspaper will be great if you’re having a good time.
[It’s the only real part of his speech that gets spontaneous applause.]
- In 1984, after The Post published information about a satellite payload over protests from Reagan Administration officials, a number of people wrote in questioning Ben’s patriotism, suggesting he worked for the Kremlin, et cetera. One writer in particular pushed Ben’s buttons by asking, “What did you do during WWII?” This is Ben’s response, said to be among Kay Graham’s favorites:
Dear Asshole:
I suspect I did more for my country in the war than you did. I spent four years in destroyers in the Pacific Ocean. My theater ribbon has 10 battle stars in it.
That’s just for starters.
- From a letter dated May 30, 1973:
As long as a journalist tells the truth, in conscience and fairness, it is not his job to worry about consequences. The truth is never as dangerous as a lie in the long run. I truly believe the truth sets men free.