Ben Bradlee Quotes

It's very hard to stand up to the government which is saying that publication will threaten national security. People don't seem to realize that reporters and editors know something about national security and care deeply about it.

Generals who can write always make me nervous.

Maybe some of today's papers have too many 'feel-good' features, but there is a lot of good news out there.

The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.

The really tough thing would have been to decide to take Woodward and Bernstein off the story. They were carrying the coal for us - in that their stories were right.

The biggest difference between Kennedy and Nixon, as far as the press is concerned, is simply this: Jack Kennedy really liked newspaper people and he really enjoyed sparring with journalists.

The Nixon administration really put a lot of pressure on CBS not to run the second broadcast.

I think he had a strange, passionate devotion to the truth and a horror at what he saw going on.

There will always be leaks; in Washington, everywhere.

Those [Watergate] tapes are going to take me to my grave with a huge smile on my face..

Sure, some journalists use anonymous sources just because they're lazy and I think editors ought to insist on more precise identification even if they remain anonymous.

You never monkey with the truth.

As a child, one looks for compliments. As an adult, one looks for evidence of effectiveness.

National security is a really big problem for journalists, because no journalist worth his salt wants to endanger the national security, but the law talks about anyone who endangers the security of the United States is going to go to jail. So, here you are, especially in the Pentagon. Some guy tells you something. He says that's a national security matter. Well, you're supposed to tremble and get scared and it never, almost never means the security of the national government. More likely to mean the security or the personal happiness of the guy who is telling you something.

I do worry about how newspapers respond to falling circulation figures. I'm not sure that the answer is for newspapers to try to cater to whatever seems to be the fad of the day.

A moment from another world! Imagine a reporter dictating an exclusive story, a lead story, sourced from the President of the United States, from a telephone just off the White House dance floor to the strains of Lester Lanin's dance band.

Cherchez la femme" is good advice for investigative reporters. "Follow the money" is even better advice.

In the perfect world every source could be identified, but like the man said, "It's not a perfect world."

I never believed that Nixon could fully resurrect himself. And the proof of that was in the obits.

I think the conscientious pursuit of happiness by itself can validate decisions to change, to try again, especially when failure to change will lead to lives of duplicity, dishonesty, and deceit.

The first rough draft of history.

I give Cronkite a whole lot of credit.

Our best today; better tomorrow,