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Title: A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures by Benjamin C. Bradlee ISBN: 0-684-80894-3 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: October, 1995 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (16 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A portrait of interesting times - from the top
Comment: Easily the country's best known newspaper editor (thanks to Watergate, the movie: "All The President's Men"), Ben Bradlee retired in 1991 at age 70, having fulfilled his life's ambition - the transformation of The Washington Post from something of a mess to a paper of stature and influence to rival The New York Times.
In this memoir, Bradlee emerges unapologetically as a cheerful white male born into the power elite, not particularly reflective but aware of his abilities, particularly his aptitude for recognizing talent in others and his willingness to make decisions. Work and ambition were central to his life, even costing him two marriages - although neither marriage ended until the next wife was waiting in the wings.
Bradlee is a reporter rather than a storyteller and the first third of his memoir is guaranteed to irritate those for whom Harvard was not a given and who can't conceive of "scrounging" up $10,000 (in 1946!) to invest in a start-up for a first job in newspapering, in Manchester, N.H.
Given his family and contacts and, yes, hard work, Bradlee's jobs were all interesting but the meat and excitement of the book begin with his friendship with John F. Kennedy. The Bradlees and the Kennedys became Washington neighbors while Kennedy was a senator, Bradlee was beginning to break "out of the herd" at Newsweek magazine and Jackie and Tony Bradlee were pregnant.
As the "foursome" spent many social hours together, the line between friendship, politics, and the big scoop, blurred. Bradlee relates a number of amusing anecdotes, best among them an exclusive on the swap of U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, "sourced from the President of the United States, [dictated] from a telephone just off a White House dance floor." Heady moments indeed.
Then came the assassination. Friendship and profession crashed head-on. And a few months later Bradlee's sister-in-law, Mary Meyer, was murdered. The CIA came looking for her diary. When Bradlee and his wife found it they were shocked to learn Meyer had been conducting a two-year love affair with Kennedy. Interestingly, Bradlee does not speculate on conspiracy theories, with regard to JFK or Mary Meyer.
But Bradlee is sparing with personal detail - incidents aplenty but not a lot of insight. His portrait of Jackie is most poignant for being so sketchy. Her deeply private nature baffled Bradlee and made him nervous. Their friendship faded after the assassination and Jackie never spoke to Bradlee again after he published Conversations With Kennedy in 1975. To this reader it seems obvious that Jackie was deeply offended by Bradlee's exploitation of their private moments but this never seems to occur to him.
However, this nonreflective quality can be valuable in a newspaperman. When the Vietnam war was raging, when his own wife was marching in protest, Bradlee's concern was good stories. "I concentrated on trying to discover what was going on in Vietnam, on trying to determine who was telling the truth about Vietnam, before it occurred to me to find out where I stood myself." New at the helm of the Post, Bradlee wanted "a new Hemingway ...who could explain the drama...in terms of the young soldiers." He found Ward Just.
In addition to assembling a maverick team of "new" journalists in the mid-60s, Bradlee was tireless in improving the production end of the newspaper. And he knew when to sink his teeth into a story and hang on. Watergate is the high point. It came at just the right time for the Post. Bradlee's position was consolidated, his ground work on talent and organization completed.
Bradlee captures the adrenaline-filled days of relentless reporters and the dogged quality the Post encouraged in them. For almost a year the paper was virtually alone in its pursuit of the story, until James McCord's damning admissions vindicated the Post. Gleefully, Bradlee includes scathing personal attacks on him and the Post by Bob Dole, Chuck Colson and prominent republicans everywhere. When a new piece of the puzzle fell into place, "Just the recollection of that discovery makes my heart beat faster, two decades later." And, of course, "People in the know, people in power, were already speaking of The New York Times and The Washington Post in the same breath...."
If this was the high, Janet Cooke's Pulitzer Prize winning story of an 8-year-old heroin adict that turned out to be fiction (1981) was the low. Bradlee explores this debacle as openly as he does the happier lessons of Watergate. Race certainly played its part.
Bradlee, running a major newspaper in a city with a 70 percent black population, had never known a black person, save a Haitian Frenchman in Paris. And he was surrounded by a similarly insulated group of connected white males. "Female Phi Beta Kappa graduates of Seven Sisters colleges who can write the King's English with style don't grown on trees...."
No kidding. But actually Cooke had never graduated from Vassar, much less with honors. The Brahmin background that propelled Bradlee's career from prep school on served him poorly when it came time to include some of the hoi poloi in the editorial mix.
Whatever his faults, Bradlee comes across as scrupulously honest. He doesn't give away any big secrets - you won't discover the identity of Deep Throat, for instance, but "The Good Life," chock full of our time's headiest moments, will fascinate anyone interested in the insider's view of current events and prominent people.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Good Read
Comment: To say Ben Bradlee has had a good life is an understatement. He has led a lucky and extraordinary life.
His book details a fascinating life that was the result of a great deal of luck, perseverance and hard work. Bradlee may have been born into privilege but he had to work hard in the Navy and starting very low in the Newspaper trade. This book shows how luck (a hard rain storm) and timing gave Bradlee the opportunity for a "Good Life/"
I will admit that I have a bit of bias as I am a fan of the Washington Post, but I believe that this book is very revealing to some of the thinking behind some great news stories. The last few chapters in the book concern Watergate, the after affect, decisions on what to publish and why, and his final days at the Post. The two most interesting chapters in the book are the Watergate and the National Security chapters. I think any critics of the Post and Bradlee may read these and understand how hard the Post and Bardlee try to tell the straight stories with little bias.
All in all this is a good book about Bradlee and some of the bigger stories in the U.S. during the second half of the 20th century.
Rating: 5
Summary: I listened to it twice
Comment: Very terse and interesting. You'll be missing a lot if you read it, because he's a great reader. The Kennedy story is affecting, the Watergate story is actually suspenseful. One of the best audiotapes for driving.
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Title: Personal History by Katharine Graham ISBN: 0375701044 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 24 February, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Katharine Graham's Washington by Katharine Graham ISBN: 0375414711 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 22 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Washington by Meg Greenfield, Katharine Graham, Michael R. Beschloss ISBN: 1586481185 Publisher: PublicAffairs Pub. Date: 02 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward ISBN: 0671894412 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 16 June, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Katharine the Great: Katharine Graham and Her Washington Post Empire by Deborah Davis ISBN: 0941781135 Publisher: Acacia Press, Inc. Pub. Date: October, 1991 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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