Talk:Ben Bradlee

Text of memo cited in Davis 1987
Date: 12/13/52

To: MR. LANE

From: MR. MARAN

Subject: Rosenberg case

On December 13, 1952 a Mr. Benjamin Bradlee called and informed me that he was Press Attache with the American embassy in Paris, that he had left Paris last night and arrived here this morning. He advised me that he was a former Federal Court Reporter for the Washington Post and that he was sent here to look at the Rosenberg file in order to answer the Communist propaganda about the Rosenberg case in the Paris newspapers.

He advised me that it was an urgent matter and that he had to return to Paris Monday night. He further advised that he was sent here by Robert Thayer, who is the head of the C.I.A. in Paris. His phone number here was Rhinelander 4-2595.

After conferring with you I advised Mr. Bradlee that before we could allow him to examine the file in the Rosenberg case, we would have to get clearance from the Department of Justice in Washington.

He stated that he was supposed to have been met by a representative of the C.I.A. at the airport but missed connections.

He has been trying to get in touch with Allen Dulles but has been unable to do so. I advised him to call the State Department in Washington, and to have them get the Department of Justice in Washington to get clearance for us to allow him to look at the Rosenberg file.

Mr. Bradley advised me that he would probably call you first to find out if he could look at the matters in the file which were public record, and if not would follow my suggestion about calling the C.I.A. or the State Department in Washington.

[ Handwritten addendum: ] 12/13/52 Mr. Bradlee displayed his credentials and desired to look thru the official public record of the trial. Mr. Maran brought it up. Mr. Bradlee worked on the record from 2:30 - 6:30.

To me this says he was a Press Attache. He knew people in the CIA, and they were (supposed to be) helping him. Rich  Farmbrough 19:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Text of Bradlee letter to Davis
To: Ms. Deborah Davis

I worked for the USIA as the Press Attache of the United States Embassy, in the early 1950's. I never worked for the CIA. I never participated in a "CIA propaganda campaign."

I traveled to New York to read the transcript of the Rosenberg trial over one weekend. I return and dictated a 30,000 word witness-by-witness account of the crime. This account was translated into French and distributed to the French press under my name, I believe, as the Press Attache of the Embassy.

I was "the embassy's expert on the case," primarily because all delegations of protest were sent to me, and I at least had read the transcript.

I would like to be sure you understand. I have never worked for the CIA. I have never had any role in the "the CIA's propaganda campaign" and all of the allegations about my association with people in the CIA are as false today as they were when you wrote them.

Benjamin C. Bradlee

This is Bradlee's response to Deborah Davis's 1987 version of Katharine the Great. Please do not archive this. Discussion will follow below.Rgr09 (talk) 15:47, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Misquote?
"But if you look at the phenomena Wikipedia, for example..."

Should this be "Phenomenon" ??

Why the emphasis on ancestry?
Odds are I am a descendant of Charlemagne, too. A huge portion of this entry is devoted to the man's ancestry, yet it has nothing at all to do with his achievements or any reason he might be included in an encyclopedia. I don't think it belongs here, but if it does, it can be covered in a sentence, rather than several grafs.Goateeki (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:29, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

There appears to be a combination of problems with this article having to do with a family member contributing original research. All three of these policies appear to be violated in the history of this article. Blp No original research Conflict_of_interest

There's a lot in this article that is not documented. I am going to start flagging what's not documented and if documentation does not appear within reasonable time,removing the unsourced material.Skywriter (talk) 02:19, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Deep Throat
More than four people knew Deep Throat's identity: Deep_Throat. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.178.27.51 (talk) 22:07, August 27, 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 15:07, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Serious problems with this article
Isn't it a bit strong to say he "fought" in those battles? After all, he was a Navy commo officer.

Also, what has the Washington Post done to pursue scandals after Watergate? When Democrat presidents were involved in scandals, such as Clinton's or Obama's fairy tales about Benghazi, the Post has been decidedly uninterested. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.49.20.187 (talk) 04:30, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

These two books were listed as ones he wrote:
 * That Special Grace
 * The Ambush Murders

He did not. But he wrote others that are not listed.

A family member of Bradlee appears to be contributing original research to this article that can not be verified. I have added requests for citations. Skywriter (talk) 03:25, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I have removed the following from this article because it has not been confirmed. I believe it to have been added by a relative of Ben C. Bradlee and the reason for this removal is WP:OR If anyone wants to look for proper citations, and verify that there are sources for this material, it can be added back in. At the moment, it is unsourced and has been that way for a long time. Skywriter (talk) 10:55, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

His father was Frederick Josiah Bradlee Jr., who was on the first All American football team, which was at Harvard; he played football all four years from 1942–1945. He is a direct descendant of John Bradley, who was the first of the Bradleys to come to America and helped build what is now Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1630. There are three sources stating that the Bradlees are responsible for the planning and execution of the Boston Tea Party; and Sarah Bradlee, who later became Sarah Bradlee Fulton, is remembered as the Mother of the Boston Tea Party. One of the references is at Ancestry.com. Bradlee attended Harvard College, where he majored in classical Greek, was a mere member of the AD Club, a prominent final club, joined Naval ROTC, and was and remains part of Grant's longitudinal psychological study. Bradlee's mother, Josephine deGersdorff, was awarded the Legion of Honor for helping keep children safe from Nazi Germany and France during World War II. Josephine's father, Carl deGersdorff, was a wealthy New York lawyer. A great-grand-uncle was Joseph Hodges Choate, who was an American lawyer and the American ambassador to Great Britain from 1899–1905, and a grand-uncle was Francis (Frank) Welch Crowninshield, who was the creator and editor of Vanity Fair.

Bradlee joined the Office of Naval Intelligence and worked as a communications officer in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. His duties included handling classified and coded cables. The main ship on which Bradlee served was a destroyer, the USS Philip (DD-498). He fought off the shores of Guam and arrived at Guadalcanal with the Second Fleet; his main battles were Vella Lavella, Saipan, Tinian, and Bougainville. He also fought in the biggest naval battle ever fought, the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. He made every landing in the Solomon Islands campaign and Philippines campaign.

More on ancestry
I was doing work on other members of this family, and came up with a different connection to the Crowninshield family. The one given in the article did not have citations. But I now think both are right; that is, he was connected through both parents who were something like third cousins by my calculation. My approach is to mention if they are related to others who are notable enough to have an article on Wikipedia, but unsourced stories about the Boston Tea Party would really need citations. I will try to work on it. W Nowicki (talk) 20:16, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Empty Sections
The following sections have no content. They should either be given substantial content or removed.


 * Ancestry


 * Patrilian_Descent


 * Choate_Lineage


 * Putnam_Lineage

I will watch this page, and if nothing is done to remedy this within a week or two, I will delete these sections.

Personally, I have doubts that this stuff is of general interest and should be in an encyclopedia anyway. I agree with the comments above that question whether his ancestry (and I would include his educational ancestry) are appropriate for such an article. Bill Jefferys (talk) 01:47, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Photo needed
The article needs a photo. Cliffswallow-vaulting (talk) 03:38, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: consensus to move the page to Ben Bradlee, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 00:42, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Benjamin C. Bradlee → Ben Bradlee – WP:COMMONNAME states: Wikipedia prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources) as such names will be the most recognizable and the most natural. I don't feel there is a reasonable claim that "Benjamin C. Bradlee" is more recognizable or more natural than "Ben Bradlee". Google News Archive search results: 1. Ben Bradlee, ~10,000 hits. 2. Benjamin C. Bradlee, ~60 hits. See Bill Clinton. ‑‑ Mandruss (t) 02:50, 22 October 2014 (UTC) UPDATE FROM NOMINATOR: With all the news reaction to his passing, the above-stated hit counts are already greatly out of date after less than a day. Suffice it to say that the news search results currently favor "Ben Bradlee" about 119-to-1. Stated differently, that's about 99.1%. ‑‑ Mandruss  &#9742;  01:42, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Support as the common name, and RIP Mr. Bradlee :( --Yaksar (let's chat) 03:23, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose Mr. Bradlee was a newspaper executive, not a pop star. His name is not a household word in any case.  Thankfully, we do not need to rely on Google to determine the relative popularity of searches for him.  'Ben Bradlee' is a redirect to this article, which prior to recent news received an average of 50 hits per day.  This page has received an average of 250 hits per day.  The redirect is quite adequate to get searchers to this page, and is unlikely to require disambiguation in the future.   Dwpaul   Talk   12:34, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment Please note that this page was created using the subject's full name in January 2004, and in the intervening 10+ years has accumulated about 200 links in mainspace that should be updated if the page is moved.  Dwpaul  Talk   13:59, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
 * It's unnecessary to change redirects. They're fine as they are. That's why we have redirects. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:40, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
 * 1. COMMONNAME applies to newspaper executives as well as pop stars. It even applies to former presidents of the United States, as per the Bill Clinton example. 2. COMMONNAME applies whether a person's name is a household word or not. 3. It's worth noting that the search results are from Google News Archive, not simple Google Search. 4. COMMONNAME is about the appropriate article title, not about difficulty of finding the article. So "the redirect is quite adequate to get searchers to this page" is not a valid argument. 5. What Necrothesp said. &#8209;&#8209; Mandruss  &#9742;  20:19, 22 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Support. Common name, overwhelmingly. Current title looks pompous. Rothorpe (talk) 13:41, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:40, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Support per WP:COMMONNAME. --В²C ☎ 17:56, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Support, that's the name used to widely report his death in the media. WWGB (talk) 02:01, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Support per COMMONNAME--天下文章一大抄 (talk) 02:02, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Support per commonname. -- Calidum  15:12, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Support per WP:COMMONNAME. I was going here to propose this myself anyway. Adding to the Bill Clinton example, we also have Jimmy Carter. HandsomeFella (talk) 08:30, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Family tree
It's well known that Bradlee had three other children by his two prior marriages. There was even a little flare-up when Sally scheduled Quinn's marriage for the same date as Ben B Jr's daughter. Why have they been edited out of the family tree? http://www.mediaite.com/print/sally-quinn-loses-washington-post-column-after-wedding-drama/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.99.2.181 (talk) 12:00, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

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Controversy?
This section needs to be streamlined and given a point, otherwise it's just ridiculous conspiracy mongering and should be deleted. What substantive point of evidence in the trial would have been affected by knowledge of the diary? The article needs a brief (one sentence) précis of the trial, the actual charges, and the reason why the diary was important. Without those items of context there really isn't a "controversy" just a lot of smoke being blown. The whole article reads like two sets of editors have been working on it, one set who thinks ancestry is really important and the other set who thinks that money and privilege automatically spell corruption, which then just has to be winkled out, or barely alleged. Theonemacduff (talk) 03:36, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Government work section
This section covers the claims of Deborah Davis in Katharine the Great, even up to legal proceedings over the book. I am moving it to the "Controversy" section. There are many problems with the section that I will begin work on ASAP Rgr09 (talk) 01:00, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Controversies section I
Most of the material in the first part of this section is straight out of Davis's KTG. Reviews of KTG were uniformly negative. It is not a reliable work and should not be used. There should therefore be no need to fact check Davis, but I will offer a few comments on this below. The original article text is given first, then comments and reasons for revision below.


 * In 1952 Bradlee joined the staff of the Office of U.S. Information and Educational Exchange (USIE), the embassy's propaganda unit. USIE produced films, magazines, research, speeches, and news items for use by the CIA throughout Europe. USIE (later known as USIA) also controlled the Voice of America, a means of disseminating pro-American "cultural information" worldwide.
 * This is Davis. Davis says that Bradlee came in as a press attache in 1951 then switched to USIE, which she claims is a propaganda unit. The implication is that he switched jobs, and now perhaps works for the CIA. Bradlee's autobiography gives a detailed description of how he got the press attache gig. He makes no mention of a change in position. I checked the Foreign Service Registers and DOS Biographic Registers for this period. Bradlee was USIE from 1951 to 1953. Davis is wrong.
 * The text states that USIE was producing material for use by the CIA. This is Davis again. She offers no source for this. This is a frequent criticism in KTG reviews; her text is mostly undocumented.
 * The passage is also in error on the Voice of America, which was controlled by the State Department until USIA was established. In any case, Bradlee did not work for VOA. The only real content here on Bradlee is thus wrong. I have simply dropped the passage.
 * What really needs to be given here is the background to this particular controversy. I have added this in using Radosh and Milton's book The Rosenberg File. Davis was aware of this book and interviewed Radosh, but did a poor job of explaining the background in her book. The article text does an even poorer job. Rgr09 (talk) 15:51, 6 June 2020 (UTC)


 * While at the USIE, according to a Justice Department memo from an assistant U.S. attorney in the Rosenberg Trial, Bradlee was helping the CIA manage European propaganda regarding the spying conviction and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on June 19, 1953.


 * The memo, addressed to U.S. Attorney Myles Lane and dated December 13, 1952, states that "[Mr. Bradlee] further advised that he was sent here by Robert Thayer, who is the head of the CIA in Paris ... he stated that he was supposed to have been met by a representative of the CIA at the airport but missed connections" and that "he has been trying to get in touch with [CIA Director] Allen Dulles."


 * The handling of the memo here is poor on many accounts. First, the memo has been cookie-cuttered to support Davis's claims. Its full text is given at the top of the talk page. Compare the two. Second, lengthy citation of primary sources leaves the article open to lengthy expansion. If there is a point to all this, it will take a LOT of writing to make it clear. Davis's point in citing the memo does does not require that it be quoted at all. Give the location of the memo and Davis's discussion in her book and let the reader decide. By the way, the link to Namebase for the text is NOT appropriate. Third, the quote is dumped in without any preparation; who is bringing in the memo? when is it brought in? Why is it brought in? Cite Davis first, then quote, if quote you must. Note, also, that it is certain that Radosh, cited in the article now, was the one who first noted Bradlee's work on the Rosenberg case. Although the cite is to the 1997 revision of his book, it originally appeared in the 1983 edition.


 * This memorandum was cited as evidence of Bradlee's CIA connections by author Deborah Davis in her 1979 biography of Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, Katharine the Great: Katharine Graham and her Washington Post Empire. Graham and Bradlee, in a controversial action that drew widespread accusations of censorship, demanded and obtained the recall of the book by Davis's publisher, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, which first disavowed the book, and then recalled and shredded 20,000 copies.


 * This is all wrong. I have replaced this with an accurate description of which edition the Rosenberg claims appears in and how THAT edition came to be withdrawn. KTG 1979 mentioned the Rosenbergs on only one page, which merely mentions the case's effects on Carl Bernstein's parents.


 * Davis subsequently won a judgment against her publisher, however, and the Justice Department memorandum that formed the primary basis for her claims regarding Bradlee's CIA affiliation was never disavowed, even by Bradlee himself. It appeared in two subsequent editions of Davis's book without challenge and was cited by author Carol Felsenthal, in her 1999 book Power, Privilege, and The Post: The Katharine Graham Story.


 * I have copied the letter Bradlee wrote to Davis at the top of the talk page. This was published in KTG 1987 and KTG 1991. How does this not count as a disavowal? Did the editor who wrote this passage read the book? I don't get it.


 * Guardian obituary
 * I have left this in without much change, except to point out that ALL this (and more!) comes from Davis. How do we know? Writer Christopher Reed mentions Operation Mockingbird. This obituary is exhibit number one for discussions on whether The Guardian is a reliable source. Rgr09 (talk) 12:12, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Bradlee career and marriages
There are many issues with the article's description of Bradlee's career and family/marriages. I will try here to keep track of changes I have made to this part of the article. Note that Bradlee's autobiography A Good Life (GL) has detailed information on all of this. (What a surprise.) I have read some but not all of it. It is actually a strong source for the article, subject of course to the due caution needed for personal apologias. For now, however, I am sticking mostly to what was in the many newspaper obituaries of Bradlee, checking these against Bradlee's version when something is unclear. Please comment or correct me if I am wrong. Rgr09 (talk) 06:12, 8 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Phil Graham 'helped' Bradlee get the position of press attache at U.S. Embassy in Paris.
 * The source cited is NYT obit; no such claim is made there. GL has detailed description, not needed here, keep a simple description of his jobs. Rgr09 (talk) 06:18, 8 June 2020 (UTC)


 * In 1957, while working as a reporter for Newsweek, Bradlee created controversy when he interviewed members of the FLN. They were Algerian guerrillas who were in rebellion against the French government at the time.
 * According to Deborah Davis, author of the Katharine Graham biography Katharine the Great, this had all the "earmarks of an intelligence operation". As a result of these interviews, Bradlee was forced to leave France.
 * Source is Guardian obit. As noted above, this is based on Davis book, which is not reliable. It is not mentioned in other newspaper obits. GL has a description of the incident, which naturally does not include him sleuthing for CIA. He also says that in the end he was not expelled from France. I have removed for now, until other sources than GL and Davis are available. Rgr09 (talk) 06:36, 8 June 2020 (UTC)


 * While based in France, Bradlee divorced his first wife and married Antoinette Pinchot in 1957. Their son Dominic "Dino" Bradlee married writer Leslie Marshall. At the time of the marriage, Antoinette's sister, Mary Pinchot Meyer, was married to Cord Meyer, a key figure in Operation Mockingbird, a CIA program to influence the media. Antoinette Bradlee was also a close friend of Cicely d'Autremont, who was married to CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton. Bradlee became friends with Angleton  but the two allegedly parted ways after the October 12, 1964, murder of Bradlee's sister-in-law Mary Pinchot Meyer, whose CIA connections and romantic ties to the late President John F. Kennedy made her death the object of intense scrutiny. Bradlee and Angleton gave conflicting accounts of the events surrounding the search for and disposition of the diary in which Pinchot Meyer recorded her affair with Kennedy.
 * Temporarily removed this section. I will restore to two place: to the new section on Bradlee's marriages and children, and to the controversy section on the Pinchot-Meyer diary issue. Operation Mockingbird does not belong in this article at all. Rgr09 (talk) 06:46, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Controversies section II
The second part of the controversies section is a critique of Bradlee's failure to mention his handling of Mary Pinchot Meyer's diary at the trial of her accused murderer. There are again many problems here. First, it is one of the longest sections in the article; this is clearly undue weight. Second, most of it comes from Peter Janney's book Mary's Mosaic, which is not a reliable source. I will revise to shorten and switch sourcing to Nina Burleigh's biography of Pinchot Meyer, a much better source than Janney. Rgr09 (talk) 01:52, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Original text and reasons for revision given below:
 * Bradlee has drawn criticism from Pinchot Meyer biographers Nina Burleigh and Peter Janney for his testimony at the 1965 trial of the man accused of murdering Bradlee's sister-in-law Mary Pinchot Meyer, who was shot to death on October 12, 1964, while walking on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal towpath in Georgetown. Attorneys for both the prosecution and the defense (Alfred Hantman and Dovey J. Roundtree ), in addition authors Peter Janney and Nina Burleigh, have all noted the significant difference between the limited information Bradlee divulged under oath at the 1965 trial, and what he revealed 30 years later in his 1995 memoir A Good Life.
 * The article originally introduced Pinchot Meyer's story in the section on Bradlee's post-WWII career. The subject was then redundantly, and confusingly reintroduced in the controversy section. I removed the earlier introduction, and introduced the subject here de novo. Pinchot Meyer's relationship with Bradlee must be stated here, but details of her murder belong in the article on her, not here. The story is also told backward, with criticisms about what Bradlee did before we are told what Bradlee did. I will add the criticisms, in shortened form, back in below. Rgr09 (talk) 02:36, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
 * It turns out that this section has problems other than organization. The statement that "Bradlee has drawn criticism from Pinchot Meyer biographers Nina Burleigh and Peter Janney for his testimony at the 1965 trial of the man accused of murdering Bradlee's sister-in-law" is not correct as far as Burleigh is concerned. She does not mention Bradlee's testimony at the trial. I will do further checking; if the sole source for this is Janney's book, it should go. Rgr09 (talk) 05:45, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Controversies section
I now think that the controversies section should go completely, perhaps replaced by a criticisms section, where various critiques from journalists and biographers could go (e.g. Carol Felsner, Nina Burleigh). The long section on embassy attache role should go to the article on Katharine the Great, with a link to that from here. The idea that Bradlee was a CIA asset or shill is a conspiracy theory and does not belong in this article. Rgr09 (talk) 00:24, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * To the extent that it is covered in reliable sources, I don't mind a discussion of his relationship with various individuals in the CIA and how others may have thought that to be improper. A discussion of the various types of relationships between journalists and the CIA needs a proper home, if for no other reason than to show people that times were once different and in context there was usually nothing sinister about most of them. I am definitely NOT in favor of promoting Deborah Davis's or Peter Janney's conspiracy theories here, or those that parrot them. Given the large number of related articles, that is going to be a never-ending task. (By the way, have you read The Georgetown Set Friends and Rivals in Cold War Washington by Gregg Herken?) Location (talk) 03:22, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I removed the section. I will put it in the article on KTG, where it is much more relevant. Left here, it would still be the longest section in the article; definitely undue weight. There should be a discussion of Bradlee's friendships with various people in government; this should naturally include intelligence officers, though it seems to me his friendship with Kennedy was much more significant for his career and reporting, and leaves me with a lot more questions.
 * I have not yet read Herken. Having read The Very Best Men, I should, but I'm still in the middle of Bradlee and Burleigh. This is quite a time expensive hobby. Rgr09 (talk) 03:56, 10 June 2020 (UTC)