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The first rough draft of history.

Ben Bradlee

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.
BEN BRADLEE

Editors Government National People Security
To hell with news! I’m no longer interested in news. I’m interested in causes. We don’t print the truth. We don’t pretend to print the truth. We print what people tell us. It’s up to the public to decide what’s true.
BEN BRADLEE

Causes News People
Generals who can write always make me nervous.
BEN BRADLEE

Always General Nervous Writing
I think he had a strange, passionate devotion to the truth and a horror at what he saw going on.
BEN BRADLEE

Passionate Saws Thinking
Those [Watergate] tapes are going to take me to my grave with a huge smile on my face.
BEN BRADLEE

Faces Graves Tape
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.
BEN BRADLEE

Government Jail Mean
I don’t want to disappoint too many people, but the number of interesting political, historical conversations we had, you could stick in your ear, it wasn’t that many. We talked about friends, family and of course girls.
BEN BRADLEE

Girl Numbers People
Our best today; better tomorrow.
BEN BRADLEE

Better Today Tomorrow
Maybe some of today’s papers have too many ‘feel-good’ features, but there is a lot of good news out there.
BEN BRADLEE

Feel Good News Paper
It is my experience that most claims of national security are part of a campaign to avoid telling the truth.
BEN BRADLEE

Campaign Claims Telling Truth
Nothing’s riding on this, except the First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press and maybe the future of the country. Not that any of that matters, but if you guys f-k up again, I’m gonna get mad.
BEN BRADLEE

Country Guy Mad
Everybody who talks to a newspaper has a motive. That’s just a given. And good reporters always, repeat always, probe to find out what that motive is.
BEN BRADLEE

Given Motive Newspapers
Hire people smarter than you are and encourage them to bloom.
BEN BRADLEE

Encourage People Smarter
You never monkey with the truth.
BEN BRADLEE

Animal Monkey Truth
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.
BEN BRADLEE

Differences Newspapers People President Press
It changes your life, the pursuit of truth, if you know that you have tried to find the truth and gone past the first apparent truth towards the real truth. It’s very, it’s very exciting.
BEN BRADLEE

Gone Past Real

The first rough draft of history.

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The first rough draft of history.

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