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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.

Ben Bradlee

More likely to mean the security or the personal happiness of the guy who is telling you something.
BEN BRADLEE

Guy Personal Something Telling
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
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
As a child, one looks for compliments. As an adult, one looks for evidence of effectiveness.
BEN BRADLEE

Adult Children Effectiveness
If an investigative reporter finds out that someone has been robbing the store, that may be ‘gotcha’ journalism, but it’s also good journalism.
BEN BRADLEE

Journalism May Robbing
Hire people smarter than you are and encourage them to bloom.
BEN BRADLEE

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

Body People Politics
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
The champagne was flowing like the Potomac in flood.
BEN BRADLEE

Cooking Culinary Food
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.
BEN BRADLEE

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

Faces Graves Tape
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

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.

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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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