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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

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

Faces Graves Tape
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
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
As a child, one looks for compliments. As an adult, one looks for evidence of effectiveness.
BEN BRADLEE

Adult Children Effectiveness
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 champagne was flowing like the Potomac in flood.
BEN BRADLEE

Cooking Culinary Food
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
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
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
In the perfect world every source could be identified, but like the man said, “It’s not a perfect world.”
BEN BRADLEE

Men Perfect World
It changes your life, the pursuit of truth.
BEN BRADLEE

Changing Life Pursuit
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 long as a journalist tells the truth, in conscience and fairness, it is not his job to worry about consequences. The truth is never as dangerous as a lie in the long run. I truly believe the truth sets men free.
BEN BRADLEE

Jobs Lying Running
The Nixon administration really put a lot of pressure on CBS not to run the second broadcast.
BEN BRADLEE

Administration Pressure Running
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

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

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

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