There will always be leaks; in Washington, everywhere.
BEN BRADLEEI think he had a strange, passionate devotion to the truth and a horror at what he saw going on.
More Ben Bradlee Quotes
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The champagne was flowing like the Potomac in flood.
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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.
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I think he had a strange, passionate devotion to the truth and a horror at what he saw going on.
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In the perfect world every source could be identified, but like the man said, “It’s not a perfect world.”
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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.
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More likely to mean the security or the personal happiness of the guy who is telling you something.
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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.
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As a child, one looks for compliments. As an adult, one looks for evidence of effectiveness.
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Generals who can write always make me nervous.
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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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It changes your life, the pursuit of truth.
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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.
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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.
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I never believed that Nixon could fully resurrect himself. And the proof of that was in the obits.
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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