MOSCOW, October 22 (RIA Novosti) - Ben Bradlee, the former editor of the Washington Post newspaper, famous for his coverage of the Watergate scandal and his role in the publication of the Pentagon Papers, died in the United States at the age of 93.
Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee was born in Boston, Massachusetts on August 26, 1921.
He attended Harvard College and graduated as a Greek-English major on August 8, 1942.
Shortly after graduation, Bradlee received his naval commission. He joined the Office of Naval Intelligence and served as a communications officer in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. He saw combat for two years, till 1944.
In 1946, Bradlee started a weekly newspaper The New Hampshire Sunday News with his friends.
When the newspaper was eventually sold, Bradlee got his first reporter job at The Washington Post in 1948.
He left the newspaper in 1951 to become a press attache in the American embassy in Paris.
In 1954, he started working as a European correspondent of Newsweek in Paris. Later he moved to Washington as the bureau chief for Newsweek. At that time, Newsweek was sold to the Washington Post holding company.
In 1965, Bradlee was promoted to managing editor of the Washington Post. In 1968, he became executive editor.
In 1971, Washington Post, together with The New York Times, challenged the government over the right to publish the Pentagon Papers.
The Pentagon Papers, officially titled United States - Vietnam Relations, 1945-1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, was a secret US Department of Defense (DoD) report on US political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. The Washington Post began publishing its own series of articles based upon the Pentagon Papers in 1971.
In 1972, Ben Bradlee backed Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they uncovered a political scandal, which is now referred to as the Watergate scandal.
It was sparked by a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington during the 1972 presidential campaign. The scandal prompted US President Nixon to resign two years later. He was the only US president to resign.
He stepped down in 1991 at the age of 70.
In November 2013, Bradlee was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama.
In September 2014, he entered hospice care due to Alzheimer's disease.
He died on October 21 at his home in Washington, D.C.
Bradlee was married three times. He is survived by four children.
