Lunch with Ben Bradlee: From Guadalcanal to Iraq

By: Joe Strupp The last time Ben Bradlee was cruising through the islands near Guadalcanal in the South Pacific was in 1943, aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer. Enduring some of the worst combat of World War II, the Navy spent months battling through the waterway known as "The Slot."

"It was where cruisers and destroyers met up with the Japanese and played bang-bang at night," Bradlee describes it today.

Nearly 63 years later, the legendary journalist is ready to return. This time, however, the destroyer is being replaced by a leisurely cruise ship, and his youngest son, Quinn, will accompany him. He will write about it for The New Yorker.

"It will be a lot of fun," Bradlee said recently over lunch at the famed Madison Hotel, across the street from The Washington Post, where he ran the newsroom from 1965 to 1991 and still maintains an office. "I saw an ad for a cruise that starts in New Guinea and travels 600 miles up the slot. That is where I spent the spring and summer of 1943 and wanted to return. It goes right over 'Iron Bottom Bay,' which is covered with ships that were sunk."

During the lunch with E&P, Bradlee, 84, discussed the upcoming trip, other international travels he regularly takes, as well as today's changing newspaper and news media industries. He also weighed in on war coverage, anonymous sourcing, and even his longtime friend Art Buchwald, whom he visits almost daily as the legendary columnist awaits a very public death from kidney ailments.

He also revealed that he is not a "webby," as he put it. But he goes to the Net, he said, when others direct him to worthwhile items and stories. "As soon as there is something good on the Web, the tom-toms beat and I get it," he said in his booming voice. "I am not cruising it."

He also admitted proudly that he does not own a cell phone.

Bradlee disclosed that his South Pacific journey will begin March 30. He's contracted with The New Yorker to write a first-person piece about his voyage. "I am going to finance it with a New Yorker story," he says with a deep, raspy laugh. He also wants his 23-year-old son to learn about the past. "The war is so remote to your children today," he adds. "People don't talk about the war. It didn't really begin until (Tom) Brokaw's book (The Greatest Generation)."

Such travel is not unusual for Bradlee. Trips take him annually to places such as South Africa and New Zealand. Most of the time, those junkets relate to Independent News and Media, an Ireland-based company that owns newspapers from the United Kingdom to India. Bradlee chairs the group's International Advisory Board that includes the likes of Andrew Young and former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney.

"I have committees I am on and other outside jobs, and I like to teach now and then," he said in between sips of corn soup inside the upscale restaurant that he says used to be less fancy and host reporter meetings with former publisher Katharine Graham. "I still have some sources in this town."

The legendary Watergate-era journalist comes into the office daily, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., conducting all matter of business -- from letters to interviews to the many boards and commissions upon which he serves. "My wife wouldn't stand for it," he says of any talk of staying home. "She says, 'get him out of the house.'"

Still, his day often takes him from his seventh-floor office among the executive suites down to the fifth-floor newsroom. Although he promised Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. that he would stay away during Downie's first six months in his old job, he gladly returns to the hot bed of news activity today, with Downie's blessing. "I check in and have a lot of friends down there," he admits. "I am good at hanging out, and help out when they want it." He describes Downie as "just what the Post needed, more disciplined -- I was less-disciplined."

Sporting a dark blue sports coat, pressed shirt, and purple tie, Bradlee still draws attention in the eatery as a waiter promptly seats him and a guest. He gives a hello to Post scribe Walter Pincus, noting he is "one of the best reporters, the best," then sidesteps the extensive bar for an iced tea. Smiling, chatty, and as gregarious as his D.C. social circuit reputation would suggest, he is glad to spout about all issues news.

Discussion of his pending trip led inevitably to today's Iraq reporting, which he contends has been good and possibly more difficult than in Vietnam. "It is much more timely now," he says in between coughs and sips of iced tea. "War reporting was developing [back then] as an art form. I think it is more developed now." He also says that "Vietnam today would have been covered a lot earlier. I think we underplayed it for years."

He also adds that "In Vietnam, it was a north and a south, with a vague line in between. Now it is harder because it is harder to work around [the different factions] and it is easier to get knocked off."

Noting the Post's early support of the Vietnam War, Bradlee contends that it did not affect the paper's ability to cover the conflict. The paper switched its editorial stance after 1968, when pro-war Russell Wiggins was succeeded by anti-war Phil Geyelin. "But it wasn't a big deal," Bradlee recalls. "What you cover in the news is what becomes important. What changed is that we began to have more reporters there, our own reporters."

Bradlee believes such a situation exists today with the Post and its consistent pro-Iraq war stance. Although he declares "I don't think it's that hawkish," he says, "It doesn't make that much difference. You cover what goes on over there."

On one of the great journalism issues of the day, anonymous sourcing, Bradlee offered an expected defense of reporter's rights. But he also warns scribes "not to be lazy about it." He says most anonymous sources will go on the record if pushed, and claims almost every unnamed source is mentioned elsewhere in a story by name.

"That is a fact," he declared. "It happens a lot." He cited a class he taught in recent years at Georgetown University on "How to Read a Newspaper." In the session, he would challenge students to guess who a confidential source was in a story. "Most of the time, they could guess," he said with a chuckle.

Noshing on a club sandwich, Bradlee said he was still a devoted print newspaper reader, regularly perusing the Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

Bradlee also claims newspapers are not dying, as many have predicted for decades. "But it has to keep vital and alive," he contends about the daily miracle. "I think it is an over-simplification to say the Web is the answer. It is more complicated than that. They've got to find a way to attract readers to the newspaper. The design and the subjects covered."

He points out that the newspaper "has been and will continue to be the main source of news for television, if you really study it. They process newspapers until they get their own reporters into the story."

Bradlee contends there are eight to 10 "really good papers" and says the Post and The New York Times are "the two that aspire to be great." In this era of major cost cutting and downsizing, he says newspapers can still be good and make a difference. "Just because a corporation owns a newspaper doesn't mean it is bad." He cites "huge travel budgets" as an area that can often be cut back if needed.

Does he ever get sick of being asked about Watergate? Not hardly. "Most of my speaking is at schools and colleges and I am startled at how much they know about it," Bradlee says proudly. "They are still writing papers about Watergate. I think that is good. But it is not Topic A with me. Topic A is still the morning paper, what's in the morning paper."

A sign of Bradlee's non-stop schedule is a planned visit to Buchwald later in the afternoon, then dinner at the home of an unnamed U.S. senator. Citing his friendship with Buchwald that dates back to 1950's Paris, Bradlee says he understands the columnist's decision to go off dialysis and live his last days with family and friends. "I see him almost every day," Bradlee says in a low voice. "He is getting ready to die, but he is not dying yet."