Agronsky At Large; 105; Ben Bradlee

[tone] [rhythmic beep] [beeping continues] [energetic music] Major funding for this program is provided by public television stations. Additional support is provided by the delegation of the commission of the European communities, Washington, and the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a memorial to the Marshall Plan. [energetic music] ANNOUNCER: "Agronsky at Large Tonight, Mr. Agronsky talks to the executive

editor of The Washington Post, Benjamin Bradlee." AGRONSKY: "Good evening. In the great Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur play, The Front Page, the authors created the definitive saga of the hard, tough, ruthless era of American journalism in the 30s. But times have changed; so have reporters and editors, and so have newspapers. Front pages are fiction; the great stories and editors and reporters of the day are fact. The breaking of the story of Mỹ Lai, of the Pentagon Papers, of Watergate.. are the most incredible kinds of facts. They spell out the power of the contemporary press to call the Army, the government, even a President to account. One of the most powerful and influential newspapers in this country and in the world is The Washington Post. Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee is the executive editor of the Post. This is the living room of his home in Washington. How does this editor feel about the immense power

of his newspaper? Ben, do you think that newspapers and the people who run them are any different today than the days of The Front Page?" BRADLEE: "There are fewer of them, and they -- therefore, there are -- there is more power concentrated in fewer hands. I think this newspaper, The Washington Post, has always had a kind of a special quality to it because it is --uh for some years, there's been a monopoly morning newspaper in the capital of the free world, really." AGRONSKY: "You know, Ben, let's ?approach this? differently. You've been the editor, now, eleven years, right? TWICE, if you don't mind my putting it this way, lightning struck: once with these Pentagon Papers, which you handled very courageously, and Kate Graham, your publisher, made an extremely courageous decision, jeopardizing... a suit, for a... criminal count. And then, the second strike is Watergate.

Now, would you agree that those two stories, and of course the way the paper handled them, moved your paper into the position of great national prominence that it has today? That luck played a role, if you like?" BRADLEE: "Sure, luck played its role. I mean... Let's Let's not kid anybody. Let's also not forget that it was a pretty fair country newspaper long before either of those events! I mean, it was an extraordinarily good newspaper with a hell of a conscience, long before Bradlee, and long before anything else. Yes." AGRONSKY: "Well, you say you can see the role of luck and I have to concede it to you that luck is - is exploited in full. Let's ask the other question, that is obvious, that follows here: There'll never be another Watergate, okay? That was the superstory of all time. I can't conceive of, in

ANY period in this republic, as long as it survives, of another Watergate story. Would you buy that?" BRADLEE: "Well, I used to buy that, but -- I -- my hope springs eternal. I think there maybe another story that will preoccupy me, preoccupy the country as much? NEVER -- of course it's a unique story, but... but I've learned to -- to be very cheery of making predictions! They told me that when -- when Nixon came to be president that this town was going to be boring, and that The Washington Post and all of us journalists were gonna be on the outs, we wouldn't have anything to do. Well, they were wrong about that -- and I have a feeling that -- that we haven't peaked. It's a terrible thing to say that you've peaked, that you've done the best story. And, I don't know, we still have a few more years to go." AGRONSKY: "Okay. So You say you have hope. Let me ask you this, then: Let's talk about what Watergate did to the papers. Talk about what Watergate did to the country. What did it do to the papers as far as you're concerned, as far as these two superstar

reporters are concerened, Woodward and Bernstein? It turned the three of you into superstars, right?" BRADLEE: "Well, it -- it -- it gave us a notoriety that is -- that changed our lives. There's no question about that." AGRONSKY: "Well, that's what I wanted to ask you. Let's start with Woodward and Bernstein: How has it changed their lives?" You know, two -- two -- two young reporters, I don't know if either of them were over 30, but.." BRADLEE: "Well, they weren't when they started. Well, what changes any --" AGRONSKY: "-- sitting in the middle of the City Room of The Washington Post --" BRADLEE: "-- on a Saturday morning --" AGRONSKY: "-- you're a millionaire --" BRADLEE: "-- they got about a million dollars in the bank and they're -- they are -- they, like it or not, they're --" [unintelligible] "Then you -- you to try to get them to -- to help them, come back into the business, to help them over some VERY difficult hurdles. Uhh We have tours in The Washington Post today, high school kids, and people come around and uh and uh every now and then you look up and you see a knot of 10-13 little kids there, standing in front the desk! And we can't work that way, so you got to bridge this gap. They face

the problem more than I do of, 'there'll never be another Watergate.' What -- what story do they work on?" AGRONSKY: "How do you top that?" BRADLEE: "Yeah, how do you top that? And -- and is it the Korean CIA? Wayne Hays? That looks a little sorta pale compared to.." AGRONSKY: "Are they destroyed, in a way, as a reporter? Doesn't their reputation get in the way of covering a story? BRADLEE: "Well, Woodward does." Woodward and Bernstein turn up on a story and people ascribe to the story an infinitely greater importance than it deserves?" BRADLEE: "And I suspect -- well, I don't know! We're learning that now, but I suspect if a congressman's secretary says, 'The Washington Post's on the phone, it's Bob Woodward,' that -- that already the event has changed. What -- what do they call that? there's a physical -- concept in physics, whereby the very examination of an object changes that object. And I think this is true. The very existence of Woodward or Bernstein on the other end of the phone changes the event even before it happens." AGRONSKY: "So, how do you deal with that?" BRADLEE: "Well, you -- you just try to

wrench yourself back to whatever is normal. I -- I -- life isn't normal anymore. It hasn't been since 1960." AGRONSKY: "Okay, now how about the other reporters that are sitting in the newsroom? How did Woodward and Bernstein make it investigative reporting? Doesn't that create a kind of an investigative reporting syndrome? Everybody wants to go out and find Watergate?" BRADLEE: "Right, right." AGRONSKY: "What does that do to your paper?" BRADLEE: "The -- the -- the reaction of the other reporters, it's interesting. Some of them, I think, are jealous. Envious." AGRONSKY: "Got to be." BRADLEE: "Got to be, and that's understandable. A great many of them though have, I think, seemed to me to have come out of that phase, and -- and are -- are recognize that these -- these two guys have done an enormous amount for THEM as well as for themselves. uhm -- uhm But, well, you were asking about how -- how they -- they have changed? I think [pause] we -- we'll get over it. You guys are all more worried about it than -- Uh

I get more bets, 'I bet you Woodward and Bernstein won't be -- won't be working for you in a year,' and I have made a pretty good sideline living taking those bets. I think they will be working for us, but it's gonna take some time. The book's gotta -- the SECOND book has got to die down, and that'll happen. And in the history of the newspaper it's a deep sigh. The whole thing won't take very long." AGRONSKY: "Okay. What about you Ben? You've been turned into a superstar, you know, 'an editor as played by Jason Robards.'" BRADLEE: "Okay, okay. It took us -- it took us 20 minutes to get to Jason Robards." AGRONSKY: "No, I really -- go ahead, Ben." BRADLEE: "Well, that changes -- that changes -- uh" AGRONSKY: "It massages your ego. Do you like it?" BRADLEE: "Some of it. Some of that is -- what -- what drives me wild is to be met by someone who brings up that name in the first 30 seconds, and then says, 'Gee, you were great in the movie,' and I have to say, 'I wasn't in the movie!' 'And uh.' AGRONSKY: "You want to snap your fingers for me, Ben?" BRADLEE: [chuckling] "No -- that's -- I mean that kind of a question, just kind of drives me up the wall, but.. Sure, it's

changed it but The -- The Post had no control over that. I had no control over that. [pause] That just happened. That's one of the fruits of it. I think that Bob Redford did -- did a job with an enormous amount of integrity about our business. Sure, it's romanticized and it's glamorized, but it's not unlike what -- I" AGRONSKY: "What about you? Does it create an obstacle between YOU and what you're trying to do? Get on an elevator and somebody recognizes you? BRADLEE: Well I... AGRONSKY: Does that turn you on or turn you off?" BRADLEE: "I can get on most elevators. Ninety-nine elevators out of a hundred, there's no problem at all. But -- sure, it's -- it's -- it's different. What it really is, is I gotta watch what I say! AGRONSKY: Yeah BRADLEE: Because, otherwise -- and I'm -- that's difficult for me. That doesn't come easily to me. I like to say what comes into my head." AGRONSKY: "Does it get in the way of getting your job done?" BRADLEE: "I don't think so, now, I don't think so. I think it may have had a problem for a while, and you know, the week that the movie preview -- that's -- that's a lost weekend as far as I'm concerned. Hopeless.

But, yeah, you know. People are getting on with it, now. I mean, they're -- the Watergate is -- is is going back into the background. People are saying, 'What have you done for us lately?' There's a new administration coming into power. That's -- it's not the most boring event that happens in this town. It's almost as exciting as Watergate was four years ago. In fact, it's more exciting, obviously." AGRONSKY: "And you get a taste yourself, now, of what it means, to some some extent, to lose your privacy. BRADLEE: " Yes I certainly do. AGRONSKY: To become a public figure." BRADLEE: "Yes, I certainly do. I do." AGRONSKY: "Doesn't that cause you to reflect on what the paper does when dealing with the privacy of other people?" BRADLEE: "It does. I've reflected." AGRONSKY: "How much, Ben?" BRADLEE: "Well, I've reflected a lot on it because -- let's not beat around the bush -- I've been in -- in -- in gossip columns and magazines -- more than I'd like! But -- I -- there isn't anything I can do about it. it. One of the costs of -- of the success of

Watergate, if you want, and the success of The Post's role, has been a surrender of that privacy. I can't go underground. Now I'm not sure; your next question might be whether I would if I could, and I'm not sure of that. Some of the -- " AGRONSKY: "It puts you in a glass house, it puts the woman with whom you share your life, in a glass house --" BRADLEE: "Yeah. That's right." AGRONSKY: "Okay, that's the one dividend --" BRADLEE: "Well, I don't know if that's a dividend!" AGRONSKY: "Yeah, it's a dividend." BRADLEE: "Not a spendable one." AGRONSKY: "Now does it reflect in the way you view the whole approach to privacy on the paper? You know I haven't whined, Ben - look let's take two stories - one story on a senator, that Jack Anderson, did: you decided not to publish. You wrote a piece on the op-ed page explaining why you didn't want to publish it." BRADLEE: "That's true." AGRONSKY: "Yet, you published a story on a congressman." BRADLEE: "Yeah." AGRONSKY: "Maintained a separate house, had two illegitimate children, had nothing whatsoever to do with his work as a congressman." BRADLEE: "And forged his first wife's name on the deed to his mistress' house." AGRONSKY: "Fair enough, but you know, there's a question of taste in the

question of concern about privacy. Why were you not willing to go ahead with the senator and willing to go ahead with the congressman?" BRADLEE: "Because I know -- in the case of the senator, I could find, after closest examination, NO WAY in which this incident -- which, even if it were true, this was an alleged seduction -- interfered with his -- the PUBLIC performance of his PUBLIC job! We examined --" AGRONSKY: "How did the congressman's performance be affected by having a second household and two illegitimate children?" BRADLEE: "Well, should -- should -- should they commit crimes? I just think that, right away - I mean, and this is one admitted crime: forgery. Yeah, I mean I don't think that our legislature should - legislatORs - should --" AGRONSKY: "You think that makes him unfit to be a congressman?" BRADLEE: "Well, I think it makes it a fit subject to be commented on and explored. Yes. I -- I -- Look, if there was an answer go to these kind of questions, life would be much simpler for editors -- but there aren't. All I know is you can't make a rule. If you make a rule, you're gonna break it the next day. And that you examine each

one, and try to be as honest as possible, try to share that decision, with -- with as many people of different intelligences, and we do that at the paper.." AGRONSKY: "Alright, look, Ben. The congressman was Leggett of California, and I think you were WRONG." BRADLEE: "Okay." AGRONSKY: "Okay, fair enough. Let me tell you -- let's take another: the son of Senator Abourezk lived on an Indian reservation in South Dakota. Took food stamps. Big story in The Washington Post about how the son of the senator was taking food stamps. Afterwards the porter -- the -- the reporter defended story, said people were interested in what happened to food stamps and here was a son of public figure, et cetera. Two of your editors backed it up; I understand you changed your mind." BRADLEE: "I think I was wrong, now, and I have so told Senator Abourezk. I'm not absolutely sure. It seemed to me the food stamp controversy, who was living on food stamps, the abuse of food stamps

was very much an issue, and that the fact that the son of a United States senator was -- was on food stamps, was important." [crosstalk] "It seems to me NOW, on soberer second thought that he's a -- he's a mature man, he is taking care of some Indian children, and helping support them, and I guess it's not our business." AGRONSKY: "But the damage is done! Let me quote your own ombudsman, Charlie Seib, right? Now, he - he examined the thing and he wrote, let me quote it: That 'the Abourezk story has been defended' - as you just defended it, by the way - 'because it concerned an aspect of the food stamp program that's the subject of controversy,' - that was your initial defense - 'but,' says your ombudsman, 'it wasn't written that way. It was written as an expose of a senator's son's use of food stamps.' I think it was a question of bad judgment. It gets into a question of taste. How do you feel about that?" BRADLEE: "Well look, if you're -- you're -- I'm not going into my defense crouch over that." AGRONSKY: "I don't want you to beat your breast and say, 'Mea culpa.'" BRADLEE: "And I'm not going to. We -- we are confronted with

about 350 or 400 stories a day, and we DO make mistakes. I'm SURE we do. We are the first and only major newspaper to hire an ombudsman. We pay him ESPECIALLY to - and under contract so he can't be fired - TO second guess us!" AGRONSKY: "A lot of papers have them." BRADLEE: "Oh, come on. None -- none -- Not -- I mean, they have them to look at whether the paper arrived in the rhodedendron bushes -" AGRONSKY: "A competitor here in town? The Star has one." BRADLEE: "Oh, come on, come on. What does he write about?" AGRONSKY: "Well, he writes about what the paper does occasionally. You're the only paper in the country that does that?" BRADLEE: "That writes about the -- the -- yes. The first major newspaper. The Star's ombudsman was was promoted up and out, into a non-job." AGRONSKY: "The Post is an enormously powerful paper. Do you think that it rates on a peer-level, now, with the other paper which is regarded as the second

powerful newspaper in this country? The two papers we always talk about are The Washington Post, The New York Times. How do you see The Post in comparison to The Times?" BRADLEE: "Well..." AGRONSKY: "You've got to say it's better, but tell me why." BRADLEE: "Well, I - I have to say that sometimes it's better. I mean -- I mean -- I mean, you're not going to get me to dump on The New York Times. That's an extraordinary newspaper. It's got a -- a day in, day out excellence that I often envy. I like to think that given a st -- a major story, and then put us both in a standing start, that we'll do better, but I look at that newspaper often and say, 'Damn it, I wish I'd had that story,' and I'm sure Abe Rosenthal thinks the same thing of us. It's not possible that one newspaper should have a monopoly on excellence, and I don't think any newspaper does."

AGRONSKY: "Let me ask you this: one of your editors has made the point about your paper that one of the fundamental criticisms of The Post can be that it DOES NOT maintain what he has called 'cruising speed.' BRADLEE: "Alright. That's my friend Phil Geyelin." AGRONSKY: "That's right!" BRADLEE: "And -- and he's -- he's got a point. Uh,I think he HAD a bigger point than he NOW has. What he's talking about is that day in, day out excellence. At the -- whereas The Post can reach high - great highs, that it can be rolling along perfectly quietly and nothing great happening, when it falls down and misses something. That happens. I'm sorry that it happens. I am worrying more recently about a tendency to take ourselves too seriously, that we're -- we have been ranked with The New York Times enough now, so that I don't want to -- and I -- I worry about inheriting some of the immobility, perhaps, the stuffiness, that large and successful organizations have. And I -- I --" AGRONSKY: "You've become an establishment

newspaper, whether you like to regard yourself as that or no." BRADLEE: "It's no question, it's no question about it and -- and I'm not sure that's all for the good! I think it takes some excitement out -- or it risks taking some excitement." AGRONSKY: "How does it change things for you as the editor?" BRADLEE: "Well, because of the -- of the pub-- about me, the -- the notoriety if you want -- what we do gets nibbled at, gets examined, gets criticized more than it did. And that -- but that is a change! I used to be able to -- to publish a cartoon, a caricature of Averell Harriman as a crocodile on page one of The Washington Post -" AGRONSKY: "The David Levine caricature." BRADLEE: "Yeah, and -- and, I didn't hear from anybody about that. If I did it now, I bet there would be a terrible howl, 'What the hell has he done NOW? Look at him, he's gone crazy!'" AGRONSKY: "Well, the question is: would you do it again?" BRADLEE: "Well, I'm worried about that. David Levine's prices are too high now and I can't afford it." AGRONSKY: "But it inhibits you?" BRADLEE: "I -- I think it might! And we're looking at that, we

went down to -- to -- four of the top editors at the papers went down to an island, and -- and thought about it for three days. This is one of the things we thought about: is this happening to us?" AGRONSKY: "Is it?" BRADLEE: "Well, one of the editors thought so, I think 'maybe,' and two thought 'no.' That's -- that's about the average. The result of the average vote, if you were to take one on the topic." AGRONSKY: "What are you going to do about it? I mean, you're into that crazy inversion of 'sometimes nothing FAILS like success.'" BRADLEE: "Well, any -- any big decision that comes up, I'm gonna put -- put it through that particular filter: Is this the -- are we making this decision only because it's the safe and conservative thing to do? Shouldn't we think of some -- some more creative imaginative solution to the problem? And I'm gonna -- we're -- we're gonna make decisions with that filter in it. You know, we may still decide to do it in what you would call an establishment way -- but we may not." AGRONSKY: "Well -- well, you know, the other thrust of the 'cruising speed' observation

is one of judgment. What do you run on the front page? What are the things that matter? What does the paper emphasize? You contracted in your book reviews, for one thing." BRADLEE: "What do you mean, we contracted them? We have our own staff and --" AGRONSKY: "You have your own staff, but certainly we -- you would not compare your book reviews to the job The New York Times does." BRADLEE: "Quite on the other hand! I certainly would, yes. I think they're much more imaginative, and -- and less esoteric." AGRONSKY: "Well, that's judgement. I would not agree. I think that there is a feeling in the country that the taste and the judgment that is demonstrated constantly, because of the so-called 'cruising speed' of The Times, is still superior to that of The Washington Post. You would question that." BRADLEE: "I do question that, and I question it from a -- from a -- from a corner that you haven't ex -- we haven't examined yet. The -- the -- we are not dealing, as The New York Times is, with an exclusively well-educated elite. The New York Times IS. If -- if -- if The Washington Post sold as

many newspapers in the Washington area as The New York Times sells in the New York area we'd be broke! We are a metropolitan newspaper. We cover the hell out of Fairfax, Montgomery County, Prince George's County, the city, Arlington. And The New York Times does NOT cover the hell out of the Bronx, Harlem, Queens, Richmond, Staten Island, New Jersey, the suburbs. They don't do it! I've got a --" AGRONSKY: "Then you want to be a metropolitan newspaper and not a national --" BRADLEE: " I Do, No, no. I don't NOT wanna -- I wanna be a metropolitan newspaper." AGRONSKY: "Plus?" BRADLEE: "And I want to be recognized nationally as an excellent newspaper." AGRONSKY: "You don't wanna be a national newspaper?" BRADLEE: "I can't -- no. No, it's too expensive for us to get -- to get -- to get copies of The Washington Post that weighs, you know, on a good Thursday, it could weigh a couple of pounds." AGRONSKY: "Let's go through the criteria." BRADLEE: "Well, you've got -- yes, and not -- not necessarily but you can't lose -- you can't lose a dollar an issue and send many issues to --" AGRONSKY: "Okay. Okay, I'm not suggesting you follow policy that leads to bankruptcy. That would be idiocy! I don't --

I don't propose that. Look, you don't have a bureau in Houston, you don't have a bureau in Atlanta, right? You don't have a bureau in Chicago." BRADLEE: "It's true." AGRONSKY: "How can you have any PRETENSION to being a national newspaper?" BRADLEE: "Well -- I have ta -- we have top stringer in all of those cities. If there is a story of any importance in any of those cities, we will have a Washington Post reporter in there in an hour and a half, three hours tops, and --" AGRONSKY: "That's AFTER the story breaks!" BRADLEE: "Well now, wait. We have --" AGRONSKY: "How about the good reporter who's sitting there, developing this story?" BRADLEE: "Sitting there, on his tail and writing about screw worms, or some disease of cattle on the southern part of his area, and waiting, and it's going to be on page 79?" AGRONSKY: "Well, if he's a good paper - pardon me - a good reporter --" BRADLEE: "Where are they gonna put it?! Where are they gonna put it?!" AGRONSKY: "In your paper, Ben!" BRADLEE: "No - there were 47 correspondents --" AGRONSKY: "Demonstrate your 'cruising speed!'" BRADLEE: "Forty-seven correspondents - right? - in the nation. You got them in Chicago, you got them in Santa Fe, you got them in Houston, and Atlanta, and Baltimore -- you got them ALL around.

And they're each gonna write two -- a story a day? Where are you gonna put it? I would rather -- and I think that very definitely, journalism has changed -- you guys, television, has the first crack of an event now. Very seldom is there a story in The New York Times or The Washington Post which hasn't been on the eleven o'clock nightly news so we're -- we're not interested in -- as interested as we WERE -- in that first crack at a -- at an event that took place a publicly. If there's a big fire, if there's an airplane crash, I don't need that story that first day by my own guy. We pay three quarters of a million dollars to the news services, the wire server system, to to cover us on that. If -- if the -- the -- the door didn't fit on the PLANE that crashed, THEN I want some guy there, and some guy in F.A.A., and some guy in the C.A.B., and that. THAT'S the kind of journalism, so -- so that that those numbers, per se, of bureaus doesn't impress me a damn --" AGRONSKY: [unintelligible] "Alright. Ben, what do you want to do with this paper?

What's your priority?" BRADLEE: "Well, I wish that -- that sometimes I've wished very hard that I had [pause] like, the Harvard Business School wants you to have: this management by objectives that you have. I want to do to earn in the next 5 years: 21 pul -- Pulitzer Prizes, three, uh, overseas writers -- i don't think you can do it the way I want to keep the reputation that this newspaper has; I want to earn more -- a greater reputation for thoughtful editing conceptual editing imagination responsibility I want to ride a writing I want as many more Watergates as I can find -- I want, uh, without, uh -- raising a generation of reporters that sees a Watergate under every pillow -- but on the other hand I don't want to worry about that so much that I don't poke around or that the reporters don't poke --

Agronsky: "Then what's conceptual reporting, the biggest story in the world today if you like is jobs. what's been in The Washington Post or word that's what listeners new illustration going to do about it very little." BRADLEE: "Well yes I -- I -- wouldn't disagree, I -- the only place i disagree with you that I'm not sure they know what they're going to do about jobs I -- I well I remember recently is that they really tried to get us six and a half percent unemployment rate. I think I'm not sure that IS the greatest story, incidentally. I would think a much greater story in the next administration is Carter tangling with that bureaucracy to see if he can shape it the way he wants to. AGRONSKY: "Thats where you're going to move?" BRADLEE: "One of the places." AGRONSKY: "Thank you, Ben." [music]

[music] Next week in [unidentified] get large the conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra Leonard Bernstein. [pause] This program was produced by WNAT at which is solely responsible for its content Major funding was provided by Public Television Stations. Additional

support was provided by the Delegation of the Commission of the European Communities, Washington and The German Marshall Fund of the United States, a memorial to the Marshall Plan. [music] [music]