Talk:Ben Bradlee

message: Date: 12/13/52
To: MR. LANE
From: MR. MARAN
Subject: Rosenberg case
On December 13, 1952 a Mr. Benjamin Bradlee called and informed me that he was Press Attache with the American embassy in Paris, that he had left Paris last night and arrived here this morning. He advised me that he was a former Federal Court Reporter for the Washington Post and that he was sent here to look at the Rosenberg file in order to answer the Communist propaganda about the Rosenberg case in the Paris newspapers.
He advised me that it was an urgent matter and that he had to return to Paris Monday night. He further advised that he was sent here by Robert Thayer, who is the head of the C.I.A. in Paris. His phone number here was Rhinelander 4-2595.
After conferring with you I advised Mr. Bradlee that before we could allow him to examine the file in the Rosenberg case, we would have to get clearance from the Department of Justice in Washington.
He stated that he was supposed to have been met by a representative of the C.I.A. at the airport but missed connections.
He has been trying to get in touch with Allen Dulles but has been unable to do so. I advised him to call the State Department in Washington, and to have them get the Department of Justice in Washington to get clearance for us to allow him to look at the Rosenberg file.
Mr. Bradley advised me that he would probably call you first to find out if he could look at the matters in the file which were public record, and if not would follow my suggestion about calling the C.I.A. or the State Department in Washington.
[ Handwritten addendum: ]
12/13/52
Mr. Bradlee displayed his credentials and desired to look thru the official public record of the trial. Mr. Maran brought it up. Mr. Bradlee worked on the record from 2:30 - 6:30.
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To me this says he was a Press Attache.  He knew people in the CIA, and they were (supposed to be) helping him. Rich   Farmbrough 19:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Text of memo cited in Davis 1987 

message: To: Ms. Deborah Davis
I worked for the USIA as the Press Attache of the United States Embassy, in the early 1950's. I never worked for the CIA. I never participated in a "CIA propaganda campaign."
I traveled to New York to read the transcript of the Rosenberg trial over one weekend. I return and dictated a 30,000 word witness-by-witness account of the crime. This account was translated into French and distributed to the French press under my name, I believe, as the Press Attache of the Embassy. 
I was "the embassy's expert on the case," primarily because all delegations of protest were sent to me, and I at least had read the transcript.
I would like to be sure you understand. I have never worked for the CIA. I have never had any role in the "the CIA's propaganda campaign" and all of the allegations about my association with people in the CIA are as false today as they were when you wrote them.
Benjamin C. Bradlee
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This is Bradlee's response to Deborah Davis's 1987 version of Katharine the Great. Please do not archive this. Discussion will follow below.Rgr09 (talk) 15:47, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Text of Bradlee letter to Davis 

message: Odds are I am a descendant of Charlemagne, too.  A huge portion of this entry is devoted to the man's ancestry, yet it has nothing at all to do with his achievements or any reason he might be included in an encyclopedia.  I don't think it belongs here, but if it does, it can be covered in a sentence, rather than several grafs.Goateeki (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 20:29, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why the emphasis on ancestry? 

message: This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 15:07, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating 

message: Isn't it a bit strong to say he "fought" in those battles?  After all, he was a Navy commo officer.
Also, what has the Washington Post done to pursue scandals after Watergate?  When Democrat presidents were involved in scandals, such as Clinton's or Obama's fairy tales about Benghazi, the Post has been decidedly uninterested.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.49.20.187 (talk) 04:30, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Serious problems with this article 

message: I was doing work on other members of this family, and came up with a different connection to the Crowninshield family. The one given in the article did not have citations. But I now think both are right; that is, he was connected through both parents who were something like third cousins by my calculation. My approach is to mention if they are related to others who are notable enough to have an article on Wikipedia, but unsourced stories about the Boston Tea Party would really need citations. I will try to work on it. W Nowicki (talk) 20:16, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  More on ancestry 

message: The following sections have no content. They should either be given substantial content or removed.
:Ancestry
:Patrilian_Descent
:Choate_Lineage
:Putnam_Lineage
I will watch this page, and if nothing is done to remedy this within a week or two, I will delete these sections. 
Personally, I have doubts that this stuff is of general interest and should be in an encyclopedia anyway. I agree with the comments above that question whether his ancestry (and I would include his educational ancestry) are appropriate for such an article. Bill Jefferys (talk) 01:47, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Empty Sections 

message: The article needs a photo. Cliffswallow-vaulting (talk) 03:38, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photo needed 

message: It's well known that Bradlee had three other children by his two prior marriages.  There was even a little flare-up when Sally scheduled Quinn's marriage for the same date as Ben B Jr's daughter. Why have they been edited out of the family tree?  
http://www.mediaite.com/print/sally-quinn-loses-washington-post-column-after-wedding-drama/  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.99.2.181 (talk) 12:00, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Family tree 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This section needs to be streamlined and given a point, otherwise it's just ridiculous conspiracy mongering and should be deleted. What substantive point of evidence in the trial would have been affected by knowledge of the diary? The article needs a brief (one sentence) précis of the trial, the actual charges, and the reason why the diary was important. Without those items of context there really isn't a "controversy" just a lot of smoke being blown. The whole article reads like two sets of editors have been working on it, one set who thinks ancestry is really important and the other set who thinks that money and privilege automatically spell corruption, which then just has to be winkled out, or barely alleged. Theonemacduff (talk) 03:36, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversy? 

message: This section covers the claims of Deborah Davis in Katharine the Great, even up to legal proceedings over the book. I am moving it to the "Controversy" section. There are many problems with the section that I will begin work on ASAP Rgr09 (talk) 01:00, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Government work section 

message: There are many issues with the article's description of Bradlee's career and family/marriages. I will try here to keep track of changes I have made to this part of the article. Note that Bradlee's autobiography A Good Life (GL) has detailed information on all of this. (What a surprise.) I have read some but not all of it. It is actually a strong source for the article, subject of course to the due caution needed for personal apologias. For now, however, I am sticking mostly to what was in the many newspaper obituaries of Bradlee, checking these against Bradlee's version when something is unclear. Please comment or correct me if I am wrong. Rgr09 (talk) 06:12, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The source cited is NYT obit; no such claim is made there. GL has detailed description, not needed here, keep a simple description of his jobs. Rgr09 (talk) 06:18, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Source is Guardian obit. As noted above, this is based on Davis book, which is not reliable. It is not mentioned in other newspaper obits. GL has a description of the incident, which naturally does not include him sleuthing for CIA. He also says that in the end he was not expelled from France. I have removed for now, until other sources than GL and Davis are available. Rgr09 (talk) 06:36, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

text: Temporarily removed this section. I will restore to two place: to the new section on Bradlee's marriages and children, and to the controversy section on the Pinchot-Meyer diary issue. Operation Mockingbird does not belong in this article at all. Rgr09 (talk) 06:46, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bradlee career and marriages 

message: The second part of the controversies section is a critique of Bradlee's failure to mention his handling of Mary Pinchot Meyer's diary at the trial of her accused murderer. There are again many problems here. First, it is one of the longest sections in the article; this is clearly undue weight. Second, most of it comes from Peter Janney's book Mary's Mosaic, which is not a reliable source. I will revise to shorten and switch sourcing to Nina Burleigh's biography of Pinchot Meyer, a much better source than Janney. Rgr09 (talk) 01:52, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The article originally introduced Pinchot Meyer's story in the section on Bradlee's post-WWII career. The subject was then redundantly, and confusingly reintroduced in the controversy section. I removed the earlier introduction, and introduced the subject here de novo. Pinchot Meyer's relationship with Bradlee must be stated here, but details of her murder belong in the article on her, not here. The story is also told backward, with criticisms about what Bradlee did before we are told what Bradlee did. I will add the criticisms, in shortened form, back in below. Rgr09 (talk) 02:36, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: It turns out that this section has problems other than organization. The statement that "Bradlee has drawn criticism from Pinchot Meyer biographers Nina Burleigh and Peter Janney for his testimony at the 1965 trial of the man accused of murdering Bradlee's sister-in-law" is not correct as far as Burleigh is concerned. She does not mention Bradlee's testimony at the trial. I will do further checking; if the sole source for this is Janney's book, it should go. Rgr09 (talk) 05:45, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversies section II