[background sounds] the resurrection and the life sayeth the lord. He that believe it and may though he were dead lead shall live and who ever lived and believe in me shall never die. I know that my redeemer lives and he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth and though this body be destroyed yet shall i see god who i shall see for myself eyes shall behold and not as a stranger. For none of us lives to himself and no man died to himself. For as we live, we live unto the lord and if we die, we die unto the lord. Whether we live therefore or die, we are the lords. Listed are the dead who died in the lord. Even so sayeth the spirit for they rest from their labor. [background sounds] the lord be with you. Let us pray. Oh god whose mercy cannot be delivered except our prayers on behalf of thy servant and grant him the lamp, the light and joy in the fellowship through jesus christ thy son our lord who lived and reigned with me in the holy spirit one god without end, forever. Amen. Most merciful god beyond their understanding deal graciously with benjamins family and friends in their grief. Surround them with thy love that they may not be overwhelmed by their loss but have confidence in thy goodness and strength to meet the days to come through jesus christ, our lord. Amen. Mr. Vice president , mr. Justice, mr. Secretary reverend clergy, sally members of the bradlee family, ladies and gentlemen so, how lucky were we . This is washington, the city of big reputations. Some of those reputations get punctured and ben was responsible for more than a few of those punctures. This is a very large building that everyone in it knows people whose enormous reputations are undeserved. We knew somebody much better than his very large reputation, even braver, even smarter, much more fun. He had his faults and if my mother Katharine Graham were still here, believe me she could go on a very long time about those. But she literally wrote the book about how great ben bradlee was and it was a very long book. At the same time, what a lucky guy ben was himself. His marriage to sally filled up the gossip columns of the rival papers but several decades later we can say saluki where the wife of his dreams. All you had to do to make ben smile was to mention your name always. He died surrounded by children he loved and loved him. Ben junior whom he admired so much as editor and author, marina whom i have known since she was a teenager at whom every visit to ben made him so happy and every visit and afterwards. And whose daily companionship lift up his last 33 years. In the kay Graham Bradlee correspondence in which frankly i am an expert my mother occasionally perhaps teasingly uses the phrase male chauvinist pig to describe her fellow correspondent. Surprise. In one crucial respect he wasnt. Take my word for it, in 1963 when kay graham became publisher of the postand ben was the borough chief in two years later the editor of the posts post many men were reduced to blubber by the idea that they were suddenly working for a woman. No other man that they knew was working for a while and because no other woman was running a Large Company other than kay graham. If the man at our company had any insecurities about himself he tended to demonstrate those insecurities around Katharine Graham. Ben after all those years as a destroyer officer of world war ii had no insecurities about himself and he recognized the great publisher when he saw one. My self doubting mother always secondguessing within minutes the last decision she had made, new for once when she made ben the editor she had done something great. She knew it by the evidence of our own eyes and she knew it because every reporter she liked and trusted came and told her so. The reporters ben hired were the toughest he could find and that meant they were the toughest critics of ben himself. That was fine with him. Those reporters i hate to say it mr. Justice, would not believe the word of a Supreme Court justice under oath. The post staff could be fairly described as hardbitten. They were a group of men and women who proudly had no heroes but he was our hero. Benjamin c. Bradlee and he will be always. Theyre reading from the book of ecclesiastics. For everything there is a season and its time for every matter under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to seek and a time to lose. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to sew. Its time to keep silence and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace. What game have the workers from their toil . I have seen the business that god has given everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time. Moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds yet they cannot find out what god has done from the beginning to the end. The word of the lord. Thanks be to god. Good morning. My generation considers that 26 years of ben bradlees run and the Washington Post newsroom as our golden age of journalism. He was the greatest motivator, the most enthusiastic cheerleader and when needed, the best protector of reporter could ask for. There was Nothing Better than ben coming to your desk and getting a bradlee verbal pat on the back. I cant repeat what he said here. [laughter] in his memoir, ben wrote that he had been given a ringside seat to some of the 20th centurys most vital moments and lucky us, we were right there with him. For me and others at the post he became more than just our boss. It in 1956, the years ben hired me from the washington star he heard that and go and i and our three youmonthold son needed a vacation spot. Out of the blue he offered us the house he had rented on Marthas Vineyard over the labor day week because he had to get back to the paper. That started a friendship that only grew over the years. When ben married sally which would make a good movie, in october of 1978 she brought a new sparkle to his life in two hours outside the paper. Along with larry stern and others we shared decades of work mixed with pleasure, thanks to sally and ben. Ben and Katharine Graham made the post the second family for many of us but it was ben do every day was the pumping heart of the operation and pushed us with that kind of competitive hunger that was infectious. Its a top that Solid Foundation built by ben and the grams that the post continues and i hope goes on to even greater heights. I once went to bens office to ask for a raise. He looked up from his crossword puzzle that he was always doing and said in his best gruff wasp tone, you ought to be paying me for all the fun you are having. [laughter] he was right. Ann and i, his friends, his colleagues have a pile of ben Golden Memories that ad to the already enormous debt we owe him for the richness of life that he has given us all. A reading from the letter of paul to the corinthians. If i speak in the time of mortals and angels but do not have love, i am a noisy clanging single the symbol and if i have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if i have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have loved, i am nothing. If i give away all my possessions and if i hand over my body so that i may boast but do not have love i gain nothing. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentf resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies they will come to an end. As for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only its hard and wet prophecy only in parts but when the complete calm, the partial will come to an end. When i was a child i spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When i became an adult i put an end to my childish ways. For now we see dimly but then we will see faith. Now i know only in part. Then i will know fully even as i have been fully known and now faith, hope and love abides. These three, and the greatest of these is love. The word of the lord. Thanks be to god. There have been memoirs, newspaper and magazine articles endless interviews books including ours, documentaries, movies about bens leadership of the post. What is the central part of his character, the part of him that was different . Its this. He was not afraid. On september 23, 1972 about 9 00 p. M. , i reached John Mitchell president nixons Campaign Manager by phone, about a story we were running. It said he had controlled a secret fund for undercover operations such as watergate. Mitchell was quite upset, responding jesus several times as i read them the story. He then proceeded to threaten an important private part of Katharine Grahams anatomy which he said would get caught in a big fat wringer if the post printed the story. He also said we are going to do a story on all of you and he hung up the phone. I called ben at home. Woodward and i did not much observe the chain of command. Ben interrogated me. Did i properly identify myself . Yes. Did i have good notes . Es. Okay ben said put in all of mitchells comments in the paper but leave out mrs. Grahams. Tell the desk its okay he said. A top official of the Nixon Campaign called me a few minutes later to make an appeal that mitchell had been caught in an unguarded moment. He has been been a cabinet member and so forth. He doesnt want to show up in the paper like that. The official then called bradlee at home to repeat the appeal. Bradlee recalled saying it just boils down to this question mr. Moore of whether mitchell said it or not and whether the Washington Post reporter identified himself as a reporter and if he did that, all my requisites have been satisfied. Mitchells comments stayed in the paper. To be honest, i was frightened. Bob and i were 28 and 29 years old. A raw threat from the former attorney general probably the official closest to nixon was not normal in the course of business as we knew it. The statement about doing a little story on all of us was chilling. We knew a lot about how they operated, dirty tricks, sabotage, espionage but ben did not miss a beat. This is a great story, get it in a paper fast. He couldnt wait to tell Katharine Graham to stop by my desk the next morning and asked with a smile and did i have any more messages for her . [laughter] lets think about this for a minute. We live now in an era when too many of us are unafraid. We look for and embrace the safety play. What will the boss thinks . What will the president of the board of directors due . My god i am vulnerable. I had better be careful and i had better seek comfort in the company line or the party line. How do i stay on the main road . An outlandish number of members of congress now, democrats and republicans hold office in a gerrymandered safe district protected as long as they hold the Party Doctrine whether left or right. The dominant political media culture is too often geared to the lowest common denominator. Make noise, get eyeballs, come into political battles like a football game. Manufacture is much controversy as can be jammed up. Ben lived and worked in an ungerrymandered world. He lived off the main road. There was no safe line except the truth. No groupthink. What was said to . What happened . Why . What is the context . No sensationalism. Keep digging. Months later in 1973 wait on an april night we learned that watergate was about to explode spectacularly and nixons involvement in ordering illegal activities and leading the coverup was indisputable. Ongoing wiretapping was widespread than lives could be in danger. It was 2 00 a. M. Woodward and i decided we had to get ahold of somebody somebody from the post immediately. Who . We of course decided to go straight to bradlee bradlees osprey called him on a payphone before we arrived. He said, over. When we suggested with the talk on the front lawn instead of inside dan in his jammies and his bathrobe gazed around amusedly and came out onto the front lawn and when we started to share the details of what we had learned he had one question. What do we do now . The next day he mobilized all the senior editors on the roof garden at the post where electronic eavesdropping would be unlikely. One of the editor suggested that things had now reached the edge of fantasy ben said he wasnt interested in the logic of it. We have seen some pretty illogical things in the last year he said. He just wanted to find out what might be true. He pulled off being bradlee because he wasnt afraid of president s, of polio, of political correctness, of publishing the pentagon papers, of possible retribution or the likelihood that the government might strike at the newspaper with all its power, of going off to war in the pacific, of making mistakes. Eight weeks ago at grey gardens on long island on august 26, sally seated next to ben at his 93rd Birthday Party he held my hand at times and he and i talked about his oldest friends from another era about fast eddie the lawyer, Edward Bennett williams, and dog wolinsky and their sunday breakfast at the drugstore on wisconsin avenue and about watergate. You guys he said. He struggled with some of the particulars. There was that big bradlee smile and he looked great. I mean great and he made some cracks about sally who was seated within covering distance a couple of people away and he seemed to be having a kind of revelry, savoring some memories and then the candles out. I loved this man. For the thousands of us who worked with ben was not mere admiration, reverends or even off that we felt. It was this love and the real question is why. Because he spoke and dealt with all of us personally. He touched each of us in almost every encounter or discussion with men no matter how fleeting he made you feel better about yourself. He left you with a feeling not just that he had accepted you, but the that he loved you in return. He made you want to be better and yes, have more fun not just for yourself but for him, whether it was a 19yearold copy aid, a summer intern, a beginning reporter and an outer county where ben had never visited or the spouses of the staff and here i wanted to list names of people who worked for ben and then my wife also wisely reminded me i would have to read the whole staff directory or portions of it over 26 years. The ben made you feel that your enterprises, whatever they were, were the most important in the world. So it might only be for a few seconds, short Attention Span you know, you got that. Ben hated clubs and claimed hed never joined one buddy ended up forming the most soughtafter club ever, club bradlee. No entrance fee, no membership card, nearly everyone felt it was a privilege to work and live in his orbit. We could feel that way because he never conveyed to oz that it was a privilege for him. This is what he did. As he aged he never lost that sweetness for life. Forcelli, and the countless members of his family and for all of us. He was a journalistic warrior, on equal than probably never to be matched. He had the courage of an army, a lion in all seasons. He wanted his newspaper to be like the Navy Destroyer he served on in world war ii. Make a big bow wave and wave a whirling churning waves. He noticed in fears. Then prowled the newsroom was like in search of news, gossip gossip, the hidden but emerging truths. He did not observe boundaries. They were for others. Reach out, knock on doors at night with your arrival and schedule. Schedules were for those who would miss the moment. Ben studied the classics in college. It was a mild effort by all accounts. [laughter] but he absorbs the central truth about the greek heroes, strong strong, leisurely, reckless at times, full of doubt at others, successful, get man who wept tears as most men no longer do. But ben cried easily at the slightest hint of sorrow in a movie or in life. He was in search of the large church, not just the facts which he was devoted to but he was looking for the deep emotional struggles he knew were in the great offensive moved history. He perceived that there was a thin threshold between the flaw and fatal flaw. As a result he was with all that stern is an swagger and selfconfidence a forgiving man. He understood human frailty. And in a sense unthinking but unintentional mistake was forgiven. I knew this because ive participated in too many of the celebrated mistakes during his years at the post. There were a number of times we obtained information about top secret code word u. S. Intelligence programs that provided a degree of security back in the cold war that was almost unimaginable. The real crown jewels but in the interest of the countrys safety at a time of the cold war, ben chose not to publish. He cared deeply about his country. Over four decades i traveled the country in the world with ben to give speeches, ferret out the news or vacation or share countless family holidays. Several years ago ben and i were invited to speak at the Nixon Library in california. Ben was astonished that this was happening. He could not believe that the world had turned so much. Quote, how do you like them apples mackey said smiling and giving off one of his favorite lines and adding a second favorite line, think about that for a minute. We showed up at Reagan National tsa security for a flight to california. He was not driving these days so he had no drivers drivers license. He had forgotten his passport and he had no photo i. D. [laughter] ben pulled out his aarp card. [laughter] tattered and expired. [laughter] ben always said you have to go with what you have, and even if it is the low fare. The tsa man would not have anything to do with this and they wouldnt even look at bens aarp card. Behind us in line we heard a voice. It sounded like the voice of moses. It was vernon jordan. [laughter] maybe you know the voice. Never a subtle presence, vernon bolted forward and said to the tsa man, this is ben bradlee, the former editor of the Washington Post. Ben bradlee said the tsa man and then improbably and miraculously he waved ben through security. Ben turned and gave one of those smiles and those fist muscle pumps with his right arm. He had beat the system again. [laughter] in those hard final years of his life as a great mind faded, people really took care of ben. His beloved wife sally, that was a real 41 year love affair. Their son quinn. Dr. Michael neumann, a saint in the medical profession and carmen and their housekeeper. Not chronologically but psychologically bens passing is in some respects and in some very clear ways, marks the end of the 20th century. He is gone and for that we are diminished and the world is smaller. I will never forget the leadership and the smile of this man we love so much. Part of ben bradlees incomparable charm was that he always seemed ready to say anything to anyone but ben was meticulous in his outrageousness. Tom lippmann our inhouse were marion told a story at bens retirement of how the secretary approached him as she was typing one of bens letters with a copyediting question. Is head of one word two . Ben was immensely funny, but the pier zest for life that was life itself. At her twice daily story conferences than would make wisecracks, razz editors, trade insults and provide gossip about washington. If you were too sentimental and making a story pitch, ben would play an imaginary violin. If you went on too long, ben would roll his eyes or put his hands to his throat in a choking motion. [laughter] if you didnt have the story, he told you to go get it. Being an editor is often mundane, exhausting work. Ben made it seem fun. Cool even. No wonder we all tried so desperately to be like him. Ben was a tough man who hated lies and weakness but he also could be gentle and protective. Many of us remember getting in trouble, making mistakes or being under public attack and having ben stride across the newsroom, put his arms around us, Say Something obscene and we knew instantly that everything would be fine. Knowing bens passion for all things fresh sally organized his birthday at field array. During his Birthday Dinner ben keeled over and we all thought oh my god is this its . The ambulance rushed into the hospital. By the time it arrived ben was chattering away in his Perfect French with the cute french nurses and sally was glowering what they look that said i told you he would be fine. As with everything in the final graceful years of bens life, she was right. When ben received the french in 2007 i gave a toast for calling the movie casablanca and the way it presented one of lifes great dilemmas. Would you rather be laszlo the resistance hero in the white suit this dried to the podium and the german occupied cafe and said border rick the saloon keeper played by Humphrey Bogart who stands in the shadows in his tuxedo and nods his approval . It was bens special personality that he was both. The man in the white white suit who was our leader and romantic road in the corner who made it cool and glamorous and real. Future journalists should ask themselves with us, what would ben do . Honored guests and family members i am the outlier here. I am from new york and im a heathen from television. But in 1973 i was a young correspondent assigned to cover the white house and watergate. And modestly i thought i brought with me a pretty good reputation as a reporter in california. I had covered the rise of ronald reagan, the three browns, pat jerry and willie. In 1968 Eugene Mccarthy and Bobby Kennedy, the night that Bobby Kennedy was killed as seared in my memory. Chicago and miami that year, Caesar Chavez the Counterculture Movement the Antiwar Movement that nixon fundraising apparatus. I even knew haldeman before he was haldeman but in washington there was a lot of skepticism about whether i was up for the job. After about a month of being on the air from the white house lawn morning noon and night ben bradlee who i barely knew put his arm around me and said kids, you know what you are doing and it took me to a different level and i was forever grateful and it was the beginning of a great friendship which was only deepened when he married married my friend sally and the two of them produced the incomparable quinn. For me this is a great privilege. Ive been thinking a lot about the words that have been written and spoken about ben in the past couple of weeks including mine and however eloquent or heartfelt they might have been they were somehow inadequate to the pleasure of knowing him which was a physical experience, to be in that Electromagnetic Energy field that he brought into any room that he entered. This do find ben as much as those turnbull and as their shirts that we have been hearing so much about in recent days. Lets be clear about something. Those were the sally effect. Presally p. Just like Holden Caulfield in shambles. It was that tough school conceit that came out of the pedigree, pedigree that he was proud of but he always wore lightly, benjamin bradlee. He once told joan didion and John Gregory Dunn if you think im cocky now you should have known me when the bradleys ha had at the end of their name. [laughter] ben in his own way was born to become the ben that we all came to love and to love and to cherish and wants to be part of his life. If the bradlee family had somehow missed a beat in the long line benji might have come off the pages it seems to me at f. Scott fitzgerald but that would have been inappropriate because i would have been a faint copy but there was nothing fictional about him. His lifetime as personality, his style, his accomplishments, his instinct and his love for everything in life. There are so many stories about ben and we have been hearing them here this morning. Mine is smaller but i think it is telling. When ben was in his late 60s or early 70s he joined the softball game we were having out on the island. He came to bat and he immediately had a sharp hit to right field. Running to first be noticed that the right fielder wasnt hustling so he took off for second stretching a single into a double and sliding in. When the dust settled there was ben safe at second that killer smile on his face as he raised his fist in triumph. I remember watching all of this and thinking, maybe i should have gone to harvard. He was not possible of course because i was being raised in a time and a place when we thought rahman was a bull and a rodeo and although i am the brokaw family tree there was no crown and shield. So at the end of his life in the end of the days we spent together for me it was just enough to know him and to love them and to his family i want to say we share your sorrow. We also share your pride and we are at the, and stewards of all that ben was and his love and is hard for journalism, his style, his character and as they came to know him when i wrote about his experiences with them his deep love for his country. Ben and married my mother when ben married my mother he took on four stepchildren under the age of eight. In addition to his sons ben jr. And marina. By 1960 there was a huge pileup of seven kids in the townhouse and ben was at the center of this vortex with his ruthless teasing and his relentless tolerance for helping out with homework. At 6 00 p. M. Sharp he whistled through the front door and the whole household would come rushing to him like filings to a magnet. The poem im going to read, the poem im going to read his bens favorite. We think he may have first heard this lying flat on his back at age 14 pair allies by polio. The poem is infected by William Ernest henry and his last line was often spoken to us the family either as an expectation rsn acclamation of somebody he admired like the plumber in the next room fixing the sink. Ben was stopped in his tracks by anyone who had authentic dignity who was the captain of his soul. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul