Big Ben.

• Author: Fallows, James
• Position: Review

Ben Bradlee left behind a fine newspaper, and a lot of good stories, but he didn't understand why journalism needs to explain

A Good Life Ben Bradlee, Simon & Schuster, $27.50

During the 25 years in which he personified and dominated The Washington Post, from the mid-1960s through the early 1990s, Ben Bradlee was known for two main traits.

One was having made the Post a plausible national contender to The New York Times. The Times still has fundamental advantages--nationwide circulation, a more extensive foreign staff, more plugged-in coverage of New York-based activities like finance, publishing, culture, and art. Yet the Post is more plugged into Washington politics. And it now seems perfectly natural to say "the Post and the Times."

Thirty years ago, when Katharine Graham lured Bradlee from Newsweek to the Post, it would have been a stretch to compare the two papers. It is true that the rise of the Post depended on a string of shrewd business decisions by Graham, who took over the paper after her husband's suicide in 1963 with almost no management experience. Yet Bradlee was the one responsible for recruiting and then motivating waves of talented reporters, writers, and editors. Bradlee describes his excitement in bringing to the Post David Broder--then a rising-star political reporter, and the first prominent journalist ever to leave the Times for the Post. Even before the Woodward and Bernstein era of the 1970s, the Post was becoming a sexy destination for ambitious reporters.

Bradlee's second claim to fame was his personal style. Dapper and dashing, with a face often described in print as that of an international jewel thief, Bradlee charmed many people in his orbit. The most significant charmee was no doubt Graham. In his book, Bradlee describes her as making all the crucial go/no-go decisions on publishing the Pentagon Papers and the touchiest Watergate stories, but these decisions were no doubt easier for Graham because of her faith in Bradlee. The cult of Bradlee at the Post did have its excesses, as when in the late 1970s, ambitious editors there imitated his British-tailored clothes. But he seems to have gone through life leaving people grateful for their contact with him.

Bradlee's autobiography is a surprisingly charming work that sheds light on both aspects of his reputation. The book's greatest success, and the source of the surprise, is how clearly it conveys his personality. Because journalists live so fully in the "now,"...