A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures

On August 8, 1942, I graduated from Harvard by the skin of my teeth at 10 a.m. At noon, I was commissioned an ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve. And at 4 p.m., I married Jean Saltonstall, the first and only girl I had ever been with and I was on my way to someplace called the South Pacific. I was not yet 21...The education of Benjamin C. Bradlee was finally under way.

And so beg…