Presidential Medal of Freedom for Bradlee in 2013

Post's Ben Bradlee dies

Ben Bradlee, the Washington Post’s executive editor when investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were bringing down President Nixon and the Watergate plumbers, died.

Jason Robards won an Oscar for portraying Bradlee in “All the President’s Men,” about the 1974 downfall and resignation of Nixon. Deep Throat took on a new meaning that it didn’t have in the XXX-rated movie of that name.

In 1971, Boston native Benjamin Crowninshield "Ben" Bradlee approved publication of the Pentagon Papers, which revealed that the Vietnam War was not going as political leaders portrayed it.

President Obama, who last year honored Bradlee with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, said that Bradlee “set a standard for honest, objective, meticulous reporting.”

Bradlee was the Post’s executive editor from 1968 to 1991.

He was married three times and had four children.