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From staff and wire reports

Letter to Jim Bellows from Ben Bradlee

The Washington Post

1150 15th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20071

Dear Jim:

You apparently don't think it's terrible to write what you do write about the Post.

But to us, your references to the Post, to Mrs. Graham, and to others, including me and Quinn, are without exception sneering, impugning, belittling and ridiculing. And when it is known that you are personally involved in their editing, it is only natural that I feel you are something of an authority on what is shoddy and disgraceful in journalism.

MORE STORIES Excerpt: 'The Last Editor': Ben Bradlee and 'The Ear'

The question is really what do you want to do about it? If you want to do nothing, that's fine with us.

If you want to talk about it, let's talk.

Sincerely,

Ben

April 4, 1977

Ear-Say

Since its first appearance ten months ago in the Washington Star, "The Ear," the brassy daily oracle, has become the most talked-about gossip column in a town that takes chitchat to heart. The Ear draws more phone calls and mail than any feature in the paper. "You're a dirty fun of a snitch," wrote one fan. A local socialite is planning an "Ear Ball" honoring Washingtonians mentioned in the column. The Star mails a gold-colored ear-shaped pin to all whose names have appeared.

"New York's Great White Way is not so bright and glittering anymore," says the managing editor of the Fort Lauderdale News. "The center of gossip today is Washington."

-- Time magazine, May 10, 1976

D.C. shootout: Bradlee vs. Bellows in big macho duel

No wonder the Washington Post's Ben Bradlee and the Washington Star's Jim Bellows don't like each other. They're just alike. They both started out as Navy men in World War II and ended up editing rival Washington papers. They even look alike and have the same deep voice. They're the same person. Bradlee and Bellows' alliterative feud borders on self-loathing.

Washington's B-B war is just that. It is carried on with an air-rifle intensity, but the frequent hits smart. Which is all as it should be. In the old Front Page days, Chicago was the home of organized crime and press wars. But Richard Nixon brought organized crime to Washington and with it came in-town media competition. The Bradley-Bellows fight fits the town perfectly. Who would want Washington's two leading editors to get along?

-- Aaron Latham in More magazine, September 1976