Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (born August 26, 1921) is a vice president at-large of The Washington Post. As executive editor of the Post from 1968 to 1991, he became a national figure during the presidency of Richard Nixon, when he challenged the federal government over the right to publish the Pentagon Papers and oversaw the publication of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's stories documenting the Watergate scandal.

A member of the Boston Brahmin Crowninshield family, Bradlee was born in Boston, Massachusetts on August 26, 1921, His father was Frederick Josiah Bradlee Jr. (1892–1970), a direct descendant of John Bradley – the first of the Bradleys to come to America – who in 1630 helped build what is now Dorchester, Massachusetts. His mother, Josephine de Gersdorff (1896–1975), was awarded the Legion of Honor for helping keep children safe from Nazi Germany and France during World War II.^{[citation needed]} Bradlee's maternal grandfather, Carl August de Gersdorff (1865–1944), was a wealthy New York lawyer, and his maternal grandmother was Helen Suzette Crowninshield (1868–1941), daughter of artist Frederic Crowninshield (1845–1918), another member of the Crowninshield family. His great-great-uncle was American lawyer and Ambassador Joseph Hodges Choate; and his great-uncle (and cousin second removed) was Francis "Frank" Welch Crowninshield, the creator and editor of Vanity Fair, and a roommate of Conde Nast. Josephine de Gersdorff, Bradlee's mother, was a direct descendant of Heinrich XXIX, Princely Count of Reuss-Ebersdorff, who was a direct descendant of King John II of France and Bonne of Bohemia. Bradlee's maternal great grandfather was Dr. Ernst Bruno von Gersdorffk, Josephine's grandfather, who was a third cousin of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom through Heinrich XXIX.