I was in Florida last week on a long-planned vacation and didn't learn of Ed Bradley's death until I saw his picture staring up at me from the USA Today in front of the hotel door. "Shocked" is one word to describe my immediate reaction, closely followed by that old standby that's used any time an admired professional acquaintance passes from the scene: "Saddened."
Saddened because Bradley was indeed a great broadcaster, and saddened because I never got to know him particularly well. For the most part I was an admirer from afar - like any other civilian who had seen his work and wondered what this grounded and deeply intelligent guy was really like. Sunday's extraordinary tribute on "60 Minutes" was a start, although only confirmed what I had long suspected. Few people knew Bradley well, including some of his closest colleagues on the show. I - and maybe you too- was struck by the absence of Mike Wallace and Don Hewitt; Andy Rooney could come up with the memorable line that "I don’t have enough years left myself to ever get over missing Ed Bradley," though I would have liked to have known more about why.
So, as we say in the blogging trade, now it's my turn. Ed was the quiet one: The George Harrison of this world-famous quartet also starring Mike/Morley/Andy (Harry? He was the fifth Beatle, of course.) He was one of the genuine Naturals in the trade of TV journalism - a fully fleshed out three-dimensional human being who conveyed an aura of authority and sensitivity, of omniscience and curiosity. Bradley didn't force pieces; they emerged from him, as seamlessly as if they were a part of his being. To watch a Bradley piece was to move across a plain of discovery - never quite certain what you'd find on the other side because Bradley wasn't quite certain what he'd find there either. You always sensed that Bradley's voyage of discovery was part of a voyage of self-discovery too; he was trying to find out how the subject matter refracted through his own soul, and as a viewer, you too would get a glimpse of the real Ed.
His style was uniquely and wholly his own. Though he had famously helped "boat people" ashore in a "CBS Reports" broadcast that would persuade Hewitt to bring him to "60" back in the early '80s, Bradley was a protagonist in each of the stories he did. As George, he was the soft-spoken one, the one who empathized without saying a word. His smile and laugh were radiant and so was his intelligence. Bradley, in short, was the perfect embodiment of the "60 Minutes" correspondent and a major reason why this is the single most successful primetime program in television history.
There were controversies of course, though by virtue of that Bradley personality and style, their half-lives seemed brief and unexceptional. Foremost, there was that sensational 1989 piece on daminozide - AKA Alar - about the plant growth regulator (or retardant) sprayed on apples which the Natural Resources Defense Council claimed had been found in juice and which could pose a risk to children - cancer or some other horrendous disease could result, if memory serves. So powerful was "60" that after Bradley/David Gelber’s piece aired, you were almost afraid to pick up an apple. To this day, I peer at the thing wondering: Is that a dusting of Alar I see there? I look at a bottle of apple juice and see a skull and crossbones.
The apple industry exploded, literally. Frantic growers filed a $100 million that was subsequently dropped; the NRDC (and "60") never retracted he claims, though there was plenty of evidence to suggest they were perhaps bogus. Ed - the Quiet One - never backed down. He was even challenged on the Alar story years later by a caller on "Larry King Live," where he was forced (yet again) to defend it: "If anyone can show us proof that the EPA has said that Alar is OK, we'll retract the story. The EPA said Alar was a problem. '60 Minutes' didn't say it was a problem; the EPA did." Well...
Bradley's other controversy was the Audi 5000 - the story that very nearly killed a car. Surely you remember that one? To this day, I peer at the Audi 5000...well, you now know more about my neuroses that you want to. But you get the point: "60" of the 1980s was a giant-killer, and Ed - the Quiet One - helped to wield the ax. This piece claimed Audis unintentionally accelerated, killing or maiming the occasional and misfortunate driver; three years later, the government came to the rescue of the embattled Audi, claiming that - yeah, sure - the thing would accelerate if you accidentally stepped on the gas pedal instead of the brake. "60" never retracted nor did Ed: "It's not a figment of our imagination. It actually happened, whether you believe it or not," Bradley told a caller during that King broadcast.
But that, pretty much, was that. Bradley skirted the implosions and self-immolations that occasionally engulfed "60" over the years. He was above and beyond the fray - a secret to his long survival along with that aforementioned talent. He was, in fact, uncharacteristically furious at impending pay cut over the summer (who wouldn't be.) But that was a matter of pride as opposed to financial need. Ed ultimately got his dime anyway.
There was, nevertheless, one outstanding mystery about Ed, and I vet that now. Why was he never named the anchor of "The Evening News?" On rare occasion over the years, I championed a Bradley appointment; there was no anchor more gifted that Bradley at West 57th. And I do mean none. He was the logical successor to Walter. Both shared a sense of the momentousness of the job, and a sense of its rich tradition. Both could fill the screen, and keep the viewers' eyes firmly affixed to it. Both had rich sonorous voices that could bathe a news story in drama and significance. But both - unlike Dan Rather - never became the story or commandeered it.
Why didn't Ed become the anchor of "Evening News" back in '89 when it was clear that Rather's era had ingloriously ended (or was beginning to end)? A question of race? I never believed that, though often wondered about it. Bradley would not have just been the first solo African-American anchor, but a great one; race would ultimately have become an afterthought.
So why not? Bradley told friends that he simply didn't want the job. He had embraced the "life-style" of "60 Minutes:" the travel, summers off, the months in Aspen and Woody Creek (or East Hampton.) The Quiet One reveled in food, and music and New Orleans. He enjoyed life, and enjoyed the job as well. Why - he seemed to suggest - demolish this perfect balance?
But a few days after his untimely death, I wonder. In news accounts, I learn that Bradley had been diagnosed with leukemia years ago. Did he perhaps fear that the pressure of a bigger job would accelerate his illness? Did he know he had little time left, and that making a Wynton Marsalis concert was more important than making a 6:30 deadline?
Questions we'll never have answers to.