Ben Bradlee, Washington Post executive editor who oversaw Watergate stories, dies at 93

WASHINGTON (KABC) -- Ben Bradlee, the Washington Post executive editor who oversaw stories on the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandal, has died at age 93.

Bradlee died of natural causes, according to the Washington Post.

Boston native Bradlee graduated from Harvard and served in the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific.

He went on to work for Newsweek, first in postwar Paris and then in Washington, D.C., where he counted then-Senator John F. Kennedy as a friend. Bradlee was promoted to managing editor of the Washington Post in 1965 and rose through the ranks to become executive editor in 1968. It was a post Bradlee held until his retirement in 1991.

During his tenure, Bradlee steered the newspaper to national prominence, first by publishing Daniel Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers and then exposing the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

While Bradlee was known as a top editor in Washington, he became a household name when the movie "All the President's Men," detailing the Watergate scandal, hit the big screen in 1976.

PHOTOS: Notable deaths in 2014 - In Memoriam

ABC News contributed to this report.