A syndicated newspaper columnist, Braden is best known for his 1975 autobiographical book Eight is Enough *, about his home life with eight children, which was turned into the hit 1977-1981 TV series of the same name, with Dick Van Patten playing the patriarch “Tom Bradford”.
Braden’s personal history is worthy of another type of book: a spy novel. Before his newspaper career, Braden spent a stint in the OSS, the predecessor to the CIA, during World War II. During the Cold War he was the head of the CIA’s International Organizations Division, which sponsored cultural events overseas to help spread American ideas and values, and funneled money into the international branches of labor unions to support anti-Communist ideas.
After leaving the CIA in 1954, he bought a California newspaper, which he ran for 13 years and then sold for a large profit so he could move back east and write his column. “When he was desperate for a column, he wrote about us,” said his daughter Susan, which led to his book. But he liked politics, and was one of the original co-hosts of Crossfire on CNN, where he argued politics from a liberal position against arch conservative Pat Buchanan. Braden died April 3 at his home in Denver, survived by seven of his eight kids (Tommy was killed in a car crash in 1994). He was 92.