On The Spot For The B.B.C.

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32406, 19 September 1970, Page 10

On The Spot For The B.B.C.

A Very Sheltered Life. By Douglas Stuart. Collins. 281 pp. With yesterday’s headlines already forgotten, these recollections of a foreign correspondent covering the immediate post-war years to the Johnson era read like history. Who better to write modem history than the foreign correspondent with his name on the invitation list of every embassy in the Capital? He is where it is happening; his ear is close to the administration. In these circumstances, the gathering of information is not ’ difficult; what is difficult, says Stuart, is to recognise the relevance of information and to see the present in relation to the past and as it will influence future events. Because the book was written and will be read with hindsight, it is no measure of Mr Stuart’s success in this tagk; his uninterrupted foreign service for the British Broadcasting Corporation must be his testimonial.

When he went to Bonn (from Delhi) in 1951, the German “economic miracle” had already begun; the German people were overheating and killing themselves on the roads at an alarming rate, the strain of keeping afloat in the rising tide of affluence was severe, and the war’ was a thing of the past. But the foreign correspondents would not allow the Germans to forget their crimes. In “the jungle of deceit that was the political life of Western Germany” they were constantly uncovering Nazis in the Federal Government ranks. Stuart thinks they were right to do so. But he admits that everyone—politicians, diplomatists, correspondents missed the truly important development of those years: the steady growth of the European Economic Community. As he says, it was during the mid-fifties, when Britain’s eyes were on the Middle East, that partnership with Europe should have been sought

Mr Stuart himself was based in Cairo at the time of Suez, on the spot, he recalls, for a world news story of incalculable proportions, but the 8.8. C. held over till the next morning his report of the nationalisation of the canal. The human interest story of the wreck of the Andrea Doria off New York was preferred. Mr Stuart begins his recollections with “thoughts on a dying profession.” Taking advantage of rapid air travel, editors are more and more sending reporters from home to cover the news where and when it happens, rather than relying on the foreign-based correspondent Governments follow the same course, which suggests to the author that Ambassadors as well as foreign correspondents may die out, and the loss will be what he puts down as “an appreciation of truth.” The peripatetic diplomatist and journalist ask the questions but do not stay for the answers.

Because he was in each of his posts— Delhi, Bonn, Cairo, Beirut, Vienna, Washington—as a resident newsman, Mr Stuart’s recollections of events and personalities of the time are superimposed on a broad base of local knowledge. His book, thoroughly readable now, will increase in interest and value as more and more is forgotten of the details of Cyprus, prewall Berlin, the early Eisenhower years, the 1955 Soviet arms deal with Egypt This is a history book written as one man saw it happening. He was there in East Berlin the day the revolt there reached a crescendo. Back in West Berlin, he recorded his despatch for the 8.8. C. Over the line came the instruction: “Would you mind doing it again, leaving out the drama.” Much of the drama and. comment that would never do for the 8.8. C. is, fortunately, in his book.