Anthony Howard (journalist)
Encyclopedia
Anthony Michell Howard, CBE
(12 February 1934 – 19 December 2010) was a prominent British
journalist, broadcaster and writer. He was the editor of the New Statesman
, The Listener and the deputy editor of The Observer
. He selected the passages used in "The Crossman Diaries", a book of entries taken from Richard Crossman's "The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister".
clergyman, Canon
Guy Howard. He was educated at Purton Stoke School at Kintbury
in Berkshire
, Highgate School
, Westminster
and at Christ Church, Oxford
where, in 1954, he was chairman of the Oxford University Labour Club
and, the following year, President of the Oxford Union
.
Howard had planned a career as a barrister
, having been called to the Bar (Inner Temple
) in 1956 while fulfilling his National Service
obligations in the army
, during which he saw active service in the Royal Fusiliers during the Suez War
, but he "stumbled" into his career as a journalist in 1958, starting on Reynolds News as a political correspondent. Howard moved to the Manchester Guardian
in 1959. The following year, he was awarded a Harkness Fellowship
to study in the United States, though he remained on the Guardian’s staff.
from 1961 until 1964. An admirer of Labour
leader Hugh Gaitskell
during this period, he was a strong advocate of the democratic process:
In January 1965, Howard joined The Sunday Times
as its Whitehall
correspondent, a post he saw as being in advance of the then current journalistic practices. Cabinet Ministers were instructed by Prime Minister Harold Wilson
's private secretary not to co-operate with Howard. Civil servants received similar instructions. Howard though, was soon invited to become the Observer’s
chief Washington correspondent, serving in the role from 1966 to 1969, later contributing a political column (1971-72). During his period in America he made regular contributions to The World At One
on Radio 4
. "It got to where I was almost the World at One Washington correspondent", he once remarked.
As editor of the New Statesman
(1972-78), succeeding Richard Crossman
, whose deputy he had been (1970-72), he appointed Robin Cook
as the magazine's parliamentary adviser in 1974, (Cook also contributed articles), James Fenton
, Christopher Hitchens
and Martin Amis
as literary editor in 1977. Under Howard, the magazine published a rare non-British contributor: Gabriel García Márquez
in March 1974, on the overthrow of Salvador Allende
's elected government in Chile
the previous September. Perhaps out of a sense of mischief, he featured a series of diatribes against the British Left
, by the magazine's former editor Paul Johnson, a drinking companion and friend of Howard's, whose rightward drift was well advanced by then. Howard was unable to halt the magazine's fall in circulation, however. He then edited The Listener for two years (1979-81).
Howard was deputy editor of The Observer
(1981-88), where one of his journalist protégés was the journalist and (later) novelist Robert Harris
, whom he appointed as the newspaper's political editor. His professional relationship with the editor, Donald Trelford
, ultimately broke down over allegations that Trelford had allowed the newspaper’s proprietor Tiny Rowland
to interfere in editorial content. After leaving The Observer
, following an ill-fated editorial coup against Trelford, he was a reporter on Newsnight
and Panorama
(1989-92), having previously presented Channel Four’s
Face the Press (1982-85). His last editorial positions before turning freelance were at The Times
as Obituaries editor (1993-99) and Chief Political Book Reviewer (1990-2004), though he contributed opinion columns to the newspaper until September 2005, when his regular column was discontinued.
Howard assisted Michael Heseltine
on his memoirs, Life in the Jungle: My Autobiography (2000), and more recently published an official biography Basil Hume: The Monk Cardinal (2005), despite being an agnostic.
in 1997. He died in London, after surgery for a ruptured aneurysm
.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(12 February 1934 – 19 December 2010) was a prominent British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
journalist, broadcaster and writer. He was the editor of the New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
, The Listener and the deputy editor of The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
. He selected the passages used in "The Crossman Diaries", a book of entries taken from Richard Crossman's "The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister".
Early life
Howard was the son of a Church of EnglandChurch of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
clergyman, Canon
Canon (priest)
A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....
Guy Howard. He was educated at Purton Stoke School at Kintbury
Kintbury
Kintbury is a village and civil parish in West Berkshire, England, between the towns of Newbury and Hungerford.-Amenities:In Kintbury there is the Church of England parish church of Saint Mary, Church of England primary school, post office, corner shop, and a butcher...
in Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
, Highgate School
Highgate School
-Notable members of staff and governing body:* John Ireton, brother of Henry Ireton, Cromwellian General* 1st Earl of Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, owner of Kenwood, noted for judgment finding contracts for slavery unenforceable in English law* T. S...
, Westminster
Westminster School
The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...
and at Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
where, in 1954, he was chairman of the Oxford University Labour Club
Oxford University Labour Club
Oxford University Labour Club was founded in 1919 to provide a voice for Labour Party values and for socialism and social democracy at Oxford University, England...
and, the following year, President of the Oxford Union
Oxford Union
The Oxford Union Society, commonly referred to simply as the Oxford Union, is a debating society in the city of Oxford, Britain, whose membership is drawn primarily but not exclusively from the University of Oxford...
.
Howard had planned a career as a barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
, having been called to the Bar (Inner Temple
Inner Temple
The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
) in 1956 while fulfilling his National Service
National service
National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...
obligations in the army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
, during which he saw active service in the Royal Fusiliers during the Suez War
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...
, but he "stumbled" into his career as a journalist in 1958, starting on Reynolds News as a political correspondent. Howard moved to the Manchester Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
in 1959. The following year, he was awarded a Harkness Fellowship
Harkness Fellowship
The Harkness Fellowships are a programme run by the Commonwealth Fund of New York City. They were established to reciprocate the Rhodes Scholarships and enable Fellows from several countries to spend time studying in the United States...
to study in the United States, though he remained on the Guardian’s staff.
Career
Howard was political correspondent of the New StatesmanNew Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
from 1961 until 1964. An admirer of Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
leader Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell CBE was a British Labour politician, who held Cabinet office in Clement Attlee's governments, and was the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955, until his death in 1963.-Early life:He was born in Kensington, London, the third and youngest...
during this period, he was a strong advocate of the democratic process:
"I strongly believe that people should have the right to elect their own rulers and for a long time I was deeply affronted by what the Conservative Party did and never more affronted than when Alec Douglas-HomeAlec Douglas-HomeAlexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel, KT, PC , known as The Earl of Home from 1951 to 1963 and as Sir Alec Douglas-Home from 1963 to 1974, was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1963 to October 1964.He is the last...
became leader of the Conservative Party. That seemed to me to be an Etonian fix organised by Harold MacmillanHarold MacmillanMaurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....
."
In January 1965, Howard joined The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
as its Whitehall
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road in Westminster, in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards Charing Cross at the southern end of Trafalgar Square...
correspondent, a post he saw as being in advance of the then current journalistic practices. Cabinet Ministers were instructed by Prime Minister Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
's private secretary not to co-operate with Howard. Civil servants received similar instructions. Howard though, was soon invited to become the Observer’s
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
chief Washington correspondent, serving in the role from 1966 to 1969, later contributing a political column (1971-72). During his period in America he made regular contributions to The World At One
The World At One
The World at One, or WATO for short, is BBC Radio 4's long-running lunchtime news and current affairs programme, which is broadcast from 1pm to 1:30pm from Monday to Friday. The programme describes itself as "Britain's leading political programme. With a reputation for rigorous and original...
on Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
. "It got to where I was almost the World at One Washington correspondent", he once remarked.
As editor of the New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
(1972-78), succeeding Richard Crossman
Richard Crossman
Richard Howard Stafford Crossman OBE was a British author and Labour Party politician who was a Cabinet Minister under Harold Wilson, and was the editor of the New Statesman. A prominent socialist intellectual, he became one of the Labour Party's leading Zionists and anti-communists...
, whose deputy he had been (1970-72), he appointed Robin Cook
Robin Cook
Robert Finlayson Cook was a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Livingston from 1983 until his death, and notably served in the Cabinet as Foreign Secretary from 1997 to 2001....
as the magazine's parliamentary adviser in 1974, (Cook also contributed articles), James Fenton
James Fenton
James Martin Fenton is an English poet, journalist and literary critic. He is a former Oxford Professor of Poetry.-Life and career:...
, Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
and Martin Amis
Martin Amis
Martin Louis Amis is a British novelist, the author of many novels including Money and London Fields . He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, but will step down at the end of the 2010/11 academic year...
as literary editor in 1977. Under Howard, the magazine published a rare non-British contributor: Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
in March 1974, on the overthrow of Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
's elected government in Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
the previous September. Perhaps out of a sense of mischief, he featured a series of diatribes against the British Left
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
, by the magazine's former editor Paul Johnson, a drinking companion and friend of Howard's, whose rightward drift was well advanced by then. Howard was unable to halt the magazine's fall in circulation, however. He then edited The Listener for two years (1979-81).
Howard was deputy editor of The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
(1981-88), where one of his journalist protégés was the journalist and (later) novelist Robert Harris
Robert Harris (novelist)
Robert Dennis Harris is an English novelist. He is a former journalist and BBC television reporter.-Early life:Born in Nottingham, Harris spent his childhood in a small rented house on a Nottingham council estate. His ambition to become a writer arose at an early age, from visits to the local...
, whom he appointed as the newspaper's political editor. His professional relationship with the editor, Donald Trelford
Donald Trelford
Donald Trelford is a British journalist and academic, who was editor of The Observer newspaper from 1975 to 1993. He was also a director of The Observer from 1975 to 1993 and Chief Executive from 1992 to 1993....
, ultimately broke down over allegations that Trelford had allowed the newspaper’s proprietor Tiny Rowland
Tiny Rowland
Roland "Tiny" Rowland was a British businessman and chairman of the Lonrho conglomerate from 1962 to 1994...
to interfere in editorial content. After leaving The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, following an ill-fated editorial coup against Trelford, he was a reporter on Newsnight
Newsnight
Newsnight is a BBC Television current affairs programme noted for its in-depth analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians. Jeremy Paxman has been its main presenter for over two decades....
and Panorama
Panorama (TV series)
Panorama is a BBC Television current affairs documentary programme, which was first broadcast in 1953, and is the longest-running public affairs television programme in the world. Panorama has been presented by many well known BBC presenters, including Richard Dimbleby, Robin Day, David Dimbleby...
(1989-92), having previously presented Channel Four’s
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
Face the Press (1982-85). His last editorial positions before turning freelance were at The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
as Obituaries editor (1993-99) and Chief Political Book Reviewer (1990-2004), though he contributed opinion columns to the newspaper until September 2005, when his regular column was discontinued.
Howard assisted Michael Heseltine
Michael Heseltine
Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, CH, PC is a British businessman, Conservative politician and patron of the Tory Reform Group. He was a Member of Parliament from 1966 to 2001 and was a prominent figure in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major...
on his memoirs, Life in the Jungle: My Autobiography (2000), and more recently published an official biography Basil Hume: The Monk Cardinal (2005), despite being an agnostic.
Personal life
Howard married Carol Anne Gaynor, herself a journalist, in 1965. He was awarded the CBEOrder of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
in 1997. He died in London, after surgery for a ruptured aneurysm
Aneurysm
An aneurysm or aneurism is a localized, blood-filled balloon-like bulge in the wall of a blood vessel. Aneurysms can commonly occur in arteries at the base of the brain and an aortic aneurysm occurs in the main artery carrying blood from the left ventricle of the heart...
.
External links
- Childe Harold: New Statesman article from 1964 on the newly elected government of Harold Wilson (December 6, 1999 reprint).
- column archives
- Obituary of Anthony Howard, The Daily Telegraph, 20 December, 2010