by Hugh Purcell
Kenyatta, Jomo 1
Kerr, Lizi see Freeman, Lizi
Kerr, Mima see Freeman, Mima
Khaled, Leila 1, 2
Khan, Ayub 1, 2
Khrushchev, Nikita 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Kimber, Percy 1, 2
King, Martin Luther 1, 2
Kissinger, Dr Henry 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and UC Davis 1, 2
and Vietnam 1, 2
and Wilson 1
Korean War 1
Kray Twins 1
Labour Party 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and general elections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
and television 1
Lambert, Constant 1, 2
Lambert, Isabel 1
Laski, Harold 1, 2
Laski, Marghanita 1
Lawson, Dominic 1, 2
Lawson, John 1
Lawson, Nigel 1, 2, 3, 4
Lee, Jennie 1, 2
Lloyd George, David 1
London Calling Europe (radio show) 1
London Programme, The (TV show) 1
London Weekend Television (LWT) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Lower, Elmer 1
Lucas, E. V. 1
Luke, Lt Peter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Lustgarten, Edgar 1
MacArthur, Gen Douglas 1
McGivern, Cecil 1
MacKenzie, Norman 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and communism 1, 2, 3
and Jung 1
and New Statesman 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
and Panorama 1
McKenzie, Robert 1
Maclean, Donald 1, 2
Macmillan, Harold 1
Man and his Symbols (Jung) 1
Margerison, Dr Tom 1
Marquand, Hilary 1
Martin, Kingsley 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and Freeman 1
and Johnson 1
and nuclear disarmament 1, 2, 3
Mayhew, Christopher 1, 2, 3
Mechta, Om 1
Meeting Point (TV show) 1
Menon, Krishna 1, 2
Merchant, Ismail 1
Metcalf, Corinna 1, 2, 3, 4
Meyer, Karl 1
MI5 1, 2, 3
MI6 1, 2, 3, 4
Miall, Leonard 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Middle East 1
Mikardo, Ian 1, 2, 3, 4
Miller, Jonathan 1
Miller, Karl 1, 2
Miller, Ron 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Milligan, Spike 1
Mitchell, Judith see Freeman, Judith
Mitchison, Naomi 1
Monitor (TV show) 1
Montague, Lord 1, 2
Montgomery, FM Bernard 1, 2, 3, 4
Moorehead, Alan 1
Morrison, Herbert 1
Moseley, Oswald 1, 2, 3
Moss, Stirling 1, 2
Mountbatten, Louis, Lord 1, 2
Muggeridge, Malcolm 1, 2, 3
Muir, Frank 1, 2
Munich Agreement 1
Murdoch, Rupert 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Murrow, Ed 1
Nehru, Jawarhalal 1, 2, 3
New Statesman (magazine) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and Cuba 1
and Freeman 1, 2, 3
and nuclear disarmament 1, 2
and spying 1
News of the World (newspaper) 1, 2
Newsreel (TV show) 1
Nixon, Richard 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and Watergate 1
and Wilson 1, 2
Noel-Baker, Francis 1
nuclear disarmament 1, 2, 3, 4
Nyerere, Julius 1
O’Brien, Edna 1, 2, 3
Oistrakh, David 1
On the Buses (TV show) 1
Orwell, George 1
Osborne, John 1
Oulougzade, Aziz 1
Oxford University 1, 2
Pakistan 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Palestine 1
Panorama (TV show) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Parkinson, Michael 1
Peacock, Michael 1, 2, 3, 4 and LWT 1, 2, 3
Philby, Kim 1, 2
Pickles, Wilfred 1, 2
Pilkington Report (1962) 1
Pincher, Chapman 1
Please Sir! (TV show) 1
Plomley, Roy 1
Plowden, Bridget, Lady 1, 2
Poland 1, 2
Pollitt, Harry 1
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) 1
Press Conference (TV show) 1, 2
Priestley, J. B. 1, 2, 3, 4
Privy Council 1, 2
Profumo, John 1
Pruden, Wes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Radcliffe Tribunal 1
radio 1
Radio Link (radio show) 1
Raj, the 1, 2, 3
Rákosi, Mátyás 1
re-armament 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Renwick, Robin, Lord 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and LWT 1
Rimington, John 1, 2
Rimington, Stella 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Ritchie, Gen Neil 1
Rogers, William 1, 2, 3, 4
Rolf, C. H. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Romania 1
Romilly, Esmond 1
Rommel, Gen Erwin 1, 2, 3
Rose, Joanna 1, 2, 3, 4
Royal Television Society 1
Russell, Bertrand 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Ryan, Nigel 1
Schweitzer, Albert 1
Second World War 1, 2, 3, 4
Sharp, Clifford 1
Shastri, Lal Bahadur 1, 2, 3, 4
Shawcross, Lord 1
Sherwin, Elizabeth 1, 2, 3
Singh, Hari 1
Singh, Khushwant 1
Sisco, Joseph 1
Sitwell, Dame Edith 1
Siverson, Randy 1
Smith, Leslie 1
Snyder, Dan 1, 2
socialism 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and New Statesman 1
South Africa 1
South Bank Show, The (TV show) 1
Soviet Union 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and Cuba 1, 2
and India 1, 2
and USA 1
Spain, Nancy 1
Spanish Civil War 1, 2, 3
spies 1, 2, 3, 4
Spotlight (TV show) 1
Stalin, Joseph 1, 2, 3
Star and Garter Home 1
Stephens, Doreen 1
Stern Gang 1
Stewart, Michael 1, 2, 3
Strauss, George 1, 2, 3
Tawney, R. H. 1
Taylor, A. J. P. 1, 2
television see BBC; ITV;
London Weekend Television
Tesler, Brian 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Thames TV 1, 2, 3, 4
Thatcher, Margaret 1, 2
Thomas, Howard 1, 2
Thorndyke, Dame Sybil 1
Tin Tut 1
Titmuss, Richard 1
Topolski, Feliks 1, 2, 3
Tories see Conservative Party
Townsend, Peter 1
Toynbee, Philip 1, 2
Trend, Sir Burke 1
Trethowan, Sir Ian 1
Triggs, Janet 1, 2
Triggs, John 1
United Front of Progressive Forces (UFPF) 1
United Press International Television News (UPITN) 1
United States of America 1 and ambassadorship 1
and Cuba 1, 2
and television 1, 2, 3
University of California, Davis 1
Upstairs, Downstairs (TV show) 1
Vallance, Aylmer 1, 2
Vassall, John 1
VE Day 1, 2
Vietnam War 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Viewfinder (TV show) 1
Vorster, John 1
Waddell, Gavin 1
Wade, Larry 1
Wandesforde-Smith, Geoffrey 1, 2, 3
Washington demonstrations 1
Waterfield, John 1
Watergate 1, 2, 3
Waugh, Evelyn 1, 2
Week in Westminster (radio show) 1
Weekend World (TV show) 1, 2
West, Nigel 1
Westminster School 1, 2
Wheeler, Charles 1, 2, 3
Wheldon, Huw 1
Wilkinson, Ellen 1, 2
Willey, Fred 1
<
br /> Wilson, Harold 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and Bevanites 1, 2
and India 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
and USA 1, 2, 3, 4
Wolfenden, Sir John 1
Wolz, Gen Alwin 1
Wood, Andrew 1
Woodman, Dorothy 1
Woolf, Leonard 1, 2
World of Sport, The (TV show) 1
Wyatt, Woodrow 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and Driberg 1
and election 1
and politics 1, 2
and television 1, 2, 3
and Wilson 1
Wyndham Goldie, Grace 1, 2, 3, 4 and Face to Face 1, 2
Young, Sir Brian 1, 2, 3, 4
Yugoslavia 1, 2
Father Horace: ‘He did not suffer fools.’
Mother Beatrice: ‘My pretty, silly mother.’
Baby John at his christening.
JF in the second rowing VIII at Westminster School, 1930 (back row, second from left): ‘He rows like the village blacksmith.’
Hunger marchers demonstrating in Trafalgar Square, October 1932: ‘The school has heard the voice of England’s forgotten people.’
Major Freeman home on leave.
General Montgomery surveys the desert battlefield at 22nd Armoured Brigade HQ, August 1942. Freeman’s CO, Brigadier Roberts, is on Monty’s left.
Allied victory parade through Tunis, May 1943.
John Freeman MP, 1946: ‘On every side is a spirit of high adventure.’
The Minister of Supply tries to show interest while visiting an aircraft factory in 1948.
JF looking unwell on his election poster, Watford, 1951.
Groom and bride: Tom Driberg and Ena Binfield.
The best man with Lizi and Mima in the front pew. Nye Bevan is behind, in the centre.
The Goldie boys in a Panorama production meeting, 1958. On the left is Richard Dimbleby; four from left is Christopher Chataway; then JF and Woodrow Wyatt; then, two along, Robert Kee.
Charles Wheeler, 1955.
Catherine Dove, 1955.
Face to Face with Tony Hancock, ‘pursing his lips and grimacing’.
Face to Face with Augustus John: ‘It was a fiasco. He said little that was coherent and nothing that was interesting.’
The wedding: John and Catherine, with Lizi behind, in Hampstead, 1962.
The Freeman family at 2 KG, New Delhi, 1967. From left to right: Tom, Catherine, Lucy, Matthew, John.
Burns Night in Washington, 1970. JF submits to ‘flummery’.
The ambassador’s wife and her social secretary: Catherine with Judith.
In the Oval Office: President and Mrs Nixon, Henry Kissinger, the UK ambassador and Mrs Freeman.
Professor Freeman on his bicycle at UC Davis, 1986.
Judith with Tors and Jessie at the home of Jean and Dan Snyder.
JF at Triggsy’s wedding in Barnes, 1998.
John Freeman’s legacy
‘The best brigade major in the Eighth Army.’
– Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery
‘All the best young men are on the other side.’
– Winston Churchill (former Prime Minister, in tears after Major Freeman’s maiden speech opening the 1945 parliament on behalf of the Labour government)
‘He would have made a wonderful Prime Minister.’
– Dr Henry Kissinger
‘He is the most dangerous one of all of us, a man of Saturn.’
– Nye Bevan MP (a Labour leader)
‘After years of studying his complex personality, I decided he was afraid of giving himself too fully to anything or anyone. I once told him his motto ought to be Je me sauve [I protect myself ].’
– Barbara Castle MP (a former lover)
‘John has the capacity to put up the shutters that is excelled by nobody except a shopkeeper during riots.’
– Professor Norman MacKenzie (writer and academic)
‘John is the only man who has ever made himself celebrated by turning his arse on the public.’
– Kingsley Martin (editor of the New Statesman, referring to Freeman’s back-to-camera interviewing on Face to Face)
‘It’s astounding and sad – and not surprising in a fast-changing world – that our heroes are nobodies to our grandchildren. People of our generation revered John Freeman as one of the foundation stones of early television. If I learned one thing from him it was the art of doing an interview without proving what a clever chap you were. It’s a piece of advice often ignored by the current generation of interviewers. I worked with him at ITV and without ever getting close to him – did anyone? – constantly admired his ability to inspire a mixture of admiration and awe from the staff. He was a great man and the present generation who know not of him don’t know what they are missing.’
– Michael Parkinson
‘One of the three best ambassadors I ever served with.’
– Lord Renwick (former ambassador to the USA)
‘He was very formidable – definitely not a man you would tell lies to. He would have made a gobsmacking QC.’
– Lord Grade (former executive chairman of ITV)
‘A man of many epiphanies to remind us what England was once about.’
– Paul Johnson (writing in The Spectator on Freeman’s eightieth birthday)
‘John was well known but hard to know well; and that’s exactly how he wanted it.’
– Catherine Freeman (Freeman’s third wife)
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by
The Robson Press (an imprint of Biteback Publishing)
Westminster Tower
3 Albert Embankment
London SE1 7SP
Copyright © Hugh Purcell 2015
Hugh Purcell has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the publisher’s prior permission in writing.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them.
ISBN 978–1-84954-945–5
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.