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Alan Lawson 0:04
The copyright of this recording is vested in the BECTU history project. Leonard Miall, one time, BBC representative in New York, then Head of BBC Television Talks interviewer Norman Swallow, recorded on the 16th of September 1992 side one.
Alan Lawson 0:57
On
Norman Swallow 0:57
there, right? I ll just start it off. First, Leonard When and where were you born?
Leonard Miall 1:03
I was born on November the sixth, 1914 in actually in Golders Green, registered in Hendon
Norman Swallow 1:16
Education.
Leonard Miall 1:18
My main education was at Bootham school, York, Quaker boarding school in York, thereafter, briefly at the University of Freiburg in Breisgau, Germany, and then at St John's College Cambridge.
Norman Swallow 1:33
That's interesting to go back. Why that German interim?
Leonard Miall 1:37
Because I got into Cambridge in December and didn't have to go out until September. It was just filling in time, really, and also learning German.
Norman Swallow 1:46
What were you studying at Cambridge?
Leonard Miall 1:49
Economics part one, and law part two,
Norman Swallow 1:54
with a view to what
Leonard Miall 1:55
in viewed at that stage in either job in business or the after switching to law, I thought possibly to become a barrister, but at the university, I was involved quite a lot with university journalism. I was on the staff of the grant her, and I was editor of the Cambridge review, which was the rather serious paper. And I was also president of the Union, which was the debating society, and these turned my eyes more towards towards possibility of broadcasting as a career. But in fact, I went on a talking trip to the United States immediately after I came down from Cambridge.
Norman Swallow 2:38
This would be,
Leonard Miall 2:40
this would be, this would be 1936 Christmas. 1936 I went to America. And I got very much interested in the United States, which in those days, was a fairly unknown country. Apart from Hollywood, there was a little bit in the newspapers. There was virtually no interchange. People travel to America, much except wealthy businessmen. Too expensive,
Norman Swallow 3:07
no package tour.
Leonard Miall 3:08
And I worked for, I wrote me
Norman Swallow 3:15
going, you were working. You said you took a job with,
Leonard Miall 3:19
with, I first, first of all, I took a job briefly in journalism on the Sunday graphic, which was a tab Sunday tabloid in those days, published
Norman Swallow 3:30
by whom
Leonard Miall 3:31
it was the same group as earned The The Telegraph, I think. And daily graphic. Maybe I really don't recall. I wasn't with them very long, but I got this job as Secretary of something called the British American associates, which was really an educational operation, teaching people a bit about what was going on in the United States other than Hollywood. I mean, this was the early days of the New Deal and things of that sort. These
Norman Swallow 4:08
were public lectures,
Leonard Miall 4:08
yes, and talks to groups like rotary clubs and things of that sort. But I still had my hopes for moving into the BBC. And then, but it took me back again to the United States. I had spent the best part of a summer there. This was 1938 prior to the Munich time, and then just about the day before Munich, the European service of the BBC suddenly started, and it was when Chamberlin was urged by the cabinet to do a broadcast, not only to the British people, but also to the rest of the world on. Why it was that we were digging trenches in Hyde Park and evacuating children and mobilising the fleet and all signs of being about to go to war on behalf of a far off country of which we know little. As Chamberlin said, that was on the 27th of September that he made that broadcast,
Norman Swallow 5:25
1938
Leonard Miall 5:26
1938 and I read this subsequently, when the papers were released under the 30 year rule, the cabinet was discussing this, and they decided that it was very important that his broadcast should be heard, not only in England, but also abroad and in Germany. An interesting version that abroad and in Germany was minuted, and they it was a matter of urgency that this should be done. And the I the chief press officer of 10 Downing Street, and the head of the Foreign Office news department, and the shadow director general of the Ministry of Information, who was Stephen talents, the Deputy Director General the BBC, because the Ministry of Information hadn't come into being, they were deputed to arrange to have this important message from Chamberlin broadcast. The matter of urgency was not very well conducted, because it wasn't until the afternoon of the next day when or the early evening when Chamberlain was due to broadcast, I think, at eight o'clock that a refugee, German refugee called Walter Gertz, who was a very good cartoonist On the Daily Express,
Norman Swallow 7:00
who
Leonard Miall 7:00
was at a cocktail party, and he received a message from JB Clark, who was then the director of the overseas broadcast of the BBC, to say, could he drop whatever he was doing head for Broadcasting House immediately, as fast as he could in a taxi if he was stopped by the police say it was an emergency and arrived there. This was in order to read an account of chamberlin's speech, which was being there was no advanced text available to the BBC. The speech itself was coming over. In short, takes over the news tickers and a man called Robert ehrenswick, who's subsequently called Robert Lucas ehrenswick Being E, H, R, E, N, Z, W, E, I, G, had who was a had been no London correspondent to one of the Austrian newspapers. Had volunteered to help if the BBC ever started any broadcasting in German. He'd been brought into the BBC, sat down without even a typewriter, and he was translating this stuff as it came off the ticket into German, into his very difficult to read handwriting. And Arthur Barker, who was the BBC overseas news editor, finally took it over from him and wrote it down in his own scholarly Winchester hand. It was easier to read, and the luckless Walter Gertz was in the studio reading this in short takes every now and then drying up because there was no more copy available. Meanwhile, live broadcast over one of the two national networks there were in those days, this was the regional network supplemented with, I think, six short wave transmitters from the Empire service in order this should reach Germany. Well. As far as the British public was concerned, there was consternation, because they the most people thought that the Nazis had taken over Broadcasting House, because suddenly there was this thing. When the equivalent of the arches was due to be broadcast, they suddenly found something coming out in German. Didn't understand what it was about. The ones who did understand German were equally appalled by the incompetence of the whole thing, because they were drying up every now then couldn't continue so much so that there was an angry mob in the reception of Broadcasting House waiting to see what what this was all about, and the luckless Walter Gertz had to be smuggled out of the Broadcasting House by a back door. It. Anyway, that was the start of the European service. Was
Norman Swallow 10:02
Chamberlain's voice. Heard Emma what he wrote? Did he actually speak?
Leonard Miall 10:07
He Oh, yes, it was. It was a broadcast in English, but it was, it was not this. This was being translated, but it was. It was broadcast live domestically and also overseas, but it was in the form of an OB from 10 Downing Street. The
Norman Swallow 10:26
human in those days, it wouldn't be recorded. Or would it in any technical lines?
Leonard Miall 10:32
I would think
Norman Swallow 10:33
it
Norman Swallow 10:33
used the next day or the next day, I
Alan Lawson 10:34
think
Leonard Miall 10:35
it would have been recorded. I don't happen to know, but I'm pretty sure that it
Norman Swallow 10:40
would have been
Leonard Miall 10:42
Yes, yes, yes, not not micro tape, yes, yes, but more likely to be disc Yes. Anyway, that was the start of the of the European service. And in addition to it being broadcast in German, it was broadcast for good measure in French and in Italian. The French was read by one of the domestic announcers, and the Italian was read by a chap who'd been the military attache in Rome. Was her name was Ronald rod, and he was the son of lord, lord Ronald, or Lord rod, I've forgotten anyway. They went on from there, broadcasting every day in the European languages. In January of 39 there was a strong request from the foreign office to add to the quarter of an hour of German news that was broadcast every day, some talks material in German. And I, again, didn't discover this until I was working on the history of the BBC and looked at the governor's the minutes of the Governors meeting, and there was a report in the programme, statement made regularly to the governors on behalf of the overseas services that The young European Service had been thrown into a tizzy by this urgent request from the foreign office to start talks in German at two days notice. They said they'd somehow or other managed to get the things going, and they thought they'd found a suitable candidate to edit them on a permanent basis. And that was that now I was the suitable candidate, in the sense I had that there had been an advertisement in the BBC for a press officer in in the autumn after Munich, but the autumn of 1938 and I applied for this. It was a job at six pounds a week. I was then getting five pounds a week, and a 20% increase was
Norman Swallow 13:09
as
Leonard Miall 13:10
the as the secretary of the British American
Norman Swallow 13:13
Association, BBC. Yet,
Leonard Miall 13:15
no, no, I wasn't, but I, but I was very anxious to get in. And I I was shortlisted, and I thought I had a good interview, and I was more or less convinced myself that I'd got the job and then, and I subsequently learned I'd got down to the last two but did I say that 3000 people applied for this job at six pounds a week. There was a good deal of unemployment in those days, and the BBC was very glamorous place to get into. But I didn't get the job, and I felt sort of suicidal, but it took a long time before you got the envelope back in your own handwriting thanking you for applying. However, in January, 39 I got a letter from the BBC to say they were starting. By the way, I'd mentioned the fact that I'd been to this German university and I knew German in the course of applying for this other job, although it was in no way a necessary qualification for the job as a press office. I got this letter from the from JB Clark's office, I think, saying they were starting on a temporary basis talks in German. Would I be interested in editing them? If so, would I please telephone them immediately on receipt of this letter, hold myself free for an interview. The next day, the pay would be 10 guineas a week. 10 guineas a week, more than twice what I was getting. I would happily have gone for six but however that would. What was offered, and I applied, and by the end of the next day, I was appointed, a very quick operation compared to this lengthy process that had gone on before. This was because a, it was only the temporary staff, and B, because it was already an urgent matter. The man who, in fact, had got the talks in German going was Ralph Murray. Subsequently, sir Ralph, British ambassador to Athens and elected Governor of the BBC. Anyway, I came in and we started these news talks in German, and that was the way I found myself into the BBC
Norman Swallow 15:48
that was on temporary staff.
Leonard Miall 15:50
On temporary staff, it became permanent. Actually,
Norman Swallow 15:53
your 10 guineas in 39 was more than I got in 1946 right?
Leonard Miall 16:02
Well, soon as they I got on to the as soon as they offered me a job on the permanent staff, they tried to halve it, but in the meantime, I joined the National unit of journalists whose minimum rates were nine guineas a week, I think. And so I didn't, in fact, have to drop
Norman Swallow 16:29
anything,
Leonard Miall 16:31
right? Well, outbreak of war,
Norman Swallow 16:35
you were then in this job.
Leonard Miall 16:36
I was then in this job. And well as the months preceding the outbreak of war went past, it was more and more clear that Hitler was marching into one country after another. And our message was a very simple one, really. It was just, if you go on doing this, we're going to fight. And that was really what we were saying in various forms. I was dealing a lot with a man in the foreign office, in the news department, head, and their name was Jerry young, later Sir George Young, and the father of the present Sir George Young, who's a Conservative MP, and
Norman Swallow 17:20
the previous chairman of the
Leonard Miall 17:24
governors. No, that was a different yellow salary. Yes, when towards the end of August, after Hitler had made his pact with Stalin, Jerry Young wrote a rather good talk on why we have gone to war, which was submitted to Chamberlin and approved by him, and it was duly translated and was kept in my desk, locked up, and this was to be broadcast once we had gone to war. It was on a Friday, the first of September that Hitler started bombing Poland. On the Saturday, there was an emergency session of parliament, and there was a very angry debate in the House of Commons because it looked as though we were stalling on our promise to support Poland and Chamberlin was in for a pretty rough time in the House of Commons that on that occasion, The It was when the leader of the opposition, Greenwood got up to speak. And it was thought that Leo Emerick shouted speak for England, though Bob booth, it subsequently told me to he was the one who really shouted that out, speak for England. Anyway, there was a very strong speech made by Greenwood saying why we must support the poles. In the course of that day, Jerry Young was up in the BBC talking to us. The news suddenly came through that as from the next day, it was going to be illegal for Germans to listen to foreign broadcasts. Up till then, it had been frowned on but it wasn't actually illegal, and it wasn't brought in immediately. It was brought in only with effect from the next day. So we suddenly realised that our audience was going to be far bigger. That night than it could possibly be any other time. And we discussed the possibility of using chamberlin's this talk in chamberlin's name, written by Jerry young, which was already translated. You only had to put it into the subjunctive. Do you have said? No, this is why we have gone to war. But if we go to war, it will be because so and so. And he was very keen that we should do this and but we couldn't, obviously do it without Chamber's permission. And the time was, was really marching on. We were already into the start of the of the segment of an hour that was used for EUROPEAN NEWS, there was a quarter of an hour of French quarter of an hour of German news, quarter of an hour of German talks, and then a quarter of an hour of Italian news. And this was says they carved out of the regional network. So very urgently. Jerry young and I and Morris latey, who L, A, T, E, y, who was my assistant, all telephoned through to to 10 Downing Street by different routes. Tie line via the Treasury, a tie line via the Foreign Office, the outside number, etc, to see who would get quickest through to to attend Downing Street to ask for Lord dunglass Later, Alec Douglas Hume, who was chamberlin's Private Secretary, parliamentary private secretary. And we were to say we were each one was to say he was Jerry young, and then quickly hand the phone over to Jerry young, because every second was counting at that stage. And we got we got through, and Lord Danglars said that, unfortunately, Jim wasn't there in the house at the time. Would we like a word with Sir Horace Wilson, His Eminence Gries and the great author of the appeasement policy. And we said, No, thank you. And then at that point, Lord Halifax, the foreign secretary, apparently came in, and Danglars said, the foreign secretary is just coming. Would you like a word with him? And we said, Yes. And Jay young explained to him what has happened, and Lord Halifax said that because this statement was in the name of the Prime Minister, only the prime minister could approve the transmission of it. But in the meantime, he wanted to know how we were reporting the debate in the House of Commons that afternoon to the Germans. And so we got the European news editor a long chap called Noel Newsome, and he said, Well, we gave the Prime Minister's statement fairly briefly, and Mr. Greenwood's statement a considerably long, longer leg. And Lord Alex said, Very good, very good looks as an interesting sidelight. Anyway, we didn't get permission to use it, though it was used a couple of days later,
Norman Swallow 23:17
but that was after the deadline. So I mean, presumably
Leonard Miall 23:19
Yes,
Norman Swallow 23:20
transmitted in German networks. Sorry, said they had a deadline beyond which the ban came.
Leonard Miall 23:31
The ban on listening came, yes. It meant that listening to the BBC would be was illegal by the time it was broadcast, and then presumably would have been smaller. This audience would have been smaller. Well, I went, sorry, what
Norman Swallow 23:50
about yourself?
Leonard Miall 23:51
What about that? What
Norman Swallow 23:52
about yourself?
Leonard Miall 23:53
Well, I was continuing to be in charge of these German talks, and then, as the war progressed, the European Service spread very fast into other languages, and I was in charge of the talks part of all languages, and I had various assistants who looked after different aspects of the number of rather distinguished people. Marius Goring, Patrick Gordon, Walker, tangley lean James Monahan, an interesting group of people.
Norman Swallow 24:39
You were based.
Leonard Miall 24:40
We started off by being based at Broadcasting House, and we were there, for instance, when General De girl made his first broadcast after broadcasting house was bombed the second time we had to evacuate. He. Immediately to Maida Vale, because all our offices had been blown in the side of world dressing house, and we were there at the maid Vale Music Studios from December 1940 until March the 17th, 1941 when we moved to Bush House. Bush House had been a place where there were Studios used by radio Luxembourg before the war, and unknown to us, the BBC had already acquired lease of part of Bush House and were in the process of constructing further studios there. But nobody told us when we were at made available that this was going on, and we just thought we were there on a permanent basis, and were feeling in a very boshy mood because it was highly dangerous place to work. It had a glass roof, and the only time you really felt safe was at the end of the day when they sent an armoured car to take you home. It
Norman Swallow 26:01
wasn't actually hit. Was it?
Leonard Miall 26:03
No, it was one's own shrapnel coming down as one was frightened of. Well, it we let me say a little bit about de girl, my assistant, who looked after broadcasts in Czech and Polish and French, was Elizabeth Barker, daughter of Professor Ernest Barker of Cambridge and the sister of Arthur Barker, the overseas news editor, a very talented girl indeed, had an excellent degree from Oxford and was very skilled. I had great difficulty in persuading the BBC to move her out of the secretarial grade and let her become a talks assistant. But it was achieved. She was on duty on the night of June the 18th, 1940 when in the early evening, we just had somebody standing by in case any last minute problems we got. She got a message from the Ministry of Information, from Lindsay Wellington, who was BBC man, who was liaison officer there, to say, would we please put on a French General called De Gaulle to broadcast to France in the 10pm news that night, we had no knowledge of what he was going to say. And the idea of another French General coming along was not, in itself, a terribly exciting one, because the French had just announced that they were going to surrender. We'd had generals, French generals in the BBC to a penny for the last week, all of them screaming their heads off to Roosevelt that unless he sent 100 and 1000 1000 planes by tomorrow, they were going to have to give, you know, words that effect. And so the idea of another French General coming along to do a broadcast was say, not, not in itself, particularly exciting. And it wasn't until he arrived that Elizabeth Barker had any idea of what he was going to say. It once, once he did see it said it was obviously very important that the broadcast was trail as much as possible beforehand. In those days, there were six recording channels for the whole of the BBC, as I recall it, because everything went out live, and the only use for a recording was either for very important archival purposes or for a planned repeat. And anybody would turn up the last minute, had no chance of being recorded whatever, especially on a day when Churchill was making his broadcast about if British Commonwealth for the Empire should last for 1000 years, people will say this, this was their finest hour. De Gore did his broadcast, and at the end of it, he announced that he would be broadcasting the same time tomorrow. Nobody in the BBC had invited him. This is the first heard about. But dickow was always a law unto himself and the Director General of the BBC, who was then Frederick Ogilvie, O, G, I, L, V, i e, had heard this, this de girl broadcast, and he sent a message to my office to say when this French General came along the next day to do his broadcast. He didn't know he hadn't been invited. Would we please take him along to D G's office? And he wanted to give him a drink and shake his hand and congratulate him. So on. So when the girl came along the next day, Elizabeth Barker and I conducted him to the DGS office. First time I even met the DG and we were making small talk over a glass of warm whiskey or something of that sort. And the girl asked me whether this broadcast the day before had been recorded, and I had to tell him it had not. And I then became the first British recipient of the famous de girl temper. He was a very frightening looking figure, very tall indeed, in full military uniform. And those days he was very thin and he glowered down from his enormous height and tore strips off the BBC in general and me in particular for failing to appreciate the historical significance of this occasion. And there was I trying to remember the Fred for recording channel, and trying to explain why it was hadn't been broadcast, hadn't been recorded, and I don't think he was very satisfied. But when those days he was, in fact, broadcasting practically every day, but about three or four days later, he he came to do another broadcast, and it was suggested to him, I think it was, again, by JB Clark, who had the idea first, that it would be a good idea to repeat his appeal, or the guts of it, because people wouldn't, might not have heard the first time, and the word would have gone round by then. And so he did repeat this, the core of his message in this broadcast, I think on the 23rd or 22nd of June, when de girl died umpteen years later. I was then working the BBC office in New York. I happened to be in Washington, and I was woken up at about six o'clock in the morning with a call from Bush House to say, Would I please say something for the Associated Press on the death of de Gaulle? I hadn't even heard de Gaulle died, but I gave him some rather trite remarks to make about his first broadcast. And then after I got up, I thought about it, I thought, well, perhaps the BBC might like a short dispatch, recalling just simply 2.1 that he invited himself to broadcast the second time, and two, that his first broadcast had never been recorded. And I recorded this dispatch over the circuit from the BBC Washington office, and the next day I was back in New York, and people came on from the foreign news department on the on the circuit across to New York. Thank you very much for doing that dispatch about to go. Very interesting deed. We were all raised with great, great interest. And I said, Did you broadcast it? And they said, No. I said, Oh, why not? Said, well, the world at one had just been broadcasting what it said was his original broadcast. In fact, the second one, I think we've sorted that out now with the sound archives, now in those early days, and particularly after the United States entered the war. I after Pearl Harbour in December 1941 the BBC European service started relaying the broadcasts, some of the European broadcasts of The Voice of America into into Europe, giving them the advantage of a great bank of transmitters, particularly medium wave transmitters, and these broadcasts from America were, at that stage, perfectly awful. They were embarrassingly bad. They were brand new to the job, and they were making all the mistakes that we made when we started our broadcast in European language.
Norman Swallow 34:21
You're talking about American professional broadcasters.
Leonard Miall 34:25
No, I'm talking about the amateur scratch lot that they were not professional broadcasters and they weren't politicians either. They were just any old bodies who had been collected together to form the Office of War Information. In no time, they were mostly refugees from the countries concerned. They tended to be going on fighting the political squabbles of the countries that they'd left. They were very long way away from the sea. Of war and simple things like they would start the programmes by saying, Good morning. And it was evening in Europe, that sort of thing. And there was a mission had been sent from the political warfare executive, which was the body which ran the policy direction of propaganda into Europe. A small mission had been sent to the United States under David bows Lyon, who was the Queen Mother's younger brother, and he asked for experts in both French and German to be attached to his mission for a while to try and improve these these things. It was a sort of tactful operation, really, because we hadn't the right to censor them those but as they were, they were rather embarrassing to us, because they they tended to make a mockery of what we were broadcasting ourselves. The mission was headed was based in Washington. The broadcasting was done from New York. It
Norman Swallow 36:20
is always the headquarters of American radio and
Leonard Miall 36:22
television,
Norman Swallow 36:22
yes,
Leonard Miall 36:23
but this, this was a scratch job put together. It wasn't based on on a professional network. It was done from an old motor car sales office, and they had, for instance, there was no ring made so you could never listen to any of the out push. It really was a very, very amateur operation at the beginning. It became much more professional later on, but the BBC was asked to send these two experts and I and a man called Russell Page, who was the French programme organiser, was sent on on this mission. And so I had an interesting time in the middle of the war, when things were very grey and dreary in England, working in America, that I had the excitement of the Blitz in England first, and the excitement of the liberation afterwards, but the the horrible sort of dreary, rational part of the middle of the war. I was very lucky at being in America, doing an interesting job, working with the Office of War Information. And it was that the fact that I had been in America at that time and had other experience in America was the fact that it was one of the reasons why I was asked to be the first BBC peacetime correspondent in Washington after the end of the war, which I liked very much. Indeed, it was the BBC had no foreign correspondence of its own before the war, but the experience of war correspondents led the then DG Haley to establish a core of foreign correspondents, and they were sent either towards the end of the war or immediately after the war to take up posts in the main world capitals. I remember
Norman Swallow 38:23
Christopher circle.
Leonard Miall 38:24
He was in Rome, yes, and
Norman Swallow 38:25
who was in Paris,
Leonard Miall 38:26
Thomas
Norman Swallow 38:27
cadet,
Leonard Miall 38:28
yes. And
Norman Swallow 38:30
Washington
Leonard Miall 38:31
was very interesting place to be immediately after the war. And I was there for eight years. It was a time of the Marshall Plan, creation of NATO, the Truman administration, which was an interesting time. And I stayed there until the end of the first year of the Eisenhower administration, by which time Senator Joseph McCarthy was riding high. It was much less now
Norman Swallow 39:07
in the early 50s.
Leonard Miall 39:08
Yes, I came back in the end of 1953 having been there since the autumn of 1945 I had eight years there. I it,
Norman Swallow 39:24
and then television.
Leonard Miall 39:26
Then I was in into television. Yes, many of us remember, well, yes, I there was. I don't know it's worth going into the long complication of how I came into television. But the head of television talks department, Mary Adams, was moved out of her job, and there was a vacancy, which was it was advertised, and I was one of the people who put in for it.
Leonard Miall 39:59
And.
Leonard Miall 40:00
And was lucky to get
Norman Swallow 40:03
it. Yes, it
Leonard Miall 40:05
was. The decision was made at the end of 53 and I started work on the first of January 54 right? You were at Alexander Palace.
Norman Swallow 40:19
But 54
Leonard Miall 40:21
Well,
Norman Swallow 40:24
yes,
Leonard Miall 40:26
when, when I was appointed, I was told that the talks department was about to move from Alexandra Palace to Lime Grove, and it didn't seem worthwhile establishing oneself for three weeks in an office in Alexander palace. So I really established myself in Lime Grove before the rest of the talks Department got there. And used to shuttle backwards and forwards between the two. But I had originally hoped to be involved in the in the start of television news, but which I thought I knew much more about, actually, than television talks. But that was not to be it.
Norman Swallow 41:16
Was Tahu. Yes,
Leonard Miall 41:20
Tahu Hole didn't like me at all.
Norman Swallow 41:23
He didn't like a lot of people.
Leonard Miall 41:25
He was, I think, well, I might as well tell this story for the record. The one of the things about Tahu Hole was he was terribly insecure in his news judgement, his he he was somebody who had been over promoted, and he only sort of held his job really by a combination of bullying people and and playing safety first, as long as there wasn't a mistake, It didn't matter how late and slow his news service was and that was a possible in the days of a monopoly, when the only competition was with newspapers, which was going to be much later. Anyway, I I've been asked one of the things I disliked about the tahu hull regime was that he would never allow you to move out of Washington to see any other part of the country, just in case something should happen. And he would never allow one to come home on on a proper visit duty, visit to home. And after I'd been there, and it sort of extended, I'd been there already six years, I was asked by tahu hull if I'd be prepared to stay there for another two years. And I said yes, I would given two conditions that I would like in writing. And one was that I should be given an assistant, because I found covering the whole the United States single handed was really getting me down. And secondly, that in the course of those two years, I should have a duty visit home, really, to see about what I was going to do when I came back having been abroad for 10 out of the last 11 years, my kids then growing up and needing English education. Well, this was reluctantly given in writing. And came the American election in 52 and Eisenhower was elected, and Truman, I mean, Eisenhower won over Stevenson. Truman was living out the end of his term, and there was never anything going to be done during a lame duck situation. I suggested to BBC that this might be a convenient time for my my visit home. I
Alan Lawson 44:02
wouldn't turn over. I.
