PETER MASON applauds the revival, 39 years later with the same team and cast, of Manfred Karge’s version of Brecht’s 100-year-old play, Mann Ist Mann
An exemplary communist
Patrick Cockburn provides a great insight into the world of his legendary journalistic father Claud says PAUL DONOVAN
Claud Cockburn, 1940s
[Public Domain]
New releases from Biita Houdei, The Mary Wallopers, and The Tubs
New releases from Biita Houdei, The Mary Wallopers, and The Tubs
MAYER WAKEFIELD applauds a fearless attempt to bring to the stage the 1984 toxic gas disaster in Bhopal, India
ALEX HALL applauds the account of a dogged, traumatic and punishing campaign for justice that has lasted from 1998 to the present day
NICK WRIGHT laments the political bias of an epic attempt to tell the history of the liberation of France from the Nazis, that excludes both the decisive contribution of the Soviet Red Army, and of the French communist party itself
Believe Nothing Until It Is Officially Denied
Patrick Cockburn, Verso, £30
THE title of the book, Believe Nothing Until It Is Officially Denied, is a phrase credited to Claud Cockburn which has become the mantra for journalists the world over.
Claud Cockburn, the son of a Foreign Office diplomat, went to Berkhamsted school in Hertfordshire, then on to Oxford University, where he was close friends with novelist Graham Greene. He was also related to Evelyn Waugh. But that where the conventional establishment formation ends.
Claud and Greene travelled in the Europe of the inter-war years, seeing much devastation and importantly witnessing the rise of fascism. Claud became a reporter for the Times in Europe, and then in the US. He was highly valued by the then Times editor, Geoffrey Dawson, and the management. But in 1932, he struck out on his own, creating a shoestring operation, The Week magazine, a kind of newsletter, breaking news not seen anywhere else. It had a small circulation but, with excellent inside sources, was essential reading and particularly in relation to what was happening in Europe with the rise of the Nazis in Germany and the Spanish civil war.
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