"Thunderer" on the Left

How can the British Government complain of a hostile U.S. press, asked Winston Churchill last week, "when we have here in this country witnessed such a melancholy exhibition as that provided by some of our most time-honored and responsible journals. . . ." Although the Prime Minister made "journals" plural, everyone in his House of Commons audience (see FOREIGN NEWS) knew that he had particular reference to the London Times--which has lately had considerable to say about Britain's intervention in Greece.

As many Britons but few Americans realize, the rumble of "The Thunderer" is no longer a mere echo of the British lion's official roar. The Times is now thundering as noisily against its own Government as at any time since the Crimean War.

The men responsible for the "melancholy exhibition" are two top Timesmen, both wild radicals by comparison with their staid predecessors. Bald, well-tailored Robert M'Gowan Barrington-Ward, 53, editor since 1941, is a deceptively mild-appearing man who gives "first place to second thoughts." The man who wrote the offending editorial on British policy in Greece, and ten like it since, has been on the Times only four months-- but he is regarded as the most up & coming journalist in Fleet Street. He is able, amiable Donald Tyerman, 36, accountant's son who has been partly paralyzed since he was three. Tyerman came in when famed Times Editorialist Edward Hallet Carr (a professor of international politics, known as a Leninist of the right for his advocacy of liberal totalitarianism) went back to the academic life.

A voracious reader and prolific writer, Tyerman, as acting editor of the London Economist, wrote 9,000 words a week for four years. He wrote all its forthright editorials on Churchill, for whom he has unbounded admiration -- and no fear.

Last week the Timesmen were undaunted by Churchill's growl. So long as they continue to be, Britons will read the Times, to learn not what the Government says but what the Government must reply to.

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