Anthony Eden Archives - Richard Dimbleby: Broadcaster

From Russia with Dimbleby

Until the death of Stalin in 1953 the cold war numbed broadcasting relations between the Soviet Union and Great Britain. British camera teams were not allowed to enter Russia. Correspondents were denied visas. Broadcasts in the BBC’s European Service were systematically jammed. There were none of the normal interchanges of musical programmes or sporting events between broadcasting organisations.

In 1956 a slight thaw began. The Russians sent an engineer to observe the BBC’s experimental colour television demonstrations at Alexandra Palace. When Khrushchev and Bulganin came to visit Sir Anthony Eden in April of that year the idea of cultural exchanges was mooted. As a first step they invited an official delegation from the BBC to come and inspect radio and television in Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev.

By the end of April, even before Bulganin and Khrushchev had sailed back to Russia, seven of us representing BBC Sound and Television, Engineering and Programmes, External Services and News, had flown to Moscow, just in time to see the famous May Day parade through Red Square. Anatol Goldberg, the Programme Organiser of the BBC’s Russian section, was able to interpret for us. The Russians also provided as a guide and interpreter Boris Belitzky, who was one of the regular broadcasters in Moscow Radio’s English service. Belitzky had lived in New York as a boy and spoke excellent English. He left us on May Day to give the English language radio commentary on the parade. The Russian television service was also developing, and the parade was televised for the first time that year, with two outside broadcast units on opposite sides of Red Square. The broadcast was technically impressive, though the cameras were badly placed.

We had many discussions with the Russians, seeking ways of opening up broadcasting relationships without the sacrifice of principle on matters such as censorship, and without involving either of us in carrying the other’s propaganda. The discussions tended to founder when we brought up the question of jamming. Russians love metaphors and elaborate figures of speech, and so at one of their many hospitable occasions the Director of External Services, J. B. Clark, made a glowing speech about the beautiful garden which lay ahead, ‘but the gates of the garden have their hinges and locks corroded by jamming’. The Soviet Deputy Minister of Communications quickly replied, ‘The gates must be open, but the key to the gates must be in the pocket of the master of the garden’.

Nevertheless Frank Gillard, who was representing Sound Programmes, and I, representing Television, did return with one positive achievement. We had got the names of two broadcasters speaking excellent English who would be prepared to take part (in sound only) in hook-up discussions of current affairs, subject to official permission. One was Yuri Fokin, soon to become Head of News of Moscow Radio. The other was Boris Belitzky. This represented substantial progress, for the Russians at that time had no tradition of unscripted discussion at all. Moreover we returned with their telephone numbers, and had learned that the telephone appeared to pierce the Iron Curtain fairly easily. We also broached the question of a possible television hook-up as soon as the links across Europe could be established. At that time the Russians had not yet even linked Moscow with Leningrad.

Belitzky had welcomed the idea of contributing in sound only to Panorama. He knew Dimbleby well by voice and reputation. As soon as the Russians launched their first Sputnik I telephoned Moscow and in the next Panorama Belitzky’s voice took part in the studio discussion of the possibility of the space age.

Dimbleby and Belitzky in front of a brightly painted mural.

Dimbleby, Balfour and Belitzky in front of a brightly painted mural.

Dimbleby holds up a small model of Sputnik

Brussels International Exhibition, 1958, with Boris Belitzky, Sir John Balfour, U.K. Commissioner-General, Model Sputnik III. Soviet cameras, a Flemish outside broadcast, the Eurovision link, standards conversion and photographed off the television screen.

In 1958 the television hook-up with Moscow moved one stage closer. At the International Exhibition at Brussels the Soviet Pavilion was equipped with closed circuit television. With the aid of a Flemish outside broadcast unit and the Eurovision link Dimbleby was able to introduce a BBC programme with the words ‘I am speaking to you direct from a studio of Radio Moscow’. He liked dramatic openings and this was literally true, for Radio Moscow had provided the television studio and cameras in the Soviet Pavilion.

Richard Dimbleby and Boris Belitzky, meeting face to face for the first time, then toured the Soviet Pavilion and talked to an attractive interpreter, Maya Malisheva, who displayed fur coats and Russian food delicacies, including one item that intrigued Dimbleby – porridge for dessert. It was a highly complicated programme for the BBC producer, Derek Burrell-Davis, for he was dealing with a Russian outside broadcast unit, a Flemish outside broadcast unit, and a Russian telecine machine, and the technical crews had no common language.

British viewers and television critics were fascinated by their first live view of Soviet activity. The ‘Guardian’ television critic commented: ‘A complicated broadcast which was well handled by Derek Burrell-Davis, the British producer, and by Richard Dimbleby, who had abandoned his baronial manner very successfully under the shadow of Lenin, and who did not forget to remind us, as the camera passed finally from sucking pig, salmon, chickens, sturgeons, mutton chops and porridge-for-dessert to a last glimpse of Sputnik III, that “there is always something like that looking down on you”.’

I was interested to note the next evening in Brussels that Flemish television repeated exactly the same programme for Belgian viewers, with one of their own commentators taking Dimbleby’s place, and a Flemish-speaking Russian instead of Belitzky. But they stuck entirely to the shape of the programme carefully prepared by Dimbleby and Burrell-Davis and did not even bother to issue another camera script to the technical crew. The Dimbleby moves and the Dimbleby questions could not be improved upon.

Peter Dimmock wrote to the Russian authorities warmly thanking them for their co-operation and hoping for further opportunities for the outside broadcast units of the two countries to work together in the future.

Other BBC visitors travelled to Moscow. Aubrey Singer went in search of scientific programme material, Peter Dimmock to arrange film of the USA/USSR athletics match. Dimmock reported that the Russians were hoping to create a television link with Prague via Warsaw in order to be able to receive the 1960 Olympic Games live from Rome. We continued to work for a live hook-up from Moscow. At the same time discussions went on from time to time to try to abolish jamming. Dimmock reported that the Russians were beginning to favour ITV on the film coverage of sport, because, as ITV did not broadcast to Russia, there were no complications over jamming.

In February 1960 the Soviet Union ceased its jamming of the BBC’s European programmes, and this obstacle seemed out of the way. Early the next year ATV proudly announced that they were going to achieve the first television link-up from Moscow to Britain, by live coverage of the British Trade Exhibition, due to open in Moscow on 17 May 1961, and even took advertising space in British newspapers and periodicals to publish the announcement in Russian.

An airport. Overlaid it the caption THIS BROADCAST IS DIRECT FROM MOSCOW

After all the BBC’s pioneering work on Eurovision, and its long negotiations with the Russians, this was too clear a challenge to be ignored. The BBC countered with an offer to relay the morning May Day parade from Moscow that year and, because 1 May fell on a Monday, to broadcast that evening a special edition of Panorama from Moscow. Richard Dimbleby would do both programmes. The Russian authorities agreed. Peter Dimmock and Tony Bridgewater, then the senior engineer on the outside broadcasting side, went to Moscow, and with generous help from the Russians and the Finns worked out a method of getting the Moscow pictures across the Baltic from Tallin to Helsinki, and so down the Eurovision link through Scandinavia to Britain. Paul Fox flew to Moscow to prepare the Panorama programme, Noble Wilson to arrange the relay of the May Day Parade. Paul Fox recalls:

Filled with doubts, I arrived in Moscow to arrange the Panorama side of things. Already installed in the National Hotel was Noble Wilson. And as we looked at our plans for this first-timer from Russia, something far bigger overtook us. A friend – an American correspondent – phoned us with the news that something was on: he couldn’t tell what. And even as we puzzled it out, the loudspeakers blared into action: ‘The Soviet Union has today launched the first man into space’.

Major Yuri Gagarin was circling the globe. And soon afterwards came the news that he was safely back – with Moscow getting ready for the hero’s welcome of all time.

Here we were, two television producers, sitting in on the most spectacular story for many a year, with not a hope of televising a second of it to the rest of Europe. What an anticlimax the May Day parade would be – we thought – when the Gagarin home-coming and parade was what everyone wanted to see. But was it really hopeless? Could not the much planned television link-up for May Day be brought forward by seventeen days? It might be and it was.

I was in my Lime Grove office on the evening of 19 April when Paul Fox came through on the telephone from Moscow to say he thought he had managed to get the programme through to Helsinki in time for the broadcast of Gagarin’s return to Moscow Airport the very next morning. I immediately announced to the press, and we began trailing heavily on both sound and television the news that we hoped to cover the Gagarin reception – the first man to travel in space, and the first live television pictures from Moscow. It could only be a hope, for official Soviet approval had not yet been given, and we had had no chance to test reception conditions.

I quickly telephoned Dimbleby, who dropped his other commitments to come in the next morning. I also corralled Anatol Goldberg from the BBC’s Russian Service, and at 10.30 a.m. on Friday 14 April we opened transmission.

Dimbleby explained, as he enjoyed explaining technicalities in layman’s language, the complications of getting pictures along the route from Moscow to London. We showed what little news film had come in from Russia, and Dimbleby and Goldberg talked in the studio for a quarter of an hour as we anxiously waited for pictures on the studio monitor. At 10.46 a.m. they miraculously came through, and television was now stretching from Moscow to Londonderry.

The pictures were remarkably good, but the sound was confused. Sometimes we heard a man in Helsinki, sometimes Boris Belitsky. Dimbleby thrived on confusions of that kind, and Gagarin’s walk across the apron of Moscow Airport to receive the bearhug embrace of Khrushchev needed no words of commentary.

Dimbleby had been there to open yet another chapter in television’s unfolding story. A few days later he flew off to broadcast in quick succession the May Day parade, Panorama’s special edition from Moscow, and the Queen’s State visit to Italy.

Commentator at Royal Events

Few knew these qualities more intimately than Antony Craxton, who produced more than a hundred major outside broadcasts with Richard Dimbleby, and was his ally in countless battles with the authorities to secure proper facilities for television to cover public events:

Few people have any conception of the complexities a television commentator faces on a large-scale outside broadcast. One should think it difficult enough to describe events taking place in sight – which they very often are not – while at the same time watching the same events on a television screen. But in addition to this, a commentator has to wear a pair of headphones, through which he can hear in one earpiece the sounds of the event – the band, horses’ hooves, etc. – and in the other the producer giving to him and the many cameramen detailed, involved instructions. Thus, while describing solemn events of a State Funeral, for instance, the poor commentator will be getting constant interruptions to his train of thought. He virtually has to have a split mind, which can keep a fluent commentary going while at the same time absorbing information from the producer which will be essential to him as the broadcast proceeds. Moreover, the instructions the producer gives to the cameramen are equally important to the commentator, as they often forewarn him of what pictures are being planned and which he can then be ready to describe.

Antony Craxton and Dimbleby briefing Eurovision commentators before Princess Alexandra’s wedding

For Richard Dimbleby, these difficulties were an integral part of the job of commentating, and so supreme a master of his craft was he that never did they prevent him from giving of his best. Very often when I was the producer I got carried away and used to give my own commentary as I switched from picture to picture – a commentary which, of course, Richard could hear all too clearly – putting words into his mouth. This must have caused him embarrassment on occasions, as he often pulled my leg about it, but at no time in the countless outside broadcasts we undertook together did he lose control of himself, and there were many occasions when the conditions under which he worked would have daunted the brave. Snow, torrential rain, suffocating heat, Richard suffered them all with a philosophical outlook which made him the great professional he was.

One occasion which challenged even Richard’s powers was the departure of Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon on their honeymoon on 6 May 1960. Richard and I had left Westminster Abbey almost immediately after the marriage service had finished, to journey to the Tower of London, from where the Royal Yacht Britannia was sailing. We had decided to go on the air as the Royal couple left Buckingham Palace, and to fill the twenty minutes the journey to the Tower was expected to take with a planned sequence of pictures from the four Tower cameras. Little did we think that the twenty minutes would be more than doubled before the car arrived. Having completed our rehearsed sequence, we searched for visual material to interest the viewers while they waited: the Tower itself, the Bridge, the jetty, the Yeomen Warders, the Britannia of course, the launch, the skyline of London; every possibility was used. The most remarkable aspect of this unexpected marathon was that Richard wove his commentary into a masterpiece of continuity, so that few people realised that what was being seen and said had not been planned in great detail beforehand. Unrelated subjects and objects were somehow, by Richard’s description, made into a pattern that at once seemed natural and flowing. Towards the end, after the marathon had been in progress some fifty minutes, Richard did show some impatience towards the three or four helicopters circling noisily overhead, and which must have seriously disturbed his concentration, seated in the open as he was. He confessed to me afterwards that he had exhausted his almost inexhaustible fund of information about the scene, and was ready to break into silence at any moment.

I also vividly recall the opening of the Wedding broadcast. Richard had forgotten that instead of beginning, as originally planned, at ten o’clock, we had decided, for technical reasons, to start five minutes earlier. He was due to open our transmission, in vision, on the lawn outside the North Door of the Abbey. Two minutes before time I noticed that he wasn’t at this camera position, and asked where he was. I was extremely alarmed to hear from a cameraman in the Abbey that he was strolling quietly down the Choir checking seating arrangements, oblivious of the urgency of his presence outside. The only way to get him to the start on time was for the cameraman to startle the distinguished assembled company by calling out to Richard from his lofty position in the Abbey and indicating the need for some haste. Richard arrived a few seconds before the broadcast began, and no viewer would have guessed from his opening remarks that he had run the last fifty yards or so.

The Merchant Navy Memorial surrounded by people — Merchant Navy Memorial (TV camera to right of band)

Some years earlier I remember an occasion when the usually meticulous Royal arrangements went wrong and caused us acute embarrassment. It was the unveiling by Her Majesty the Queen of the Merchant Navy Memorial at Tower Hill in November 1955. The Memorial is sunk below ground level and consists of a central area with two small side alcoves. In order to get a television camera into one of these wings we had buried a cable at an early stage of construction so it would not look unsightly on the day. As the photograph shows, the camera, on a movable four-wheeled truck, was tucked away in the wing, together with the choir, and almost completely filled the area. The Queen, on her inspection of the Memorial, was due to walk across the front of this alcove, but to our consternation the architect escorted her into it to one side of the choir, and thus out of sight of our cameras. We knew that it would be virtually impossible for Her Majesty to walk right round the alcove as our camera would block her progress. All we could do was to move the camera forward on to the grass, knocking over military band music stands in the process, and subsequently to heave on the submerged cable and, in so doing, lift the flagstones, in an effort to allow the Queen room to squeeze through. My panic-stricken instructions to the cameramen, all of which Richard could hear only too well, did not prevent him from calmly describing the scene, well aware of the predicament we were in. He conveyed nothing of this to the viewing public.

A bank of 16 television screens, a clock and engineers — Dimbleby’s view of Princess Alexandra’s wedding

At Princess Alexandra’s wedding on 24 April 1963, instead of using a number of different commentators, which was customary when our cameras were ranged over a wide area, I decided to break new ground and use Richard alone. He was in a sound-proof box in our central control room at the Abbey, immediately behind my position overlooking all the twenty or so monitor screens. The advantages were enormous. Richard could see, as I could, exactly when events were about to happen at Kensington Palace, Clarence House, or Buckingham Palace, as well as along the route and inside and outside the Abbey. This meant that he could work far more closely with me. For instance, I could tell him over his headphones to watch the Kensington Palace picture and that, as soon as Princess Alexandra stepped out from her home, we would switch to those cameras immediately. While describing events elsewhere he was able to keep an eye on that vital screen. Even before I switched to Kensington Palace, Richard had said ‘and as Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother arrives at the Abbey, some three or four miles away the bride leaves her home for the last time’, or words to that effect. Again, when we picked up the bridegroom’s car as it sped along the route, Richard was able to follow it continuously, even though we were only showing its progress to the viewers from time to time. Consequently, he knew its exact position whenever I decided to switch to it. This method of describing events can only be of value if many locations are involved, and where split-second switching from one to the other is necessary.

For the historic funeral of Sir Winston Churchill, Richard had two positions in the West Gallery of St Paul’s Cathedral, and our control room was in the Crypt. From one box Richard described the entire procession from Westminster to Waterloo; from the other, overlooking the Nave, he described the Service below him.

This was a mammoth effort for him. Five hours as sole commentator, then no relaxation – a hurried journey to Television Centre to edit the tapes ready for a two and a half hour transmission that night with a fresh commentary.

Few people can realise the homework Richard undertook for this epic task; the vast amount of reading necessary to assimilate every detail of the solemn events. On this broadcast he achieved a perfection he had never attained before.

High contrast image of Dimbleby in a glass both with a lip mic — West gallery, St Paul’s Cathedral, Churchill’s funeral, 30 January 1965

As part of his preparation Dimbleby had arranged to meet the Duke of Norfolk, who as Earl Marshal was in charge of the arrangements, at 5 p.m. on the day before the funeral to settle any outstanding questions for his final commentary. The Duke of Norfolk later wrote in ‘The Times’:

‘As it happened we met at 4.15 a m. in New Palace Yard at the final rehearsal. Dimbleby asked me what I proposed to do and when I told him I was going to move up and down the route he said: “May I tag on with my car?” At about 7.30, as the morning grew lighter, he came up to me on Tower Hill and said: “Unless you want me this evening we can call off our meeting – I have all I want and you will be busy!”

It will be hard to match his gentle kindness, sense of humour, intelligence, and tact.’

Eden and Slim stand behind a frail seated Attlee — Pall bearers the Earl of Avon and Field-Marshal Lord Slim behind Earl Attlee

The Churchill funeral broadcast will long be remembered by those who saw it and studied by generations to come. Some 600 letters came to the BBC afterwards, of which these are samples:

‘It was a triumph for everyone concerned, organisers, cameramen and commentator. I need Richard Dimbleby’s flow of language adequately to express my thanks for everything. Perhaps you would thank him, as much for his silences as for his excellent commentary.’

‘I watched from 8.30 a.m. until the end and in my humble opinion the BBC – always excellent – excelled itself! My genuine gratitude to all – no matter how humble their parts may have been – who helped to achieve such a wonderful result.’

‘I feel I must offer to you and your colleagues grateful thanks for the truly magnificent way in which you showed that epoch-making event, especially at such very short notice. The commentary of Mr Richard Dimbleby was also absolutely splendid, and fully worthy of the solemnity and splendour of the occasion, as was indeed also the carriage and behaviour of the soldiers who had the truly arduous task of carrying for long periods their precious burden. Altogether the whole proceedings were worthy of the wonderful man in whose honour they, in fact, were arranged for, and those of us who witnessed them will never forget.’