Abstract
David Astor had an ability to pick talented writers – the mark of a great editor. Relying on hunch laced with a nose for literary flair, he assembled an eclectic bunch of writers and commentators who argued with a passion more akin to a common room than a Sunday newspaper. They were a loquacious, undisciplined bunch, many of them emigrés from Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Sebastian Haffner, William Guttman, Arthur Koestler, Isaac Deutscher had little or no background in journalism but under Astor's often agonised leadership, The Observer became the outstanding newspaper of its era.
“The editor's indecision is final,” cracked the woman's editor, Katharine Whitehorn. Yet out of lengthy editorial arguments without apparent resolution came a paper that stuck to its core liberal values and which was respected even by its political opponents. For a man with no journalistic training and whose background of untold wealth and a palatial background left him far removed from the concerns of both his staff and his readers, it was an extraordinary achievement. When told most of his staff had mortgages, Astor was amazed: “You mean to say that most of my staff are living in debt?”
Jeremy Lewis's biography provides an excellent portrait of Astor, whose visits every morning to Anna Freud for psychoanalysis provided only partial relief from the tyranny of his American mother, Nancy, who liked to describe The Observer as “the coon's gazette”. Though outwardly hesitant, Astor knew exactly what he wanted. When my uncle, Jim Rose, came in for an interview in 1948, he was asked what he would like to do. Rose said he was interested in foreign policy Astor replied: “Ah, we have got one of those. What about becoming literary editor?” My uncle said he didn't think he was right because he didn't read novels. “You are just the man I need,” replied Astor.
Twenty-five years later when I arrived at the paper, Astor had just stepped down, but his influence was pervasive. I owed my new job as political editor to a glorious cockup. My predecessor, Nora Beloff, had written two memos, one to the paper's new editor, Donald Trelford, the other to Douglas Cater who represented the paper's new oil company owner, Atlantic Richfield. Unfortunately for Beloff, she mixed up her envelopes. The result was that the editor received a diatribe detailing why he was not up to the job while Cater received a promise of enduring support.
On production day, Saturday, Lajos Lederer, a Hungarian refugee who Astor had befriended, would hand round toffees in the newsroom. Lajos saw the world as a conspiracy; he correctly predicted the split between Tito and Stalin but was incapable of writing this or any other story except as a news brief. Michael Davie, Colin Legum, Anthony Sampson, Clive James and Terry Kilmartin were among the many Astor-picked talents who were still around. It was Davie who wrote the splendid line: “This story is too good to check.” Other distinguished writers such as George Orwell, Cyril Connolly, Ken Tynan, and EF Schumacher were gone but not forgotten. As for the legendary Patrick O'Donovan, he was revered for writing a brilliant report on Bobby Kennedy's funeral before it had actually taken place.
Astor was not only a good picker of people, he also had shrewd judgement. The long list of causes he supported, from African decolonisation and the abolition of the death penalty to Amnesty International and Index against Censorship, have stood the test of time. Admittedly, he also had the odd bee in his bonnet. The saga of the Nagas from north-east India and his championing of Myra Hindley, the Moors murderer, now look eccentric. But on the big events, his judgement was sound. Newspapers may be the wrapping around tomorrow's fish and chips, but The Observer's stinging attack on Anthony Eden's government over its 1956 Suez adventure will never be forgotten: “We had not realised that our government was capable of such folly and crookedness” … the British and the French had acted “not as policemen but as gangsters”, the paper thundered.
Suez was the high water mark of Astor's editorship. From then on the paper began to struggle. In part this was due to advertising lost as a result of its courageous anti-government stance. But it was mainly because the market was changing. The advent of commercial television, the formidable competition of The Sunday Times under Roy Thomson, and a new era of colour supplements and pop culture were not worlds that Astor understood or wanted to compete with.
Lewis has done remarkably well by his subject despite two obstacles that would have sunk a lesser biographer. Astor was an intensely private man – he left no memoirs, no diaries. He was also a good man, not quite a saint, but not far off it. He deserves to be remembered as an outstanding editor.