I see my Spectator colleagues have beaten me to it and republished a 1989 profile of Richard West, one of the finest foreign correspondents of the 20th century, who has died aged 84. Never mind. I’m determined to write about him.
Annoyingly, I couldn’t find a single picture of him on Google (I borrowed the one above from his Telegraph obit). That wouldn’t have bothered him in the least. Dick, almost uniquely among Fleet Street legends, wasn’t an egomaniac. He waded into war zones out of intense curiosity, not for byline glory. He once told me that he was about to be shot to pieces in Vietnam and it occurred to him that the only publication with whom he had a contract at the time was The Listener, a long-defunct and rather genteel BBC periodical. He loved the idea of a headline saying ‘Listener correspondent killed in jungle battle’.
It is outrageous, however, that his magnificent books (especially River of Tears, about Rio Tinto-Zinc, and the sarcastically entitled Victory in Vietnam) are out of print.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in