Word: bbc
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...best-selling biography Hitler: A Study in Tyranny; in Oxfordshire, England. Bullock and fellow Oxford historians A.J.P. Taylor and Hugh Trevor-Roper formed a triumvirate of gifted scholars whose efforts to understand the turmoil of the 20th century widely influenced modern thought. After spending World War II as a BBC correspondent, Bullock produced his Hitler biography from a detailed review of the minutes of the Nuremberg trials. He was modest about his talents. "I couldn't write great literature," he said, "but I could do a workmanlike job as a historian...
More controversial than Hutton's verdict on the BBC was his conclusion that the government had no "dishonorable, underhand or duplicitous" plot to reveal Kelly's name to reporters once Kelly had told his bosses at the Ministry of Defense that he had met Gilligan but had not said all the things the reporter had broadcast. Yet the diary of Blair's communications director, Alastair Campbell, shows that he was obsessed with outing Kelly, sure that this would "f___ Gilligan." Hutton focused instead on the worry of some officials that if they concealed that a civil servant had come forward...
...probe, chided Kelly for leaking to reporters his disquiet that the government had oversold evidence of Iraq's WMD, giving a different slant to his bosses and parliamentary committees and then despairing as he realized his dissembling would be revealed. But Hutton saved most of his fire for BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan for making "very grave" and "unfounded" charges in a live radio broadcast last May after he met Kelly. Gilligan reported that the government "probably knew" that a central claim in its dossier on Iraqi WMD--that some were deployable in 45 minutes--was false when the claim...
...eager to "move on," a senior aide said. But those missing WMD will not leave him alone. Now that Hutton has pronounced the WMD dossier an honest mistake, pressure is growing, as it is in Washington, to investigate why it occurred. Blair rejects that idea. All the same, the BBC bosses had to quit because they had led their organization into trouble by trusting information from subordinates that turned out to be wrong. Blair, who accepted their resignations, may yet have to contemplate their example...
...central plank of Blair's push to rejuvenate British education would stand rejected by his own M.P.s. Then there is the expected release of a long-awaited report on the suicide of David Kelly, the weapons scientist who was caught in a row between Downing Street and the BBC over whether Blair oversold the case for war in Iraq. A direct finding that Blair lied when he denied any role in "outing" Kelly to reporters would put the P.M.'s job in serious jeopardy. Two-thirds of the public think Blair should resign if the report declares him a liar...