Don Hewitt
Michael Cole writes: The Coronation in 1953 gave Don Hewitt (obituary, Aug 21) a chance to shine as a young producer whom CBS sent to London for the occasion. He told me how a succession of airliners left what was then called London airport. Each was equipped with a laboratory to process the film of the events. The film was edited in airborne cutting rooms and rushed to CBS in New York for same-day transmission. The triumph of logistics and TV journalism was somewhat spoilt by the decision of CBS to run advertisments that puntucated the most solemn moments of the ceremonial.
One commercial, starring a chimpanzee named J. Fred Muggs, caused particular offence to the popular press in this country.
Sir Paul Fox writes: Don Hewitt was one of television’s great men. Like many programmes, the one he created in 1968 — 60 Minutes — had many fathers and Richard Dimbleby’s Panorama was one. But what made Hewitt different is that he stayed at the helm for more than 35 years — a record that is unequalled. I salute his memory.
Sir Max Brown
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Richard Spiegelberg writes: Your obituary of Sir Max Brown, former Trade department civil servant (Aug 24) recalled how he broke the news of the 1949 Labour Government’s decision to devalue sterling to Sir Stafford Cripps, Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was seriously ill in a Zurich hospital.
As a journalist working on The Times more than 20 years later, I told the story in an article for the paper but the events as I described them were vigorously contested by Harold Wilson, Leader of the Labour Opposition, and I was summoned to meet him in his office in the House of Commons.
I was originally told of the events on good authority. According to Wilson, however, he and his sister drove out to Switzerland (he even told me the make of the car) via Annecy, where he attended a meeting of trade ministers, and then went on to Zurich where he met Brown, who handed him a letter from the Cabinet that he (Wilson) then passed on to Cripps.
Wilson apparently considered the first version of the story a slur on his trustworthiness to deliver the right message in the right way and possibly a dereliction of his duty as a senior economics minister — so much so that he went to inordinate length and extraordinary detail to “set the record straight”.
As President of the Board of Trade at the time, he would have been the obvious choice of Cabinet minister to deliver news of this momentous decision to the Chancellor on his sick bed.
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Simon Dee
Keith Martin writes: Your obituary of Simon Dee (Aug 31) noted that “those he worked with found him arrogant and demanding” and that many felt his fame had gone to his head. This was apparent from the outset of his career after he had become the first disc jockey to be heard from the pirate ship Radio Caroline. The viability of Radio Caroline relied entirely on advertising. When Simon decreed that there were to be “no commercials during my programmes”, his future, fairly obviously, became risky.