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History and Journalism (Ronald Hilton, USA, 12/25/99 2:14 pm)Two WAIS Fellows, Robert Conquest and Brian Crozier, have been in the news recently, the first because of the appearance of his &IReflections on a Ravaged Century, the second of his Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire, which parallels Conquest's books on the "great Soviet terror." Despite their common, supplementary interests and their age (Conquest was born in 1917, Crozier in 1918), their careers have been different.
Conquest was an undergraduate at Magdalen College, Oxford, after I was a Senior-Demy there. In those days, Oxford was very demanding academically but, devoted primarily to the humanities, it was lost in the clouds. In the hierarchy of subjects, classics ("Greats") was at the top of the pole. Modeled after it, my own major, Modern European Languages (which meant much more than languages) was less prestigious. Very France-centered, it tolerated Spanish, but ignored Portuguese and all things Latin American.
The present political world was academically not regarded as fitting for academic study, since it is too close to us for objective study. In view of the ignorant nonsense which emanates from some academic departments today, that attitude was understandable, but this is the world we have to live in. Journalists were scorned. Students going to fight in the Spanish Civil War boasted that they never read a newspaper. The Oxford Union provided a platform for political speakers, and some of the students were declared Communists. They really were all wet, admittedly from the rain of the great depression. The serious study of the contemporary political world was emerging in a new major called PPE (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics). The older generation viewed it with much suspicion or disdain. That Conquest chose this as his major was evidence that his interest was in that direction. After military service, he got to know the reality of international political life in the foreign service from 1946 to 1956. His mindset was decided by the four years he spent in the British mission in Bulgaria. His warnings about the reality of communism put him at odds with many academics and literary people, but now they are recognized as definitive, just as Burnett Bolloten's analysis of the Spanish Civil War, at first angrily dismissed by the "politically correct", is now viewed as unassailable.
Crozier´s background is quite different. Australian by birth, he traveled the world as a journalist and is reputed to have interviewed more heads of state than any other. He has been associated with The Economist, which is one of the few news magazines with a serious interest in international affairs. Thank heavens that our American edition is now printed in Merced, California. Serious public interest in foreign affairs in this country has diminished and weeklies are emphasizing "news you can use." Crozier did not have to escape from the academic and literary world in which Conquest grew up.
The international community of journalists devoted to world affairs performs an invaluable role, as we have so often stressed. They are courageous, bright people more likely to understand situations than diplomats and academics, protected as they are in their cocoons. There was no school or department of journalism at Oxford when I was there, and, if there is one today, I have never heard of it. American universities lead he way in raising journalism to a professional level. At Stanford, we are lucky to have the Knight Fellowships which bring young newspeople from around the world to spend a year with us. We learn from them, and we trust that they learn from their Stanford experience.
