To: Retort Via: SA/AG 1. Peter Calvocoressi: Obituary Ian Irvine The Guardian 8 February 2010 Peter Calvocoressi, who has died aged 97, was best known as an Ultra intelligence analyst at the Bletchley Park codebreaking centre in Buckinghamshire during the second world war, but this episode represented only four years in a long career with many different aspects. International affairs was an abiding interest. By his 96th birthday he had published his 20th book, the ninth edition of his World Politics Since 1945. Its 845 pages were a tribute to his lifelong energy, formidable memory and powers of analysis. Yet author and historian were only two of his job descriptions. He had been a barrister, a publisher, an academic and a journalist and, after Bletchley, he had assisted the prosecution at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. He was born in Karachi, now in Pakistan. His parents were Greek (hailing from the Greek island of Chios, off the Turkish coast) and Peter's father was a merchant in the family business. When he was three months old, they moved to Liverpool, and he grew up in a community of prosperous, English-speaking Greek families. In 1926 he sat the Eton scholarship examinations and was placed second – making him possibly the only Etonian with two great-grandfathers who had been slaves. He maintained that his education turned him "from a Greek in England into a Greek Englishman". At school he discovered a taste for history and his facility for languages, adding German and Italian to the English and French that he spoke at home. He took a first in history at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1934, hoping to join the diplomatic service, but his father's French birth debarred him. He consulted Anthony Eden, only to be told that he would never get anywhere with his surname. Instead, in 1935 he became a barrister specialising in chancery law, and three years later married Barbara Eden, the daughter of Lord Henley. The second world war transformed his life, although at a War Office interview, he saw a note on his file: "No good for anything – not even intelligence." However he was commissioned in RAF intelligence, and, in early 1941, found himself at Bletchley. He spent the rest of the war as deputy head (and from December 1944 head) of a small, secret section dealing with Luftwaffe Ultra intelligence, translating and interpreting decrypted Enigma signals. This enterprise remained a secret until the 1970s, after which Calvocoressi wrote its history in Top Secret Ultra (1980). Outside the North African campaigns and in the battle against U-boats in the Atlantic, he felt that claims for Ultra's importance had been exaggerated, though admitting the psychological advantage of knowing the German order of battle: "It took the blindfold off our eyes, so that we could see the enemy in detail as he could not see us." In 1943, appalled by their temporary lodgings, he and his wife (with their two young sons) bought a large house near Bletchley at a few hours' notice and lived there for the next 39 years. Music was a lifelong passion, and with the connivance of the Bletchley billeting officer he ensured his lodgers always had two violins, a viola and a cello to provide regular quartet concerts. In the 1945 general election, Peter stood as a Liberal candidate, but lost in the Labour landslide. From 1950 onward, he unhesitatingly voted Labour in every general election. Later in 1945, now with the rank of wing commander, he was seconded by British intelligence to Nuremberg. He interviewed many German commanders and, during the trial, cross-examined Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt in court. His wartime experience made him unwilling to return to his prewar life at the bar. For five years from 1949 he worked at Chatham House, writing five volumes in the series of Annual Surveys of International Affairs begun by Arnold Toynbee. In 1954 he became a partner in the publishing firms of Chatto & Windus and the Hogarth Press. He continued to take public roles. In the 1950s and 60s, he was a member and later chairman of the Africa Bureau, founded by his friend David Astor, proprietor and editor of the Observer, as a political lobby concerned with apartheid in South Africa and decolonisation. From 1962 to 1971 he was a member of the United Nations sub-committee on the prevention of discrimination and protection of minorities. In the late 1960s he was asked to arbitrate on internal disputes at Amnesty International that threatened to destroy the organisation. He was always proud of his successful intervention, and that Amnesty survived. In 1965 he left publishing to take up the post of reader in international relations at Sussex University that was created for him. In 1972 he was enticed back by the offer of the newly created post of editorial director of Penguin Books. He was later appointed publisher and chief executive, but in a series of disputes with the owners, Pearson Longman, he was obliged to resign in 1976. In 1990 he received an honorary doctorate from the Open University for his direction of its publishing division in the 1980s (later sold for a handsome profit). He continued writing books, including the two volumes of the Penguin History of the Second World War and Who's Who in the Bible (despite being a lifelong atheist). Barbara died in 2005 and the following year he married Rachel Scott. They lived in London and in Dorset, where he died. He is survived by his sons, Paul and David, and by three grandchildren. ------- John Tusa writes: Young radio producers at the then BBC External Services at Bush House in the 1960s regularly turned to Peter as a contributor. He was incredibly well informed, he was wise, he was dispassionate, he made himself available. Peter was part of our education, a kind of continuation of university seminars. This was an important part of his makeup, believing in the importance of passing on knowledge to the young. He loved keeping in touch with former pupils and producers. When my wife, Ann, was writing her history The Nuremberg Trial, Peter was a wise and shrewd helper, not because of the part he played in it but because of his overall sense of its importance in the postwar world. We dined with him a few months back; it was as if no contact had been broken in 40 years. And we roamed not only over the cold war but over the dilemmas of the present time, on which his judgments were typically sharp. ------------------------------------------------ 2. Chris Spannos writes from Boston: In reaction to the sought-after “austerity measures”, hundreds of thousands of public sector workers are expected to strike next week against cuts in pay and retirement funds. While Greek farmers, who are one of the largest agricultural sectors in the EU, are beginning to lift their 20 day blockade of the Bulgarian border in demand for higher payment for their goods, the EU commission announced it was prepared to take legal action against the farmers. At the same time tax and customs workers have walked off their jobs to protest cuts in pay. Last January Elite shoes in Athens, the country’s second largest shoe producer, was occupied by its workers, who were not paid for two months. Not sure what the current status there is, but there is a good video here, produced last month:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk3athMB1WE A couple of weeks ago the trial of Epaminondas Korkoneas, the cop who shot the teenager Alexandros Grigoropoulos, which helped spark the Dec 08 uprising, began. Alexandros’ mother asked that the courts not move the trial from Athens to Amfissa, a small town 120 miles outside Athens, because key witnesses would not be able to make it. She also called the cop who caused her son’s death a “monster” at the trial and said that her son’s life had as much value to him, and to the other cop present at the shooting, as a “cockroach.” The courts moved the trial because of fears for the safety of the cops on trial, supposedly because “anarchist groups…have vowed to kill the two defendants.” About 300-400 anti-authoritarians traveled to Amfissa for the trial opening. The trial will likely last for months and so we will be hearing of political actions relating to the trial as it proceeds. The trial outcome is awaited with interest by many and, although I want to be careful here with this prediction, the outcome has the potential to reignite simmering tensions. In other news, I’m told by comrades in Athens that they are focused on improving the existing occupied social spaces as well as expanding and creating new occupied spaces more generally. There are of course many prisoner solidarity actions, some high profile and also ongoing migrant and anti-fascist work. And of course, we hear about the urban guerilla actions too. I met with Boston Anti-Authoritarian movement folks a few weeks ago and we are planning a series of long-term solidarity events, beginning with a night of Greek food and information about the Greek Uprising then and now. We will be showing a documentary called “After the Greek Uprising” that Lydia Sargent and I produced, filmed in May 2009, which includes a walking tour of Exarchia with Athens anti-authoritarian movement comrades taking us to the site of the shooting of Alexandros and explaining one of the key pieces of evidence being debated in the trial now – the cop is arguing that the bullet he shot that killed Alexandros was not fired directly at him, but ricocheted off a nearby building before piercing the kid's chest. We will also be doing a fundraiser for some Greek visitors coming through Boston and doing an event with them. And we would also like to do ongoing fundraisers for an anarchist/antiauthoritarian exchange program between Greece and the U.S. I was told that I would soon hear about the next B-Fest plans – a large 5 day international anti-authoritarian festival I attended last year, which will occur the end of May. I would highly recommend anyone going if they can. I will be there. Our exchange program may help towards these ends if we can get it together. Likewise, there are some folks from the alpha kappa movement which would be good to bring over here some time to talk about their national and regional organizing. |