Greenestuff
STUART HOOD
The Third Floor Front Sir Hugh Greene (Bodley Head 21s)
Sir Hugh Greene has collected in a slim volume a number of papers, lectures and talks written and delivered over the decade when, as Director-General of the BBC, he was shaping broadcasting policy. They con- tain lucid statements of his aims. They are modest about his own achievements which may, he feels, in the end 'come down to the creation of an atmosphere, of a style'. They express his liberal concern for certain basic freedoms; as a journalist in Germany in the 1930s he had 'learnt to hate intolerance and the degradation of character to which deprivation of freedom leads'. They demon- strate healthy scepticism—an attitude of mind he commends—in his assessment of the efficacy of psychological warfare of which he had had great experience, during the war as head of the BBC's German Ser- vice and during the Malayan emergency as adviser to the Director of Operations. They admirably reflect his pragmatic mind. To read them is to be reminded of the sense of liberation that followed his appointment first as Director of News and Public Affairs and then as Director-General. The reforms he instituted make him without doubt the most distinguished Director-General since Reith.
Yet on reflection there is about the collec- tion what one can only describe as a certain naivety. It demonstrates itself at various levels. Thus, he maintained to an Austrian audience in 1963 that no candidate for a post in the sac is ever questioned as to his political beliefs. This is true; it is also true that candidates are vetted politically and appointments have been blocked because of real or imaginary political affiliations. But such an instance of public innocence may be forgiven a chief executive. The naivety is apparent in the fact that Sir Hugh appears to believe that, provided pro- gramme-makers and controllers are free and well-intentioned, results must be beneficial.
What he does not discuss is the problem of communications—how radio and tele- vision act upon the audience, how broad- casters communicate, what they communi- cate and what social effects flow from their communications. Television, of which he controlled a large area, is part of .a vast entertainment industry. At no point does he question or justify the product or aims of that industry. He does not examine thrposi- tion of the BBC as a public institution nor discuss the degree to which—like any body concerned with communications, of which psychological warfare is a special branch—it is determined and confined by the social and political structure on which it depends. He is rightly suspicious of political controls of broadcasting but propounds the view that broadcasting organisations can in some real sense be independent. There is, in short, a lack in his thinking of what one might, to use a shorthand term, call ideology, of an attempt to formulate a philosophy of broadcasting which takes into account social, political and cultural factors. The result is a Panglossian view of the BBC— the one presented to and swallowed by Pil- kington, concerning whose Inquiry Sir Hugh remarks, in a significant phrase, 'one is tempted to think we did almost too well.'
One of the weaknesses which became manifest during his tenure of office was his tendency to take decisions in detail in areas where he could not have detailed informa- tion on which to form judgments. As Director-General he retained the powers of a Chief Editor and did exercise editorial control, sometimes with unfortunate results, over the whole field of current affairs in radio and in television. Pro- grammes like Tonight and Panorama suffered on occasion from such interference.
The fact is that while it is possible to create a style, it is not possible to dictate the text. What was most disconcerting about these interventions was that, to those further down the line of command, they frequently appeared to have been taken for reasons which ran counter to Sir Hugh's often expressed views on the independ- ence of the broadcaster, being concessions
to groups within the BBC (such as the Regional Controllers) or to groups outside it. There was at times a glimpse of discon- certing opportunism, which is no doubt part a the survival kit of anyone as exposed to pressures as the Director-General of the Bac, and may be an inevitable adjunct of power in high places; but it accorded badly with the sentiments expressed in this book.
This is only one of the paradoxes about the man. Another is that his innate modesty, which is obvious from the casual, unaffected style of his addresses, went with what to some had appeared as an astonishing over- confidence, a belief that the BBC was a fourth or fifth estate which could treat with political groups as an absolute equal and could afford to offend them. The end of the Greene era shows how little foundation there was for this view. That era is now being looked at critically inside the BBC. It will be some years, I imagine, before there is a public critical assessment, an historical study of his period of office which does credit to his great virtues but accepts his weaknesses. This volume will be a valuable text to the historian.
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