Paul Johnson (writer)

Paul Bede Johnson (2 November 1928 – 12 January 2023) was a British journalist, popular historian, speechwriter and author. Although associated with the political left in his early career, he became a popular conservative historian.

Johnson was educated at the Jesuit independent school Stonyhurst College, and at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied history. He first came to prominence in the 1950s as a journalist writing for and later editing the ''New Statesman'' magazine. A prolific writer, Johnson wrote more than 50 books and contributed to numerous magazines and newspapers. His sons include the journalist Daniel Johnson, founder of '' Standpoint'' magazine, and the businessman Luke Johnson, former chairman of Channel 4.

Early life and education

Johnson was born in Manchester, England, on 2 November 1928. His father, William Aloysius Johnson, was an artist and principal of the Art School in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. At Stonyhurst College, Johnson received an education grounded in the Jesuit method, which he preferred over the more secularised curriculum used at the University of Oxford.

Johnson attended the University of Oxford, where he was tutored by the historian A. J. P. Taylor, and was a member of the exclusive Stubbs Society.

Career

British Army

After graduating with a second-class honours degree, Johnson performed his national service in the British Army, joining the King's Royal Rifle Corps and then the Royal Army Educational Corps, where he was commissioned as a captain (acting) based mainly in Gibraltar. Here he saw the "grim misery and cruelty of the Franco regime".

Johnson's military record helped the Paris periodical '' Réalités'' hire him, where he was assistant editor from 1952 to 1955. Johnson adopted a left-wing political outlook during this period as he witnessed in May 1952 the police response to a riot in Paris (Communists were rioting over the visit of American general, Matthew Ridgway, who commanded the US Eighth Army during the Korean War; he had just been appointed NATO's Supreme Commander in Europe), the "ferocity f whichI would not have believed had I not seen it with my own eyes." Then he served as the ''New Statesman''s Paris correspondent. For a time, he was a convinced Bevanite and an associate of Aneurin Bevan himself. Moving back to London in 1955, Johnson joined the ''Statesman''s staff.

Author

In 1957, Johnson published his first book, which was about the Suez War. An anonymous commentator in ''The Spectator'' wrote that "one of his ohnson'sremarks about Mr Gaitskell is quite as damaging as anything he has to say about Sir Anthony Eden", but the Labour Party's opposition to the Suez intervention led Johnson to assert "the old militant spirit of the party was back". The following year, he attacked Ian Fleming's James Bond novel '' Dr No''. In 1964, he warned of "The Menace of Beatlism", in an article contemporarily described as being "rather exaggerated" by Henry Fairlie in ''The Spectator''. ''The New York Times'' mocked Johnson's novel ''Merrie England'' (1964):

Johnson was successively lead writer, deputy editor and editor of the ''New Statesman'' from 1965 to 1970. He was found suspect for his attendances at the soirées of Lady Antonia Fraser, who was at the time married to a Conservative MP. There was some resistance to Johnson's appointment as ''New Statesman'' editor, not least from the writer Leonard Woolf, who objected to a Catholic filling the position, and Johnson was placed on six months' probation. ''Statesmen and Nations'' (1971), the anthology of his ''Statesman'' articles, contains numerous reviews of biographies of conservative politicians and an openness to continental Europe; in one article, Johnson took a positive view of events of May 1968 in Paris, leading Colin Welch in ''The Spectator'' to accuse Johnson of possessing "a taste for violence". According to this book, Johnson filed 54 overseas reports during his ''Statesman'' years.

Ideological shift

During the late 1970s, Johnson began writing articles in the ''New Statesman'' in which he criticized trade unions and leftism generally. Slightly later, the ''New Statesman'' may have repudiated this, when it published an article criticising him, in a series of articles "Windbags of the West" about various conservative journalists.

Johnson served on the Royal Commission on the Press (1974–1977) and was a member of the Cable Authority (regulator) from 1984 to 1990. From 1981 to 2009, he wrote a column for ''The Spectator''; initially focusing on media developments, it subsequently acquired the title "And Another Thing". In his journalism, Johnson generally dealt with issues and events that he saw as indicative of a general social decline, whether in art, education, religious observance, or personal conduct. He continued to contribute to the magazine, although less frequently than before. During the same period, he contributed a column to the '' Daily Mail'' until 2001. In a ''Daily Telegraph'' interview in November 2003, he criticised the ''Mail'' for having a pernicious impact: "I came to the conclusion that that kind of journalism is bad for the country, bad for society, bad for the newspaper."

Johnson was a regular contributor to ''The Daily Telegraph'', where he was mainly as a book reviewer, and wrote for ''The New York Times'', ''The Wall Street Journal'', '' Commentary'', ''National Review'', and ''Forbes'' in the U.S. For a time in the early 1980s, he wrote for '' The Sun'' after Rupert Murdoch urged him to "raise its tone a bit". Johnson was a critic of modernity because of what he saw as its moral relativism, and he objected to those who use Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to justify their atheism, such as Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, or use it to promote biotechnological experimentation. As a conservative Catholic, Johnson regarded liberation theology as a heresy and defended clerical celibacy, but departed from others in seeing many good reasons for ordination of women as priests.

Admired by conservatives in the United States and elsewhere, Johnson was strongly anticommunist. He defended Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal, finding his cover-up considerably less heinous than Bill Clinton's perjury and Oliver North's involvement in the Iran–Contra affair. In his ''Spectator'' column, Johnson defended his friend Jonathan Aitken, and expressed admiration for Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet,"Pinochet remains a hero to me because I know the facts" (from ''Heroes'', cited by Richard Louri
"Heroes Are People, Too"
, ''The Washington Post'', 2 December 2007. as well as limited admiration for Spanish fascist dictator Francisco Franco. Johnson was also active in the campaign, led by Norman Lamont, to prevent Pinochet's extradition to Spain after his 1998 arrest in London. In 1999, Johnson was reported as saying: "There have been countless attempts to link him to human rights atrocities, but nobody has provided a single scrap of evidence." In ''Heroes'' (2008), Johnson returned to his longstanding claim that criticism of Pinochet's dictatorship on human rights grounds came from "the Soviet Union, whose propaganda machine successfully demonised inochetamong the chattering classes all over the world. It was the last triumph of the KGB before it vanished into history's dustbin."

Johnson described France as "a republic run by bureaucratic and party elites, whose errors are dealt with by strikes, street riots and blockades" rather than a democracy. Johnson was a Eurosceptic who played a prominent role in the "No" campaign during the 1975 referendum on whether Britain should stay in the EC. In 2010 Johnson noted that "you can't have a common currency without a common financial policy, and you can't have that without a common government. The three things are interconnected. So this uropean integrationwas entirely foreseeable. Not much careful thought and judgment goes into the EU. It's entirely run by bureaucrats."

Personal life

In 1958, Johnson married psychotherapist and former Labour Party parliamentary candidate Marigold Hunt, daughter of Thomas Hunt, physician to Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, and Anthony Eden. They had three sons and a daughter: the journalist Daniel Johnson, a freelance writer, editor of '' Standpoint'' magazine and previously associate editor of ''The Daily Telegraph''; Luke Johnson, businessman and former chairman of Channel 4; Sophie Johnson-Clark, an independent television executive; and Cosmo Johnson, playwright. Paul and Marigold Johnson have ten grandchildren. Marigold Johnson's sister, Sarah, married the journalist, former diplomat, and politician George Walden; their daughter, Celia Walden, is married to television presenter and former newspaper editor Piers Morgan.

In 1998, it was revealed Johnson had an affair lasting eleven years with Gloria Stewart, a freelance journalist, who recorded them together in his study "at the behest of a British tabloid"; she first claimed to have made the affair public because she objected to Johnson's hypocrisy about religion and family values, but later acknowledged that their affair ended when Johnson "found another girlfriend".

Johnson was an avid watercolourist. He was a friend of playwright Tom Stoppard, who dedicated his 1978 play '' Night and Day'' to him. Johnson died at his home in London on 12 January 2023, at the age of 94.

Honours

In 2006, Johnson was honoured with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. President George W. Bush. Johnson was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to literature.

Partial bibliography

Johnson's books are listed by subject or type. The country of publication is the UK, unless stated otherwise.

Anthologies, polemics and contemporary history

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* . An anthology of ''New Statesman'' articles from the 1950s and 1960s.
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* – contributor.
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* 1994 ''The Quotable Paul Johnson A Topical Compilation of His Wit, Wisdom and Satire'' (George J. Marlin, Richard P. Rabatin, Heather Higgins (Editors)) 1994 Noonday Press/1996 Atlantic Books (US)
* 1994 ''Wake Up Britain – a Latter-day Pamphlet'' Weidenfeld & Nicolson
* 1996 ''To Hell with Picasso & Other Essays: Selected Pieces from "The Spectator" ''Weidenfeld & Nicolson
* 2009 ''Churchill'' (biography), 192 pp.
* 2012 ''Darwin: Portrait of a genius'' (Viking, 176 pages)

Art and architecture

* 1980: ''British Cathedrals'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
* 1993: ''Gerald Laing : Portraits Thomas Gibson'', Fine Art Ltd (with Gerald Laing & David Mellor MP)
* 1999: ''Julian Barrow's London'', Fine Art Society
* 2003: ''Art: A New History'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson

History

* 1972: ''The Offshore Islanders: England's People from Roman Occupation to the Present/to European Entry'' 985 edn as ''History of the English People''; 1998 edn as ''Offshore Islanders: A History of the English People'' Weidenfeld & Nicolson
* 1974: ''Elizabeth I: A Study in Power and Intellect'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson
* 1974: ''The Life and Times of Edward III'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson
* 1976: ''Civilizations of the Holy Land'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson
* 1976: ''A History of Christianity'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson
* 1977: ''Education of an Establishment'', in ''The World of the Public School'' (pp. 13–28), edited by George MacDonald Fraser, Weidenfeld & Nicolson/St Martins Press (US edition)
* 1978: ''The Civilization of Ancient Egypt'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson
* 1981: ''Ireland: A Concise History from the Twelfth Century to the Present Day'' s ''...Land of Troubles'', 1980, Eyre MethuenGranada
* 1983: ''A History of the Modern World from 1917 to the 1980s'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson – ''Paperback''
* 1983: '' Modern Times: A History of the World from the 1920s to the 1980s'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson ater, ''...Present Time'' and ''...Year 2000'' 2005 ed Weidenfeld & Nicolson – ''Hardcover''
* 1986: ''The Oxford Book of Political Anecdotes'', Oxford University Press (editor)
* 1987: ''Gold Fields A Centenary Portrait'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson
* 1987: '' A History of the Jews'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson
* 1991: ''The Birth of the Modern: World Society 1815–1830'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
* 1997: '' A History of the American People'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
* 2000: ''The Renaissance: A Short History'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson
* 2002: ''Napoleon'', Viking
* 2005: ''George Washington: The Founding Father'' (Eminent Lives Series), Atlas Books
* 2006: ''Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney'', HarperCollins Publishers (US),
* 2007: ''Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and De Gaulle'', HarperCollins Publishers (US),
* 2010: ''Humorists: From Hogarth to Noel Coward'', HarperCollins Publishers (US),
* 2011: ''Socrates: A Man For Our Times'', Viking (US)

Memoirs

* 2004: ''The Vanished Landscape: A 1930s Childhood in the Potteries'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
* 2010: ''Brief Lives'', Hutchinson

Novels

* 1959: ''Left of Centre'', MacGibbon & Kee Left of Centre describes the meeting of a Complacent Young Man with an Angry Old City"* 1964: ''Merrie England'', MacGibbon & Kee

Religion

* 1975: ''Pope John XXIII'' Hutchinson
* 1977: '' A History of Christianity'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson /1976, Simon & Schuster /Atheneum (US), (S&S Touchstone division paperback edition published in 1995)
* 1982: ''Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Restoration'', St Martins Press
* 1996: ''The Quest for God: A Personal Pilgrimage'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson/HarperCollins (US)
* 1997: ''The Papacy'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson
* 2010: ''Jesus: A Biography From a Believer'', Penguin Books

Travel

* 1973: ''The Highland Jaunt'', Collins (with George Gale)
* 1974: ''A Place in History: Places & Buildings of British History'', Omega hames TV (UK) tie-in* 1978: ''National Trust Book of British Castles'', Granada Paperback 992, Weidenfeld edn as Castles of England, Scotland And Wales* 1984: ''The Aerofilms Book of London from the Air'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson

References

Footnotes

Sources

* Robin Blackburn "A Fabian at the End of His Tether" (''New Statesman'' 14 December 1979, reprinted in Stephen Howe (ed) ''Lines of Dissent: Writings from the New Statesman 1913–88'' London: Verso, 1988, pp284–96
* Christopher Booker ''The Seventies: Portrait of a Decade'' Allen Lane, 1980 (chapters: "Paul Johnson: The Convert Who Went over the Top" pp238–44 and "Facing the Catastrophe" pp304–7

External links

Official website
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*

Johnson's articles
in ''The Spectator''

"Feud – and it's a scorcher!"
by John Walsh on Johnson's differences with ''The Guardian'', ''The Independent'' 28 July 1997

"Featured Author 9 September 2000: Paul Johnson"
''The New York Times''

"Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded to Johnson"
White House press release, December 15, 2006

Johnson's articles and interviews in English and Spanish
at Facebook
*
''Booknotes'' interview with Johnson on ''A History of the American People''
C-SPAN, 5 April 1998
**

PaulJohnson"Why America Will Stay on Top"
by Brian Carney, ''The Wall Street Journal'', 5 March 2011

"Desert Island Discs"
Johnson on BBC Radio 4, 15 January 2012

{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Paul
1928 births
2023 deaths
20th-century British Army personnel
20th-century British historians
20th-century British male writers
20th-century British non-fiction writers
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century British historians
21st-century British male writers
21st-century British non-fiction writers
21st-century Roman Catholics
Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford
British anti-communists
British historians of religion
British magazine editors
British male journalists
British Roman Catholic writers
British watercolourists
Charles Darwin biographers
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Historians of Christianity
King's Royal Rifle Corps soldiers
Military personnel from Manchester
New Statesman people
People educated at Stonyhurst College
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Royal Army Educational Corps officers
The American Spectator people
Writers from Manchester