Richard West (18 July 1930 – 25 April 2015) was a British journalist and author best known for his reporting of the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

and

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

. He is described by Damian Thompson as "one of the finest foreign correspondents of the 20th century", with a career that covered the span of the Cold War in most of its theatres.

Life and career

Born in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, West attended

Marlborough College Marlborough College is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school (English private boarding school) for pupils aged 13 to 18 in Marlborough, Wiltshire, England. It was founded as Marlborough School in 1843 by the Dean of Manchester, George ...

before his

national service National service is a system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act ...

spell in

Trieste Trieste ( , ; ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as well as of the Province of Trieste, ...

awakened a lifelong interest in Yugoslavia. Starting off his journalistic career at the ''

Manchester Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', West became a foreign correspondent in Yugoslavia, Africa, Central America and

Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia (historically known as Indochina and the Indochinese Peninsula) is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to th ...

. Described by

Neal Ascherson Charles Neal Ascherson (born 5 October 1932) is a Scottish journalist and writer. In his youth he fought for the British in the Malayan Emergency. He has been described by Radio Prague as "one of Britain's leading experts on central and easte ...

as the "paragon of the independent journalist for his generation", he would spend much of the next two decades in Vietnam, Africa and eastern Europe, where he was codenamned Agent Friday by Communist Poland's secret police. Among his books are ''The Making of the Prime Minister'' (with Anthony Howard), ''An English Journey'' (1981) and ''Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia'' (1995). Along with

Patrick Marnham Patrick Marnham (born 1943) is an English writer, journalist and biographer. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society Literature in 1988. He is primarily known for his travel writing and for his biographies, where he has covered subjects as ...

and

Auberon Waugh Auberon Alexander Waugh ( ; 17 November 1939 – 16 January 2001) was a British journalist and novelist, and eldest son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh. He was widely known by his nickname "Bron". After a traditional classical education at Downsid ...

, West was one of three signatories to a letter to ''The Times'' that called for a British monument to honour those repatriated as a result of the

Yalta Conference The Yalta Conference (), held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The three sta ...

; it was eventually erected in 1986.

Personal life and death

He was the grandson of the classics scholar

Walter Leaf Sir Walter Leaf (26 November 1852, Upper Norwood – 8 March 1927, Torquay) was an English banker, classical scholar, and psychical researcher. He published a benchmark edition of Homer's Iliad and was a director of Westminster Bank for many ...

and the great-grandson of poet

John Addington Symonds John Addington Symonds Jr. (; 5 October 1840 – 19 April 1893) was an English poet and literary critic. A cultural historian, he was known for his work on the Renaissance, as well as numerous biographies of writers and artists. Although mar ...

, and was married to the Irish journalist

Mary Kenny Mary Kenny (born 4 April 1944) is an Irish journalist, broadcaster and playwright. A founding member of the Irish Women's Liberation Movement, she was one of the country's first and foremost Feminism, feminists, often contributes columns to the ...

. His sons are journalists Patrick West and Ed West. Richard West was a first cousin of the actor

Timothy West Timothy Lancaster West (20 October 1934 – 12 November 2024) was an English actor with a long and varied career across theatre, film, and television. He began acting in repertory theatres in the 1950s before making his London stage debut in 19 ...

. West died in

Deal In cryptography, DEAL (Data Encryption Algorithm with Larger blocks) is a symmetric block cipher derived from the Data Encryption Standard (DES). Its design was presented by Lars Knudsen at the SAC conference in 1997, and submitted as a proposa ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, where he had lived since 1998, on 25 April 2015, aged 84.

Bibliography

Books

* ''P.R. the Fifth Estate'' (1963) * ''The Making of the Prime Minister'' (1965) (with Anthony Howard) * ''The White Tribes of Africa'' (1965) * ''The Gringo in Latin America'' (1967) * ''Sketches from Vietnam'' (1968) * ''Back to Africa'' (1970) * ''Brazza of the Congo'' (1972) * ''River of Tears'' (1972) * ''Victory in Vietnam'' (1974) * ''The White Tribes Revisited'' (1978) * ''An English Journey'' (1981) * ''The Diamonds and the Necklace: A South African Journey'' (1989) * ''Hurricane in Nicaragua'' (1989) * ''Thailand: The Last Domino'' (1991) * ''Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia'' (1994) * ''War and Peace in Vietnam'' (1995) * ''The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Daniel Defoe'' (1998) * ''Chaucer: The Life and Times of the First English Poet'' (2002)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:West, Richard 1930 births 2015 deaths British male journalists British war correspondents Foreign correspondents in Africa People educated at Marlborough College The Guardian journalists