Richard Crossman
Coventry East | |
|---|---|
| In office 5 July 1945 – 8 February 1974 | |
| Preceded by | Constituency created |
| Succeeded by | Constituency abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Richard Howard Stafford Crossman 15 December 1907 London, England |
| Died | 5 April 1974 (aged 66) Banbury, England |
| Political party | Labour |
| Spouses |
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| Alma mater | New College, Oxford |
Richard Howard Stafford Crossman
Crossman was a Cabinet minister in Harold Wilson's governments of 1964–1970, first for Housing, then as Leader of the House of Commons, and then for Social Services. In the early 1970s, Crossman was editor of the New Statesman. He is remembered for his highly revealing three-volume Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, published posthumously.
Early life
Crossman was born on 15 December 1907 at Buckhurst Hill House, Essex,[1] the son of Charles Stafford Crossman,[2] a barrister and later a High Court judge, and Helen Elizabeth (née Howard). Helen was of the Howard family of Ilford descended from Luke Howard, a Quaker chemist and meteorologist who founded the pharmaceutical company Howards and Sons.[3]
Crossman grew up in
Personal life
Crossman, who had been noted for his good looks as a youth, had predominantly same-sex affairs at Oxford.[8] In an early diary, he describes an Easter holiday with an unnamed young poet: "He kept me in a little white-washed room for a fortnight because his mouth was against mine and we were completely together."[9]
After being married to Erika Glück, a divorcée, whom he met while travelling in Germany after graduation, he married Zita Baker (ex-wife of John Baker) in 1937.[10]
Service in World War II and afterwards
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Crossman joined the
In April 1945, Crossman was one of the first [citation needed] British officers to enter the former Dachau concentration camp. With war correspondent Colin Wills, Crossman co-wrote the script for German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, a British government documentary, produced by Sidney Bernstein with treatment advice by Alfred Hitchcock, that showed gruelling scenes from Nazi concentration camps. The uncompleted film was shelved for decades before being assembled by scholars at the Imperial War Museum and released in 2014. That same year, German Concentration Camps Factual Survey was itself the subject of a documentary, Night Will Fall.[13][14]
Crossman became a key participant in the annual Königswinter Conference, organised by Lilo Milchsack to bring together British and German legislators, academics and opinion-formers from 1950 onwards. The conferences were credited with helping to heal bad memories created by the war. At them, Crossman met the German politician Hans von Herwarth, the ex-soldier Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin, future German President Richard von Weizsäcker and other leading German decision makers. Other attendees at the conferences included Denis Healey, soon to become a Labour Party politician, and Robin Day, later a political broadcaster.[15]
Political career: 1945–51
Crossman entered the
Crossman cemented his role as a leader of the left-wing of the
Anti-communist propaganda
Crossman is considered by historians to be a central figure to British Cold War propaganda due to his collaboration with the
Crossman's intense relationship with disinformation for propaganda purposes led to many people nicknaming him "Dick Double-Crossman".[24] His name was also included within one of George Orwell's notebooks following the discovery of Orwell's list, being noted by Orwell as being "Too dishonest to be outright F. T" (fellow-traveller).[25]
Political career: 1951–70
He was a member of the
In 1957, Crossman was one of the plaintiffs, along with
Crossman was
Between 1968 and 1970, he was the first Secretary of State for Health and Social Services, in which position he worked on an ambitious proposal to supplement Britain's flat-rate state pension with an earnings-related element. The proposal had not, however, been passed into law at the time the Labour Party lost the 1970 general election. During the months of political turmoil that led up to the election loss, Crossman had been considered, however briefly, as a last-minute option to replace Wilson as Prime Minister.[citation needed]
Books and journalism
After Labour's general election defeat in 1970, Crossman resigned from the Labour front bench to become editor of the New Statesman, where he had been a frequent contributor and assistant editor from 1938 until 1955. He left the New Statesman in 1972.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Crossman also had a regular column titled "Crossman Says..." in the Daily Mirror, the Labour-supporting tabloid newspaper. Along with the column of "Cassandra", Crossman's reporting provided the bulk of political and international commentary in the newspaper.
Crossman was a prolific writer and editor. In Plato To-Day (1937) he imagines
Crossman is best remembered for his colourful and highly subjective three-volume Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, written while he was living in Vincent Square, published posthumously from 1975 to 1977 and covering his time in government from 1964 to 1970. The diaries appeared after he had died, and following a legal battle by the government to block publication. One of Crossman's legal executors was Michael Foot, then a cabinet minister, who opposed his own government's attempts to suppress the diaries.[29] Among other things, the diaries describe Crossman's battles with "the Dame", his Permanent Secretary Evelyn Sharp, GBE (1903–1985), the first woman in Britain to hold the position. Crossman's backbench diaries were published in 1981. Crossman's diaries were an acknowledged source for the television comedy series Yes Minister.[30][31]
Death
Crossman died of liver cancer on 5 April 1974 at his home in Oxfordshire. He was survived by his third wife, Anne Patricia (15 April 1920 – 3 October 2008; née McDougall, daughter of Patrick McDougall, of Prescote Manor, Cropredy, founder of the Banbury cattle market), with whom he shared common descent from the Danvers family of Cropredy. Anne Crossman worked at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, and served as secretary to Maurice Edelman MP. The Crossmans had two children, Patrick and Virginia.[6]
Legacy
The Richard Crossman Building, built in 1971, at
Richard Crossman features in the theatre production Little Edens, set during the Florence Park rent strike of 1934.
Published works
- Government and the Governed (A History of Political Ideas and Political Practice) London: Cristophers (1939)
- Plato To-Day New York: Oxford University Press (1937)
- Palestine Mission: A Personal Record New York: Harper (1947)
- The God That FailedNew York: Harper (1949) (editor)
- The Charm of Politics, and other Essays in Political Criticism Hamish Hamilton (1958)
- A Nation Reborn: The Israel of Weizmann, Bevin and Ben-Gurion New York: Atheneum (1960)
- The Politics of Socialism New York: Atheneum (1965)
- The Myths of Cabinet Government Cambridge: Harvard University Press (1972)
- Diaries of a Cabinet Minister (three volumes, 1975, 1976 and 1977)
- The Crossman Diaries: Selections from the Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, 1964–1970 (1979) abridged edition, edited by Anthony Howard
- The Backbench Diaries of Richard Crossman (1981)
Biographies
- Anthony Howard (1990), Crossman: The Pursuit of Power, Jonathan Cape
- Tam Dalyell (1989), Dick Crossman: A Portrait
- ISBN 978-1845115531
References
- ^ RHS Crossman, birth certificate, issued 30 Dec 1907
- ISBN 9780951284407. Retrieved 30 September 2018.
- ^ Brief Lives with some memoirs, Alan Watkins, Elliot and Thompson, 2004, pp. 54–55.
- ^ "The Reverend Anthony Trotman". The Daily Telegraph. 4 November 2006. Retrieved 30 September 2018.
- ^ Brief Lives with some memoirs, Alan Watkins, Elliot and Thompson, 2004, pg 54
- ^ a b "Anne Crossman". The Daily Telegraph. 8 October 2008. Retrieved 30 September 2018.
- ISBN 978-1408704127.
- ^ Michael Bloch. "Double lives – a history of sex and secrecy at Westminster". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 September 2018.
- ISBN 9780712651158.
- ^ "About Richard Crossman - a short biography".
- ISBN 0-7146-5433-7.
- ^ "No. 37308". The London Gazette (Supplement). 12 October 1945. p. 5067.
- ^ Jeffries, Stuart (9 January 2015). "The Holocaust film that was too shocking to show". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 January 2015.
- ^ "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey". Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
- ^ Nigel Nicolson, "Long Life: Presiding Genius", The Spectator, 15 August 1992. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
- ISBN 9781400853571– via Google Books.
- ^ "Crossman and the creation of Israel - Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick". warwick.ac.uk.
- ^ Rubin, Andrew N. (2012). Archives of Authority: Empire, Culture and the Cold War. Woodstock: Princeton University Press. p. 37.
- ^ Defty, Andrew (2005). Britain, America and Anti-Communist Propaganda 1945-1953: The Information Research Department. E-book version: Routledge. p. 87.
- ^ Jenks, John (2006). British Propaganda and News Media in the Cold War. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 71.
- ^ Mitter, Rana (2005). Across the Block: Cold War Cultural and Social History. Taylor & Francis e-library: Frank Cass and Company Limited. p. 115.
- ^ Defty, Andrew (2005). Britain, America and Anti-Communist Propaganda 1945–1953: The Information Research Department. E-book version: Routledge. p. 160.
- ^ Wilford, Hugh (2013). The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune?. Abingdon: Routledge. p. 286.
- ^ Cull, Nicholas J.; Culbert, David; Welch, David (2003). Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopaedia, 1500 to Present. Oxford: ABC-CLIO. p. 100.
- ^ Lashmar, Paul; Oliver, James (1988). Britain's Secret Propaganda War 1948–1977. Phoenix Mill: Sutton Publishing. p. 97.
- Bose, Mihir, "Britain's Libel Laws: Malice Aforethought", History Today, 5 May 2013.
- ^ Roy Jenkins wrote of his former colleagues (in "Aneurin Bevan" in Portraits and Miniatures, 2011) that they "sailed to victory on the unfortunate combination of Lord Chief Justice Goddard's prejudice against the anti-hanging and generally libertarian Spectator of those days and the perjury of the plaintiffs, subsequently exposed in Crossman's endlessly revealing diaries." Geoffrey Wheatcroft wrote (in The Guardian, 18 March 2000, "Lies and Libel"): "Fifteen years later, Crossman boasted (in my presence) that they had indeed all been toping heavily, and that at least one of them had been blind drunk." Dominic Lawson wrote (in The Independent, "Chris Huhne's downfall is another example of the amazing risks a politician will take". 4 February 2013): "Crossman's posthumously published diaries revealed that the story was accurate; and in 1978 Brian Inglis on What the Papers Say revealed that Crossman had told him a few days after the case that they had committed perjury". Mihir Bose (in "Britain's Libel Laws: Malice Aforethought", History Today, 5 May 2013) quotes Bevan's biographer, John Campbell, to the effect that the case had destroyed the career of the young journalist involved, Jenny Nicholson.
- ^ Goldhill, Simon, Love, Sex and Tragedy, U. Chicago Press, 2004, p. 202
- ^ Anthony Howard, "Michael Foot: The last of a dying breed", The Telegraph, 5 March 2010.
- ^ "Yes Minister Questions & Answers". Jonathan Lynn Official Website. Archived from the original on 19 November 2014. Retrieved 6 September 2007.
- ISBN 0-241-10142-5.
- ^ "Buildings". Coventry University. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
- ^ "Papers of Richard Crossman MP (1907-1974), Labour politician, and associated people". Modern Records Centre. Retrieved 2 October 2023.
External links
- Dalyell, Tam (13 December 2002). "Tam Dalyell on Richard Crossman". Great Lives. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 30 August 2009.
- Howard, Anthony (January 2008). "Crossman, Richard Howard Stafford (1907–1974)". required.)
- Richard Crossman (1907–1974), Politician National Portrait Gallery, London
- On Richard Crossman Archived 7 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine CliveJames.com
- Catalogue of Crossman's papers, held at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick
- Collection of Crossman's papers available digitally, held at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick
- Newspaper clippings about Richard Crossman in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
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