Alistair Cooke was born in 1908 and had a Commonwealth Fellowship in 1932. He went back to America in 1937, became a US citizen and lived in New York until his death in 2004. Every week, for nearly sixty years, his Letter from America on BBC radio would address a topical issue in the US, in a conversational style, with humour and – sometimes – pathos.
His voice was warm and easy-going. For many of us, it became the embodiment of the USA, mediating a conversation between two cultures with an accent that made Brits think he was American … and Americans think he was the quintessential Brit. He just said, ‘I feel totally at home in both.’
We knew his Letter from America, but Americans knew him as the host of Masterpiece Theatre, presenting the best – sometimes the worst – of British TV drama. For us Harkness fellows in the 1970s and 80s, it was essential viewing – a link with the UK before the advent of the Internet.
He was skilled at saying exactly what he felt in the most urbane manner. It was like listening to a wise, elderly friend talk about a subject he understood. You listened and enjoyed and came back for more.
But Cooke had strong personal views – of a left liberal character – and he put them across with understated gravitas. His disapproval of Richard Nixon’s involvement in Watergate was expressed in a voice of cold disappointment. He led his listeners through America’s wars in Korea and Vietnam, political assassinations including that of Bobby Kennedy, which he witnessed firsthand, Nixon’s resignation and Bill Clinton’s sex life.
He pulled no punches. The gentlemanly tone of his writing didn’t disguise his fears for America, which he felt was becoming more cynical and more violent. He disliked the divisive politics of Ronald Reagan – goodness knows what he would have thought of Donald Trump – but he always wanted the best for his adopted homeland. ‘In America,’ he said, ‘the race is on … between its decadence and its vitality. And it has plenty of both.’
As well as macro-politics, he was adept at the micro-personal details of life. He described what it was like looking for an apartment in 1940s New York, or living on Long Island when it was just a nice empty place to rent a summer cottage. What Native Americans thought about D H Lawrence when he lived among them in Arizona; and what it was like in the New York subway before the advent of air conditioning. He wrote about the first stirrings of political correctness and how it questioned Jewish jokes or forced changes to the lyrics of ‘Old Man River.’
He’s wry and spiky about the fashion and modelling industries on the East and West coasts. He has a lot to say about the incongruous neo-classical designs of Washington’s political architecture – well before Donald Trump’s ballroom and triumphal arch – and he excels at describing nature and the seasons across the USA. New England’s trees in the fall, Cooke says, ‘entirely revise your ideas about the infinite, fine range of colour between gold and lemon.’
In 1973, the Queen gave him a knighthood and in1974 he was invited to address a joint session of Congress – only the fourth native-born Englishman to do so [the others were all prime ministers.] Asked why he never entered public life as a politician, he said he was too busy being an observer. ‘Every four years I take a stand and I vote. Then I return to my reporting habits and the continuing discovery that in life, the range of irreconcilable points of view, characters, flaws, idiosyncrasies and virtues continues to be astounding.’
‘Curiosity,’ Cooke said, ‘is a free-wheeling intelligence that endows the people who have it with a generosity in argument and an inner serenity that springs from their willingness to let life take the form it will.’
He always remembered his first impressions from his time as a Fellow. ‘When people first come to America, whether as travellers or settlers, they become aware of a new and agreeable feeling: that the whole country is their oyster.’
And he had a sideways take on the relationship between his former and present countries. ‘As always, the British shudder at the latest American vulgarity … And then they embrace it with enthusiasm, two years later.’ [Listen here for samples of Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America.]
I met Alistair Cooke when I was the BBC’s North America correspondent and he used to come into the BBC New York office to record his talks. He gave me some advice about being a broadcast journalist.
‘It’s an acting job,’ he said. ‘Act natural.’
So that’s what I tried to do.
Thank you.
About the Author – Martin Sixsmith
In the 1980s and 90s, Martin Sixsmith (HF 1977-79) was the BBC’s correspondent in Moscow, Washington, Brussels and Warsaw, Between 1997 and 2002 he worked for the British Government as Director of Communications and Press Secretary to several cabinet ministers. He is now an author, presenter and journalist. He worked as a consultant on the BBC2 political sitcom The Thick of It and the 2010 movie In the Loop. In 2013, his book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee was adapted into the film Philomena, starring Judi Dench and Steve Coogan (playing Martin). It was nominated for four Oscars. His non-fiction books include My Sins Go With Me, Ayesha’s Gift,; Moscow Coup and The War of Nerves – Inside the Cold War Mind. In 2014 he presented the BBC’s 25-part history of psychology and psychiatry. He is currently working on a book about Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
Learn more about Martin Sixsmith from his Harkness Reflections with Luke O’Shea. 
Thanks to the author and the Commonwealth Fund for sharing this presentation from the Harkness@100 Conference.