Better Be Careful

During Queen Elizabeth II's visit to the U.S., the Saturday Evening Post stirred a tempest in British teacups with an article titled: "Does England Really Need a Queen?" Its author: brilliant, acidulous

Malcolm Muggeridge, 54, one of the British Broadcasting Corp.'s best-known TV , personalities, who had quit only a month before as editor of Britain's weekly Punch (TIME, Sept. 9).

Even before the Satevepost reached U.S. newsstands, Muggeridge's studiously fair discussion of royalty blew up outraged headlines (A SHOCKING ATTACK ON THE QUEEN) and out-of-context quotes in London's dailies. British ' readers responded in highly un-British fashion by bombarding Muggeridge with hostile letters that ranged from the scurrilous ("your effeminate voice") to the scatological (one letter, reported Henry Fairlie in the London weekly Spectator, had been "rubbed in either animal or human excrement").

Outwaving such ardent flag wavers as Lord Beaverbrook's Daily Express, the Sunday Dispatch (circ. 2,420,000) canceled its new, highly touted contract for a weekly column by Muggeridge. The BBC scheduled, then canceled, several TV shows on which Muggeridge might have had a chance to answer his critics. Last week, in the unkindest cut of all, the BBC announced that it "does not wish to renew Mr. Muggeridge's contract" for 26 TV appearances a year. Protested London's Daily Mirror: "If all views must agree with the BBC (Better Be Careful) censors, nothing worthwhile will ever be said." To Newsman Muggeridge, it seemed as if too much had been said already. Said he: "My career may be finished as far as popular journalism goes--and all because of an article that not five people in this country have read."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.