John Freeman, who has died aged 99, was a human chameleon: he took up and discarded one impressive career after another. He was by turns an advertising copywriter, an army major and decorated second world war hero, a Labour politician and minister, a dangerously incisive television interviewer whose Face to Face series made a considerable mark, an editor of the New Statesman magazine, a senior diplomat, a TV executive and a professor of international relations – to all of which he brought an elusive charm and a notable efficiency. When he had made a success of each, he simply decided to move on.
After serving as a Desert Rat – a member of the 7th Armoured Division in North Africa– in 1945 he won the parliamentary seat of Watford for Labour. His maiden speech, about the rebuilding of postwar Britain, moved Winston Churchill to tears. Freeman quickly became a junior minister and was tipped by some as a future party leader. But in 1951 he resigned his office and in 1955 left politics altogether to begin his serial march through successful careers.
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