Journalism, and Adventures Behind The Iron Curtain
Williams' British paperback publishers would claim that his first-hand experience of adventure and intrigue was put to superb use in his novels.
As a student he took part in the Hungarian uprising. He took a supply of penicillin to the insurgents in Budapest. He masqueraded his way into East Germany when that country was virtually closed. He was a delegate from Cambridge to the World Festival of Peace and Friendship in Warsaw where he and some friends smuggled a Polish student to the West.
After graduating from Cambridge, Williams worked for Radio Free Europe in Munich. He then moved on to print journalism, starting at the Western Mail. He then joined The Guardian before becoming foreign correspondent for The Daily Express, covering international wars and "other horrors".
He covered stories in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, Israel and the Far East. As a reporter he covered most of the world's trouble spots - Vietnam, the Middle-East, Algeria, Czechoslovakia, Ulster, Mozambique, Cyprus and Rhodesia.
He covered two Israeli-Arab conflicts including the Six-Day War.
In Algeria, the Foreign Office received complaints about him from both the French Army and the Arabs. Subsequently he had to be smuggled out of the country after the word barbouze (spy) had been written on his car, In Beirut, he encountered Kim Philby the day before the latter disappeared to Moscow.
His Vietnam reporting won him much praise. Jon Bradshaw called him "perhaps the best observer of war in England. His articles on Vietnam are far and away the best pieces produced in Britain on the subject." According to Phillip Knightley, correspondents sewed their official identification tags - name and organisation - on their jackets. However, Williams' press accreditation tag carried an unintended connotation, which raised eyebrows: Alan Williams, Queen, though "it was to the disbelief of most GIs" wrote Phillip Knightley.
Journalist and war correspondant Nicholas Tomalin, described Williams as his wildest friend. Williams based a character in The Beria Papers on Tomalin and, upon selling the film rights, told Tomalin that he should play himself in the movie version.
Read more about this topic: Alan Williams (novelist)
Famous quotes containing the words adventures, iron and/or curtain:
“We know that their adventures are childish. They themselves are fools. They are ready to kill or be killed over a card-game in which an opponent—or they themselves—was cheating. Yet, thanks to such fellows, tragedies are possible.”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)
“I was even more surprised at the power of the waves, exhibited on this shattered fragment, than I had been at the sight of the smaller fragments before. The largest timbers and iron braces were broken superfluously, and I saw that no material could withstand the power of the waves; that iron must go to pieces in such a case, and an iron vessel would be cracked up like an egg- shell on the rocks.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Old politicians, like old actors, revive in the limelight. The vacancy which afflicts them in private momentarily lifts when, once more, they feel the eyes of an audience upon them. Their old passion for holding the centre of the stage guides their uncertain footsteps to where the footlights shine, and summons up a wintry smile when the curtain rises.”
—Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990)