Keith Kyle

Keith Kyle(4 August 1925,Sturminster Newton,Dorset– 21 February 2007, London) was a British writer, broadcaster and historian.

Early life

Kyle was educated atBromsgrove SchoolandMagdalen College,Oxford University,where his period as an undergraduate was broken by war service.

Career

He worked for theBBCNorth American Service as a talks producer, succeedingTony Bennin 1951. In 1953, he joinedThe Economistand was sent to Washington; later he was reporter for the BBC'sTonightprogramme from 1960, specialising in coverage of Africaand based in Nairobi.He also contributed toThe ObserverandThe Spectatorat this time, and coveredRhodesiain the period before theSmithgovernment'sUDI.

From the late 1960s, Kyle began an academic career, while remaining active as a journalist for some years. He was a Fellow of theJohn F Kennedy Institute of PoliticsatHarvard(1967–68) and joinedChatham Housein 1972, where he remained for 30 years.In the late 1980s,St Antony's College, Oxfordinvited him to become an associate member. His history,Suez:Britain's End of Empire in the Middle East(Weidenfeld & Nicolson) first appeared in 1991,and is regarded as definitive in almost all the cited articles. His other books includeThe Politics of the Independence of Kenya(Macmillan) in 1999 and his posthumous autobiographyKeith Kyle: Reporting the Worldappeared in June 2009, published byI.B.Tauris.

Parliamentary candidacies

Kyle had a chequered career as a parliamentary candidate. He had hoped to become a Conservative candidate in 1956, but government policy on Suez dissuaded him. He was an unsuccessfulLabour Partycandidate inSt Albansin1966,forBraintreein both 1974 elections and was theNorthampton SouthSDPcandidate in1983.