Believe Nothing Until It Is Officially Denied: Claud Cockburn and the Invention of Guerrilla Journalism

A son revisits his father’s anti-Nazi journalistic exploits in this admiring biography. Independent reporter Cockburn (War in the Age of Trump) recaps Claud’s early career reporting for the Times of London from Berlin and New York during the Great Depression, as well as his decision to quit in 1932 to start a newsletter with the aim of fighting ascendant fascist regimes. Despite a tiny circulation, the Week made a splash exposing and denouncing the Nazis’ brutal antisemitism and the complicity of the British government in appeasing Adolf Hitler. Cockburn’s colorful, elegantly written account extols Claud’s charisma, courage, and daring (he risked arrest and worse by going to Nazi Germany in 1934 on a fake passport to retrieve the young children of an exiled dissident, and was almost shot by both sides while reporting on the Spanish Civil War). Unfortunately, Cockburn soft-pedals the ethical conflicts of Claud’s work for the Communist Party. For instance, he dismisses Claud’s decision to fabricate a story for the Party newspaper about a mutiny among Francisco Franco’s soldiers as “a politically inspired practical joke” rather than a breach of journalistic ethics. Though Cockburn views his father through rose-colored glasses, he nonetheless succeeds in capturing Claud’s verve and staunch political principles. Photos. (Oct.)