Felix Greene
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Felix Greene | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Felix Greene in 1968 | |
| Born | 21 May 1909 |
| Died | 15 June 1985 (aged 76) |
| Alma mater | Clare College, Cambridge |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Political party | National Labour (1930s) |
| Relatives | Graham Greene (cousin) |
Felix Greene (21 May 1909 – 15 June 1985) was a British journalist who chronicled several communist countries in the 1960s and 1970s.
Greene was educated at Sidcot School, a Quaker institution in Somerset, and at Clare College, Cambridge, where he read law.[1][2] Whilst still a student, aged only 22, he stood as a National Labour candidate in the 1931 general election.[2] Greene was opposed in South East Essex by the sitting Labour MP, John Oldfield, and by the victorious Conservative candidate, Victor Raikes, who refused to stand aside for Greene despite the fact that the Conservatives and National Labour were allies in Ramsay MacDonald's National Government. Although Greene came in third place, he nevertheless achieved a higher poll than any of the other National Labour candidates opposed by Conservatives in that election.
In 1933, Greene joined the BBC, working in the Talks Department. In 1936, he was sent to New York City, and subsequently remained in North America for the next two decades.[3] That year, he was seconded to the Foreign Office to visit all major capitals in South America and prepare a report for the Cabinet on German and Italian propaganda exercises taking place in the region. In 1938, he was asked by the Canadian Government to assist in the preparation of a draft constitution for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Resigning from the BBC in 1940, he remained in the United States, joining the Quaker American Friends Service Committee in 1941 and helping Gerald Heard establish Trabuco College in California the following year.[1]
