Dimbleby the Second

The ritual of most British television commentators is as fixed and inflexible as the Nelson Monument, and it calls for a straight face and unwavering tone before even the obvious follies of the mighty. The broadcaster who established the form was the late Richard Dimbleby, the eloquent voice of Britain whose specialty was such sonorous events as the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill. Last week Dimbleby the Second -- Richard's 30-year-old son David -- revised the ritual for the BBC. To mark Richard Nixon's visit to Britain, he gave the President of the U.S. as tart and unflattering a coverage as any Nixon got in Europe.

Dimbleby dismissed much of the ceremonial as "a road show" and "a con." As Air Force One taxied in at London's Heathrow Airport, he observed that "President Nixon is no doubt adjusting his face and deciding whether it's more suitable to smile or look stern as he comes out. He is a man with a face for all seasons; so no doubt it will be the appropriate look." At one point, as the camera cliff-hung on the door of No. 10 Downing Street and the end of a Wilson-Nixon meeting, he sniped: "Of course, all of us will be kept fully in the dark about the discussions that are held. Both President Nixon and Mr. Wilson have expensively hired press secretaries whose job is to disguise the truth and to avoid straight questions." In sum, Dimbleby felt that Nixon had drawn "not as big a crowd as Kennedy would have and not as hostile a crowd probably as L.B.J." What the British had witnessed, he concluded, was "another stage in the so-called de-monsterization of Nixon -- that's what the American press calls it --discovering that this man, of whom they thought so ill, does, in fact, have some merit. Though, of course, he is still an untested President."

Sugar Buns. Shortly after the last of his three broadcasts, the BBC issued a public apology for Dimbleby's "unfortunate and inappropriate" performance and launched "an inquiry into all the circumstances." Dimbleby seemed unperturbed. He said that he had deliberately set out "to get behind the platitudinous surface and pick up the more truthful reality. If the Queen opens Parliament, all right, that's straight ceremony. But when President and Prime Minister meet, it's arrant nonsense that it be treated with deference."

David learned his undeferential ways first as editor of Isis, the student magazine at Oxford, then as an interviewer for the BBC in the provinces. Sometimes he would carry two microphones to cover for radio and telly simultaneously--and to increase his fee to $22 per assignment. He later worked on network-wide documentaries and panel shows in London and spent a year as a CBS correspondent. His credits include a film report from Albania and an uneven essay on the "vulgarity" of Texas. In a preview of the sort of sharp commentary he delivered last week, he described Texas as "a land without style, a confused and chaotic society" obsessed with guns. Now he is also managing director of three suburban London weeklies acquired by his father.

Dimbleby was hardly abashed by the official apology. What BBC management thought was a bad show was cheered last week as bang-on by the London TV critics. Wrote the Daily Mail: "It's very possible that David Dimbleby judged the mood of the nation toward the Nixon visit as accurately as his father judged its mood toward the visits of Eisenhower and Kennedy. Don't let them throw you, David. It's better to be ahead of your time than behind it."

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