FOR nearly all the 25 years leading up to the collapse of communism in 1989, two intellects dominated the pages of The Economist. They were Norman Macrae, as deputy editor, and Brian Beedham, as foreign editor. Their marks were influential, enduring—and quite different. Norman, who died in 2010, relished iconoclasm, and original ideas sprang like a fountain from his effervescent mind. Brian, bearded, tweed-jacketed and pipe-smoking (or pipe-poking), held ideas that were more considered. It was he who provided the paper’s attitude to the post-war world.
In that world, nothing was as important as seeing off communism, which in turn could be achieved only by the unyielding exercise of American strength. This view was not in itself unusual. What made it remarkable, and formidable, were the clarity, elegance and intellectual power with which it was propounded.
No issue demanded the exercise of these qualities more than the Vietnam war, and probably none caused Brian more anguish. A man of great kindness, and without a hint of vanity or pretension, he was far from being either a heartless ideologue or a primitive...
from The Economist: Obituary http://ift.tt/1QMvrYa
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