IN more than 45 years of investigative journalism,=20 Arthur Gavshon, who wrote occasionally from London for=20 the Mail & Guardian, broke stories and investigated=20 incidents that turned history on its head.
Born in Johannesburg, he joined the Associated Press in=20 London in 1946.=20
”As a journalist,” wrote colleage Tam Dalyell in an=20 obituary, ”he quickly reached an importance such that=20 he could have private off-the-record interviews with=20 Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home,=20 Harold Wilson and Ted Heath. He was equally trusted by=20 senior Tory and leading Labour politician alike.”
That reputation extended beyond Britain; as AP=20 correspondent in Washington, Moscow, Beijing and Paris,=20 he built up a formidable network of diplomatic and=20 political friends and sources. =20
Gavshon wrote books admired for the depth of their=20 research: The Sinking of the Belgrado, Crisis in=20 Africa: Battleground of East and West, and The Last=20 Days of Dag Hammarskjold, in which he argued that the=20 air crash that killed Hammarskjold had not been an=20
Gavshon had been ill for several months. He died this=20 week in London, of cancer.
Obituary: Jack Simons
Described by President Nelson Mandela as ”a giant anti- apartheid veteran, a true Afrikaner and patriotic South=20 African”, Jack Simons was a prominent leader of the=20 South African Communist Party.=20
Born at Riversdale in the Cape, he obtained a PhD at=20 the London School of Economics, lectured in African=20 government and law at the University of Cape Town and=20 was tried for sedition after the 1946 mineworkers’=20
He was banned on and off throughout the 1950s and was=20 finally forced into exile after 1965 when communists=20 were prevented from teaching.
He lectured in Manchester and Lusaka, and in the mid- 1970s, he settled in Mozambique. With his wife, trade=20 unionist Ray Alexander, he wrote Class and Colour in=20 South Africa, a staple of leftwing academic writing, as=20 well as many other books.
He and his wife returned to South Africa in 1990 and=20 remained politically involved. ”Until three days before=20 he died,” said an African National Congress=20 representative, ”he still attended ANC and SACP=20
”Jack Simons will be counted among the greatest heroes=20 of the struggle of our people against apartheid,”=20 Mandela said. ”His name shall also be counted among the=20 legends that the struggles of colonised and oppressed=20 peoples have produced across the globe.”
Simons died this week in Cape Town at the age of 88.