Hero in the field

Well before I actually met Adam Kellett-Long his name was engraved among my earliest Reuters memories. To me, a half-trained young deskman in London, he was the glamorous frontline foreign correspondent, out there in the field of action.

My first virtual encounter with AKL, Reuters East Berlin correspondent, was on the night of his greatest scoop, Sunday 13 August 1961. I was working on one of my first overnight shifts on the European Desk, under desk editor Peter Stewart, an unflappable veteran of wartime RAF bombing raids on Berlin. We had no reason not to expect a quiet night.

Suddenly in the small hours bells rang on the incoming telex and Peter lost his cool. He shouted an expletive, marked up the incoming message as a flash and handed it to our telegraph operator to send around the world, ahead of all rivals.

Adam kept the copy flowing, a vivid eyewitness account of the division of Berlin by the only Western correspondent based in the Eastern sector. Peter signed it off at top priority, scarcely a word changed, while I started to try to prepare some background.

Not for long, though. Within a few minutes, Central Desk, in charge of the top world stories, pulled rank and took over control from our two-man regional desk. A lesson for me in corporate authority.

As we were chatting afterwards, someone asked Peter if he had ever been to Berlin. "Yes, a good many times," he replied, deadpan. "But I never stopped.” ■