Long before Masterpiece Theatre – Alistair Cooke was looking at the world for the BBC.
Alistair Cooke, reporting from London, this December 9, 1936 – the occasion was a rapid succession of reports regarding the impending marriage between King Edward VIII and the abdication of the King in order to go ahead with that marriage to Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee and the source of widespread panic around Westminster and Buckingham Palace.
The abdication of King Edward VIII on December 10-11, 1936, stands as one of the most pivotal constitutional crises in modern British history. The King’s determination to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcée with two living ex-husbands, triggered an unprecedented clash between personal desire, constitutional principle, religious authority, and political will—ultimately reshaping the British monarchy and the Commonwealth itself.
And it was Alistair Cooke who kept American audiences informed by a series of broadcasts for NBC and relayed through the BBC World Service including this one, the day before Edward announced his decision to the world.
In 1935, Cooke also became London Correspondent for NBC. Each week, he recorded a 15-minute radio dialogue for American listeners on life in Britain, under the series title of London Letter. In 1936, he intensively reported on the Edward VIII abdication crisis for NBC.
Cooke stated that, on a visit to New York in 1936, he’d been impressed at how freely newspapers and journals were able to report on the abdication crisis whilst all comment was still censored in London. Very soon, in 1937, he immigrated. He became a United States citizen and swore the Oath of Allegiance on 1 December 1941, six days before Pearl Harbor was attacked. Shortly after immigrating, Cooke suggested to the BBC the idea of doing the London Letter in reverse: a 15-minute talk for British listeners on life in America. A prototype, Mainly About Manhattan, was broadcast intermittently from 1938, but the idea was shelved with the outbreak of World War II in 1939.
Here is one of the many reports Alistair Cooke gave during the days leading up to the Abdication.
And don’t forget to chip in what you can:
