Richard Gott was a traitor and a fool, but he was very nice to a young Mary Kenny
You never forget someone who was kind to you when you were a young pipsqueak. Thus it was that, when a friend asked, ‘Did you know Richard Gott on the Guardian?’ I answered, ‘Yes – an absolute sweetie!’ Gott, who died atthe end of October aged 87, was recalled in the obituaries as the who ‘took Moscow gold’. He was a paid KGB informant, although he probably didn’t tell the Russians much they didn’t know already. But Richard’s career was one of defending the hard left wherever it cropped up, even suggesting we were a bit too unkind about Pol Pot, the Cambodian mass murderer. He was a complete fool, politically. But Richard Gott was very nice to me, when I was a 21-year-old secretary on the Guardian, where I mistyped Brian Redhead’s letters (I could never read my own shorthand). Gotty always took time to be kind and friendly...
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