Thorpe and the press
Sir: There are many points in the article by Patrick Marnham on Thorpe and the press which provoke comment. But the foundation of his piece is the assertion that the Sunday Times published nothing between its original examination of the 'smear campaign' in 1976 and the recent charges.
This is a false assertion. Mr Marnham has somehow managed to avert his eye not merely from other subsequent reports, of which there were many, but from a twopage report in the Sunday Times which provided exactly the kind of explanatory link he says has been missing. This report was published on 26 February 1978. It was by Will Ellsworth-Jones and David May. It took several weeks to compile and the headline will give some of the flavour. The overline was: 'The Scott affair — the dog, the gun, the money. The basic facts in the mystery that won't go away'. The main headline said: 'The South Wales Connection: Was There a Plot to Kill?'. There were pictures of the main characters and interviews with men charged today.
Mr Marnham says that the Sunday Times performance provides a neat example of Solzhenitsyn's picture of the unapologetic journalist. Perhaps he will now provide a neat picture of the apologetic journalist and express his own regrets to this paper and the journalists he has wronged?
Harold Evans The Sunday Times, London WC1
Patrick Marnham writes: The assertion Mr Evans mentions was not the foundation of my piece. I apologise to Mr Evans for failing to notice the article of February 1976 which apparently contradicted the original Sunday Times story. I shall read his paper with even closer attention in future.
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