Tom Carver

Tom Carver is a writer and former BBC foreign correspondent. He is also the step-grandson of Field Marshal Montgomery.

Biography

His grandfather Oswald Carver was an Olympic oarsman who rowed in the 1908 Summer Olympics in London. He was killed during the battle of Gallipoli in 1916 aged 28. His grandmother, Elizabeth Carver married Bernard Montgomery in 1927. Montgomery would go on to become Field Marshal Montgomery in World War II.

Carver was 15 when Viscount Montgomery died, and formed part of the guard of honour at his funeral at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle as part of his school cadet force.^[1]

Education

Carver was educated at The King's School in Canterbury, a boarding independent school for boys (now co-educational), followed by the University of Bristol.

Life and career

Carver joined the BBC as a local radio trainee. He became a BBC foreign correspondent, reporting on the withdrawal of the Soviet Army from Afghanistan, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the first Gulf War. In 1991, he was sent into northern Iraq to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein was massacring the Kurds and became one of the first journalists to witness the exodus of half a million Kurds across the mountains towards Turkey.

In 1991 he became BBC Africa correspondent for three years, covering the US-led invasion of Somalia otherwise known as Operation Restore Hope, the Angolan Civil War and the transition to black majority rule in South Africa. In 1994, he covered the Rwandan Genocide.^[2]

In 1995 he reported on the Massacre of Srebrenica during the Bosnian War as the BBC’s Defence Correspondent.^[3]

In 1997, he became the BBC Washington correspondent remaining in the post for 8 years.^[4] He reported on the serial killings of dozens of women in Juarez, Mexico^[5] and covered the disputed 2000 presidential election.^[6][7] He was appointed BBC Newsnight Washington correspondent^[8] and was an eyewitness at September 11.^[9]

In 2003 he was one of the few journalists to travel with Vice President Dick Cheney through the Middle East in a prelude to the Iraq war.^[10] He covered the 2004 election and was at the Democratic National Convention when Barack Obama gave his first national speech.^[11] He left the BBC after the election to become Senior Vice President at Control Risks.^[12]

And then in 2008, he took up the post of Senior Vice President at Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter a Washington-based communications consultancy^[13] before joining the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as head of Global Communications.^[14]

Carver has written for numerous newspapers, including The Independent,^[15] London Review of Books, The Sunday Times, New Statesman and The Guardian.^[16]

Carver is the author of Where the hell have you been?,^[17] a bestselling account of his father Richard Carver’s adventures during World War II in Italy, especially in Abruzzo's campaigns.^[18]

Personal life

Carver is married to BBC anchor Katty Kay. The couple have four children.

References