Episode 41: April 9th 2011: Yuri Gagarin and Reg Turnill

Scroll down for the audio and video. Reg Turnill joined the BBC in
1956 with the remit to cover aviation and defence. The launch of
Sputnik 1 in the following year expanded his remit to include
space. He is particularly well known for his coverage of the
American Apollo program. In the UK, his name and face, along with
that of Patrick Moore and James Burke, is associated with the
commentators who covered live the Apollo Moon landings on the BBC.
In April 1961, Reg was sent to Moscow for Gagarin's first
post-flight international news conference. It turned out to be a
fascinating story of Cold War politics and leading-edge space
technology. In his own words, Reg describes this as “ a phoney
press conference, an entirely choreographed event designed to
humiliate the West” and he summarised the whole press conference as
“good humoured evasion”. Interacting through an interpreter and
restricted to pre-submitted written questions, he had to put aside
his usual analytical approach. However, he recognises that this was
“a great achievement”. This interview was recorded on January 19th
2011, at his home on the south coast of England.
________________________ Today’s quote is from Reg Turnill's book
“The Moon Landings: An Eyewitness Account”. Following John Glen’s
second spaceflight in October 1998, Reg at 83 the oldest working
space correspondent, asked John Glen, the oldest man in space, a
question. In part, Glen answered "Old folk have ambitions and
dreams too, like everybody else. So why don't they work for them?
Don’t sit on the couch. Go for it" Reg Turnill talks about Yuri
Gagarin's first press conference from AstrotalkUK on Vimeo.