Bethell, Nicholas

He graduated from the elite school Harrow . In 1956-1958 he passed military service, where he received training as a translator from Russian. In 1962 he graduated from Cambridge University , where he specialized in Arabic and Persian languages. In 1959 he visited the USSR for the first time with a group of Cambridge students.

After graduation he worked in the newspaper The Times Literary Supplement (1962-1964), and then as an editor at the BBC (1964-1967).

After the death of his father in 1964 and a cousin in 1967, he inherited a baronial title and took a seat in the House of Lords , where he worked from 1967 to 1999.

In 1979-1994 and 1999-2004 he was elected a deputy to the European Parliament . In the 1980s, he led a campaign for the demonopolization and liberalization of the airline industry in Europe.

He advocated maintaining English control of Gibraltar .

He supported the Soviet dissident and human rights activist Vladimir Bukovsky when he was in England in 1976 after being deported abroad.

More than once he came to the USSR, where he met with dissidents: Solzhenitsyn , Sakharov , Sharansky , Ginzburg , giving them support. He took an interview, advocated the release of those dissidents who were in prison.

He translated into English the “ Cancer Corps ” of Solzhenitsyn, Aitmatov’s “Ascent of Fujiyama”, the poems of Joseph Brodsky , the plays of Slavomir Mrozek .

At the initiative of Lord Betella, the Sakharov Prize (1985) was established by the European Parliament.

In 1984, Betell brought to England Soviet soldiers who were captured by the Afghan Mujahideen, Igor Rykov and Sergey Tseluyevsky. Later they returned to the USSR. ^[four]

In 1992, he accompanied Nikolai Khokhlov during his arrival in Russia. ^[5] During this trip, Betell met with Pavel Sudoplatov and asked him a lot about the activities of the KGB. He approved the execution of the Russian parliament in October 1993.

In December 2001, he visited Moscow, where he presented a Russian translation of his memoirs. ^[6]

In 2002 he pledged for the release of Akhmed Zakayev when he was arrested in London. ^[7] Supported by Vladimir Gusinsky and Alexander Litvinenko.

Died at the age of 69, suffering from Parkinson's disease .

• Order of Merit (Poland, 1991)
• Prize of the President of Russia (1992)

• Wladyslaw Gomulka: his Poland and his communism, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969. - Vladislav Gomulka's biography.
• The War Hitler Won, September 1939, London: A. Lane 1972. - Wehrmacht campaign against Poland in 1939.
• The Last Secret: forcible repatriation to Russia 1944-7. London: Deutsch, 1974. - On the post-war extradition by the British of Russian collaborators to the Soviet Union.
  • The Last Secret - London: Stenvalli Publishing, 1974. - 286 p.
  • The Last Secret: [on the repatriation of Sov.war prisoners during the Second World War: Per. Eng.] - Moscow: News, 1992. - 253 c.
• Russia Besieged, Alexandria, Va. : Time-Life Books, 1977.
• The Jews and the Arabs, 1935-48, London: Deutsch, 1979. - The history of the rise of the state of Israel.
• Betrayed, London: Times Books, 1984. - About Kim Philby and Albania.
• Spies and Other Secrets, 1994.
• Travel Englishman in search of Russia. Egmont Russia Ltd. 2002 ISBN 5-85044-660-5 (translated by Spies and Other Secrets ).

• Six Plays by Slawomir Mrozek.
• Elegy to John Donne, And Other Poems, London: Longmans 1967 by Joseph Brodsky.
• Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1968.
• The Love Girl and the Innocent by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1969.
• The Ascent of Mount Fuji by Chingiz Aitmatov, 1975.

• In memory of a British politician, historian and human rights activist Lord Nicholas Betella
• Interview on Echo of Moscow
• Presentation of the Schuman Medal to Lord Bethell MEP (Eng.)
• Obituary, The Daily Telegraph , September 11, 2007 (English)
• Obituary, The Guardian , 11 September 2007 (English)
• Obituary, The Independent , 13 September 2007 (Eng.)