[In the following essay, Falcoff praises Muggeridge's insight into the weaknesses of public figures, particularly those on the political left.]

For Americans born after 1960, the name Malcolm Muggeridge, if it means anything at all, refers to an eccentric English writer best known for his defense of orthodox Christianity. A handful of graduate students or lettered conservatives may know him as well from two volumes of memoirs published in 1972-3 under the provocative title, Chronicles of Wasted Time. The truth is, there have been several Muggeridges along the way, and in this brief but remarkably complete biography Richard Ingrams gives us a glimpse of each.

Born in 1903 at the height of Edwardian England's glory, Muggeridge died in 1990 at the age of 87, having lived a remarkably full and adventurous life. The son of a Labour councillor and M.P., he won a scholarship to Cambridge and, after a brief period teaching at a Christian school in India, launched into a career as a journalist. He married Kitty Dobbs, the niece of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, thus forming an alliance with what might be called the Royal Family of British Socialism.

After a time writing editorials for the Manchester Guardian, the paper sent him to Russia as its correspondent. There he discovered the awful truth about the Soviet experiment, and in three lengthy articles about the Russian famine revealed the existence of forced labor in the Soviet Union.

The series provoked an immediate response from Walter Duranty, the New York Times' resident Soviet correspondent (and apologist), and angry letters of rebuke from, among other personalities, Bernard Shaw and the historian A. J. P. Taylor. (The latter's protest to the Guardian included this remarkable passage: “Think of the fact that a new generation is growing up free from Christianity—that's something worthwhile.”)

The controversy eventually led Muggeridge to part company with the British Left. He resigned to take a job in India with the Calcutta Statesman, followed by a posting as a foreign correspondent in Cairo. During World War II he joined MI6—the British counterintelligence service—working first in Portuguese Africa and later in liberated Paris.

After the war, he accepted a job with the Daily Telegraph, first as an editorial writer and then its correspondent in Washington. In the 1960s he took over as editor of the humor magazine Punch and, what made him far better known to the British public, as host of a television interview program when that medium was still in its infancy.

To Punch he brought political satire and anti-establishment humor. He attacked the monarchy in terms that seem remarkably restrained in the light of today's tabloid journalism, but which at the time caused headlines around the globe. To television he brought a provocative style of interviewing which few of his guests ever forgot. (My personal favorite is his question to the Spanish artist Salvador Dali: “I know we're supposed to discuss modern art … but first of all may I say I'm fascinated by your moustaches. Might I ask you what happens to them at night?” “They droop,” Dali replied.) In later years, he was to make a series of important documentaries, including one which introduced Mother Teresa of Calcutta to the world.

Throughout his life Muggeridge had been alternately attracted to and repelled by Christianity, constantly flirting with (and finally joining) the Roman Catholic Church. During the late '60s and '70s he became something of a “hot gospeller” and a public intellectual opposed to abortion and euthanasia. His sudden embrace of religiosity stands in stark contrast to his smarmy personal life, which until his conversion included serial infidelities, long periods of abandonment of his wife and family, and excessive drinking.

Some said that Muggeridge gave up sin when he was finally too old to enjoy it. As his biographer points out, this fails to do justice to a long spiritual struggle in which good finally prevailed over evil. Even the most sympathetic reader, however, will not fail to be appalled by the way he treated his long-suffering wife, Kitty.

Two aspects of this book call for additional comment. One has to do with the picture it provides of the upper reaches of British socialism in the 1930s, and particularly of the Webbs. In spite of the halo of sanctity that still surrounds their legend in American academia, this couple are revealed here to have been plainly evil. “It's true that in the Soviet Union people disappear,” Mrs. Webb told Muggeridge, warming her hands by the fire and pronouncing the word with relish, more in envy than reproach. When Muggeridge's wife protested that the food in the Soviet Union was worse even than that which unemployed men in Manchester would expect, Mrs. Webb's response was worthy of Marie Antoinette: “Well, my dear Kitty, if you don't like the food you can always order rice pudding—I do.” Not to be caught short, Sidney Webb publicly repudiated what he called “the slander that there is forced labor in the Soviet Union.” Most of the arguments used to counter Muggeridge's exposé of the Soviet system are still used today by apologists for places like Castro's Cuba, often in the same language and, sad to say, appearing in the very same newspapers.

One also comes away from this book struck by the vast diversity of world-class figures with whom Muggeridge crossed paths—many before they were well known. Those making cameo appearances include Harold Macmillan, the Beatles, Mother Teresa, Svetlana Stalin, and Graham Greene, as well as Gandhi, superspy Kim Philby, mystery writer Dorothy Sayers, Billy Graham, and General Douglas MacArthur.

As a journalist, Muggeridge was lucky, but he also knew how to make the most of his opportunities. More to the point, however, he seems not to have been overly impressed with what the British call the great and the good. A firm independence of mind, combined with a slightly perverse tendency to bite the hand that fed him, made him a fascinating and—with all his other failings—ultimately attractive character, deserving of every page of this book.