John Simpson is the BBC’s World Affairs Editor and a renowned foreign correspondent. Often compared to “David Attenborough” for his impact on news, he is a multi-award-winning broadcaster and accomplished author. Since the 1960s, he has covered nearly every major global event.
His reports highlight significant historical moments, including the Iranian Revolution, the Gulf Wars, the fall of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the Rwandan genocide, and the Yugoslav wars, as well as the Tiananmen Square massacre.
John’s experiences are vast. In 2001, he led the BBC news team into Taliban-occupied Kabul, having previously entered Afghanistan disguised in a burka. He flew with Ayatollah Khomeini from Paris to Tehran to help depose the Shah, celebrated atop the Berlin Wall in 1989, and witnessed missiles striking Baghdad during the First Gulf War.
As an eyewitness to conflicts in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Ireland, and South Africa, as well as revolutions in Eastern Europe and Latin America, it’s clear: wherever there’s breaking news, John is likely to be there.
He has reported from 140 countries and interviewed 200 world leaders and dictators. His interviews include figures like Mikhail Gorbachev, Vladimir Putin, Nelson Mandela, various British Prime Ministers, U.S. Presidents, Fidel Castro, Colonel Gaddafi, Robert Mugabe, and Saddam Hussein. He has also engaged with leaders of the IRA, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban, and powerful drug cartels. Notably, Osama bin Laden once offered a bounty for anyone who could kill him in 1989.
