Paul Johnson (writer)

Paul Johnson
Paul Johnson (right) is congratulated by Norman Francis and Ruth Johnson Colvin after receiving his Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush, 15 December 2006
Born	Paul Bede Johnson (1928-11-02) 2 November 1928 (age 88) Manchester, England
Occupation	writer
Known for	Editor of the New Statesman (1965–70)
Spouse(s)	Marigold Hunt (m. 1957)
Children	Daniel Johnson Luke Johnson
Website	http://pauljohnsonarchives.org/

Paul Bede Johnson CBE (born 2 November 1928) is an English journalist, historian, speechwriter and author. While associated with the political left in his early career, he is now a conservative popular historian.

Johnson was educated at the Jesuit independent school Stonyhurst College, and at Magdalen College, Oxford. He first came to prominence in the 1950s as a journalist writing for and later editing the New Statesman magazine. A prolific writer, Johnson has written over 40 books and contributed to numerous magazines and newspapers. His sons include the journalist Daniel Johnson, founder of Standpoint, and the businessman Luke Johnson, former chairman of Channel 4.

Johnson was born in Manchester. His father, William Aloysius Johnson, was an artist and Principal of the Art School in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. At Stonyhurst, Johnson received an education grounded in the Jesuit method, which he preferred over the more secularized curriculum of Oxford. One of his tutors at Oxford was the historian A. J. P. Taylor.

After graduating with a second-class honours degree, Johnson performed his national service in the Army, joining the King's Royal Rifle Corps and then the Royal Army Educational Corps, where he was commissioned as a Captain (acting) based mainly in Gibraltar. Here he saw the "grim misery and cruelty of the Franco regime". Johnson's military record helped the Paris periodical Realités hire him, where he was assistant editor from 1952 to 1955.