Jim Rose

Who was Jim Rose?

Eliot Joseph Benn 'Jim' Rose was a British intelligence officer, journalist and campaigner.

Born into an "elite" Jewish family, Rose was educated at Rugby School and New College, Oxford.

During World War II, he served with the Royal Air Force as an intelligence officer with 609 squadron. In 1941 he moved to the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park where he assessed decrypted messages sent by the German Luftwaffe. In 1944 he transferred to London to where he worked on coordination with the Air Ministry. He retired from the RAF in 1945 with the rank of Wing Commander, and took a job as a journalist with Reuters.

From 1948 to 1951, Rose was literary editor of the Observer.

In 1951, he moved to Zürich, Switzerland, to become director of the newly formed International Press Institute.

Rose returned to England in 1962 to become director of Survey of Race Relations, a five-year study into post-war immigration in Britain. The study was published in 1969 as Colour and Citizenship. In 1968, he co-founded the think-tank, the Runnymede Trust with politician Anthony Lester.