‘Children of Revolution’ has two roots. One leads back to the rather high flown language of the formal Agreement setting up Intertel in 1960; the other to a decision made by the Intertel Council in 1963. The preamble to the Agreement contains the following words:
‘The four parties to this Agreement in a spirit of public service desire to use their facilities for the production, transmission and distribution of high quality television programmes for the common good among the English-speaking peoples of the world and to this end have agreed to form an Association for the purpose of promoting through television a wider knowledge of contemporary world affairs and a better mutual understanding of world problems.’ Since 1960 programmes have been made in North America, Western Europe, Africa, the Near East, the Far East, Latin America, Australasia, the Pacific Islands, even Antarctica, but none in the Communist countries of Eastern Europe or in Russia. Although there were good practical reasons why this was so, it represented nevertheless a major gap in a series specifically dedicated to promoting ‘a wider knowledge of contemporary world affairs and a better mutual understanding of world problems.’