On December 3, 1964, a most unlikely figure was invited to speak at the University of Oxford Union's end-of-term “Queen and Country” debate: Mr. Malcolm X. The Oxford Union (as distinct from the university's representative student union) was the most prestigious student debating organization in the United Kingdom, regularly welcoming heads of state and stars of screen.1 It was also the student arm of the British establishment—the training ground for the politically ambitious offspring of Britain's better classes. Malcolm X, by contrast, personified revolution and danger. As The Sun, the most widely read British tabloid, explained to readers in a large-font caption under a photograph of Malcolm X: “He wants a separate Negro state in which coloured people could live undisturbed. And many Americans believe he would use violence to get it.”2 Certainly the FBI did. Its file on Malcolm X, opened in 1953, expanded by...
