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British anti-immigration campaigner Enoch Powell dies



SPEAK OUT ABOUT IMMIGRATION AND GET SOCKEDIn 1968, Enoch Powell's sensational comments about race ÂÂ* known as his "rivers of blood"speech ÂÂ* provoked the strongest reaction to a speech by a modern British politician. Overnight he became a national figure · reviled by some as a racist, hailed by others as a hero. But his attitude to immigration was just one aspect of a pugnacious, radical career, which made him the him the most controversial politician of his age.

London (2/7/98 ) -- Enoch Powell, a former government minister who spoke out against large-scale immigration to Britain in his "Rivers of Blood'' speech, died Sunday. He was 85. Powell, who also was a scholar and historian, died in a hospital after suffering from Parkinson's disease, his wife, Pamela, said. Although Powell provoked an outcry with his 1968 speech, predicting "rivers of blood'' in Britain if non-white immigrants were not repatriated, he kept battling immigration and remained a controversial figure for the rest of his life.

In many political quarters, Powell was reviled for the speech - and speeches that followed. But others admired him as one of the few prominent people who dared to express the feelings of many Britons. "There will never be anybody else so compelling as Enoch Powell,'' said former Prime Minister Margarat Thatcher. "He had a rare combination of qualities all founded on an unfaltering belief in God, an unshakable loyalty to family and friends and an unswerving devotion to our country, which in war and peace he served so well.''

John Enoch Powell was born in Birmingham on June 6, 1912, and was educated at Cambridge University. At 26, he was a professor of Greek at the University of Sydney before returning to Britain at the outbreak of World War II. Joining the army as a private, he rose through the ranks to become a brigadier by 1944. During this time, he wrote books on Greek heroes; he continued to write on a variety of topics throughout his life.

After the war, he went into politics and was elected a Conservative legislator in 1950. He was promoted rapidly and became financial secretary to the Treasury, but he resigned in 1958 along with other key Treasury ministers because the Cabinet refused to reduce public spending. After the Conservatives' 1964 election defeat, Powell took on Edward Heath in the battle for the party leadership, but lost badly. Heath appointed him defense spokesman, but his controversial views on immigration increasingly led him into conflict with the party leadership.

His speech in 1968 in which he described Britain as "heaping up its own funeral pyre'' over immigration finally led Heath to remove him.