If 1956 was a key year in British drama, it was also a pivotal one for the Observer. Urged on by his long-serving managing editor Ken Obank, Astor gave over most of the paper to an exclusive verbatim report of Nikita Khruschev’s landmark speech denouncing Stalin. He also published the most controversial leading article of his career at the height of the Suez crisis, denouncing the Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden. It was written by the liberal grandee Sir Dingle Foot but Astor added the memorable words, “We had not realised that our government was capable of such folly and such crookedness.” It caused a sensation: three of the Observer’s trustees resigned, and 866 protest letters arrived (against 302 in favour). The circulation rose, but the new readers were the wrong sort, idealists without much disposable income. The damage was done by big advertisers dropping out (clearly, they were more high-minded in those days). With the arrival of a new owner, Roy Thompson, in 1959, the Sunday Times moved ahead and never looked back. Struggling to produce fatter newspapers in more affluent times, Astor had to dig ever deeper into the family fortunes, and the print unions’ pig-headed refusal to adopt new technology or new working practices spelt long-term doom for a stand-alone Sunday.

Worn out by this hopeless task, Astor quit suddenly and unexpectedly in 1975, and a year later sold the Observer to an unlikely new owner, the American oil company Atlantic Richfield. But his spirit (and many of his old writers) still dominated the paper for many years afterwards, even during the turbulent Lonrho ownership years of 1981-1993. (It now belongs to the Guardian group, although this has not brought profitability any nearer.) 

Astor’s Observer was essentially a newspaper of ideas, with news usually coming a distant second. With the advent of the internet and social media, people now rely less and less on newspapers for news, with the result that they are increasingly dominated by features and columns, rather like the Observer of half a century ago. Astor should be remembered as a far-sighted editor as well as a man of great integrity.