Henderson Alexander Gall, CMG, CBE (born 1 October 1927), known as Sandy Gall, is a Scottish journalist, author, and former ITN news presenter. His career as a journalist spans over 50 years.
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Sandy Gall was born in Penang, Malaysia, where his father was a rubber planter.
Gall was educated in Scotland at Trinity College, a boys' independent school in Glenalmond in Perth and Kinross, where he boarded. The school has since been renamed Glenalmond College. He then attended the University of Aberdeen, from which he graduated in 1952.
In 1953 he joined Reuters as a foreign correspondent. Among the events he reported for Reuters were the Suez Crisis in 1956, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and the Congo Crisis 1960-1963.
He joined ITN in 1963 as a foreign correspondent. He was the first ITN journalist to report the Vietnam War when the United States Marines landed on 8 March 1965. He returned to Vietnam several times until 1975 when Saigon fell and he was forcibly removed from the country by the communist authorities. During this time he also reported from Cambodia, China, Afghanistan, and Africa. He also covered the Six-Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973. In 1972 he was famously arrested with his Reuters colleague Nicholas Moore in Uganda and held for three days in the notorious Makindye police camp.
He was one of the original staff on News at Ten in 1967 and went on to become one of its senior presenters.
Gall has reported from Afghanistan on numerous occasions, written several books about Afghanistan, and made three documentaries during the Soviet war in Afghanistan: Afghanistan: Behind Russian Lines (1982); Allah Against the Gunships (1984); and Agony of a Nation (1986). The latter two documentaries were nominated for BAFTA awards.
In 1986 Sandy Gall established the Sandy Gall's Afghanistan Appeal (SGAA). As of 2006 the charity, which is supported by the Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has provided artificial limbs and walking aids for more than 20,000 people, and physiotherapy for more than 50,000 people. Gall's wife Eleanor Gall and two of his daughters, Fiona and Michaela, are also actively involved in the charity.
Sandy Gall's reporting of the Afghanistan war was thrown into question due to his confessed recruitment by MI6 as well as how that reflected on his employers, ITN, and the objective reporting of news. In his memoirs, he boasted of his meetings with MI6 officers at Stone's Chop House in Piccadilly.
Gall was awarded the Sitara-e-Pakistan in 1985 and the Lawrence of Arabia Memorial Medal in 1987.[1] He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1987. He was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to the people of Afghanistan.[2]
Gall retired from ITN in 1992, but has continued television work and writing. He became the World Affairs Expert on LBC radio in 2003.[3]
He lives in Penshurst, Kent with his wife Eleanor Gall.
A daughter, Carlotta Gall, covers Afghanistan and Pakistan for The New York Times.
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| Preceded by Iain Cuthbertson |
Rector of the University of Aberdeen 1978–1981 |
Succeeded by Robert J. Perryment |