Alistair Cooke (right) was one of the BBC's most enduring voices, starting in the 1930s. Cooke's ``Letter from America'' - his weekly essay on culture and politics - began in 1946.
Photos: BBCPhilosopher Bertrand Russell, who won the 1960 Nobel Prize for literature, was a regular guest on the BBC home and foreign services during the 1940s and 1950s.
