Right of Reply

The Beatles' biographer responds to Max Clifford's remarks about his role in their career

ON WEDNESDAY ("You Ask the Questions"), you let Max Clifford get away with one of the whoppers he has been peddling for many years. It may be true, it may be only a slight exaggeration, or it may be total cobblers, but once again he has been allowed to state publicly, without any cross examination, without a "wow, Max, how did you do it", or even a "but, er, tell us a few more details about how exactly you made The Beatles famous". For that is what he appears to be claiming.

But did he? I have 200 books about the Beatles, yet not one mentions Mr Clifford.

The Beatles had their own PR people and the brilliant Brian Epstein working hard to promote them, though they scarcely needed much publicity because all that really happened in 1962 when they joined Parlophone - one of the minor parts of the EMI empire - was that the success they had achieved in Liverpool and Hamburg, with no publicity at all, was repeated, this time on a national scale.

Then people from the US to Japan reacted exactly in the same way once they had heard the music. Very strange. Almost spontaneous combustion, or so I have always thought. But I could be wrong. It was Max wot done it. Or so he says.

EMI employed many persons. It would be useful if Mr Clifford could tell us the exact dates he was there, and in what capacity. Head of PR, director of marketing? Must have been pretty impressive, to look back upon his time there, "launching The Beatles", as the biggest success in his whole professional life.

I am not suggesting he is a fibber. I am only asking questions. I hope that Mr Clifford will one day be kind enough to reveal the details of the brilliant work he must have done in launching The Beatles.