Clive Ponting

Clive Sheridan Ponting (13 April 1946 – 28 July 2020) was a senior British civil servant and historian. In 1984, he leaked classified documents about the sinking of the ARA General Belgrano in the Falklands War in 1982, which showed that government statements about the sinking were untrue. He was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act, but argued that his actions were in the public interest, and was acquitted. At the time of his resignation from the civil service in 1985, he was a Grade 5 (assistant secretary), earning £23,000 per year (£70,214 in 2020). He later wrote a number of books on British and world history. These included a Green History of the World (1991), which was revised as A New Green History of the World in 2007, and a biography of Winston Churchill (1994) and 1940: Myth and Reality (1990).

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