After leaving the Royal Marines in 1947, Wheeler joined the
BBC, initially as a
sub-editor at the Latin American division of the
World Service. Wheeler's long career as a
foreign correspondent began with a three-year posting to Berlin in 1950, partly thanks to his fluency in German. He returned to the UK and became a producer on the fledgling current affairs series
Panorama in 1956. As part of
Panorama's team, he travelled to Hungary to cover what would become known as the
Hungarian Uprising. Taking ''Panorama's
camera into the country, despite being told not to, he filmed the jubilant Hungarian reaction to the rebellion. He and the Panorama'' producer (and his then-wife) Catherine Freeman had to persuade the BBC to give the story prominence. Just hours after Wheeler returned to Britain, Russia re-entered Hungary and crushed the revolt. Having declined an offer to become the programme's editor, he was later assigned to
New Delhi (where he reported extensively on the
1959 Tibetan uprising). He returned to Berlin when the Wall was built and remained there for several years with his Indian-born second wife. Between 1965 and 1973, he moved to Washington DC, where he covered the
American Civil Rights Movement and the
Watergate scandal. In the later years of his television career, he was the American correspondent of
Newsnight. Wheeler was the first presenter of
BBC World's
Dateline London discussion programme. He remained active in his later years as a presenter of documentary series on
Radio 4 and a contributor to the network
From Our Own Correspondent. He had been working on a programme about the
Dalai Lama until a few weeks before his death. == Charles Wheeler Award ==