Cameron began as an office dogsbody with the
Weekly News in 1935. Having worked for several Scottish newspapers and for the
Daily Express in
Fleet Street, he was rejected for military service in
World War II. After the war, his experience of reporting on the
Bikini Atoll nuclear experiments and the first
British nuclear test in South Australia turned him into a
pacifist and, later, a founding member of the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. He continued to work for the
Express until 1950, after which he briefly joined
Picture Post, where he and photographer
Bert Hardy covered the
Korean War, winning the Missouri
Pictures of the Year International Award for "Inchon".
Tom Hopkinson, the editor of
Picture Post, lost his job as publisher when he defended the magazine's coverage of atrocities committed by South Korean troops at a concentration camp in
Pusan. Cameron wrote, "I had seen Belsen, but this was worse. This terrible mob of men – convicted of nothing, un-tried,
South Koreans in
South Korea, suspected of being 'unreliable'." The founder of the Hulton press,
Edward G. Hulton, decided to "kill" the story. In 1952 Cameron wrote an obituary essay for
The Illustrated London News, "The King Is Dead", about the death of King
George VI. Cameron then spent eight years with the
News Chronicle until the paper ceased publication, in 1960. In 1953 he visited
Albert Schweitzer in Lambaréné, in
French Equatorial Africa (now
Gabon) and found flaws in the practices and attitudes of Schweitzer and his staff. This was the subject of
The Walrus and the Terrier, a
BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play by Christopher Ralling, broadcast on 7 April 2008. In 1965, Cameron wangled his way into
North Vietnam for interviews and photos (with photographer
Romano Cagnoni) of
Ho Chi Minh and its other leaders. His book
Here Is Your Enemy was published in the United States, and his five-part series on North Vietnam was published in December 1965 in
The New York Times, where it was edited by journalist
Anthony Lewis. Cameron also did illustration work, especially in his early career. Working in Scotland for
D. C. Thomson, he prepared drawings for sensationalist items in Thomson's publications. He rebelled when asked to draw a picture of a murdered young girl, embellishing it with excess blood and grisly detail. Called to Thomson's office, he was rebuked merely for exposing her underwear. Cameron became a broadcaster for the
BBC after the war, writing and presenting such television series as
Cameron Country, and numerous single documentaries. An unusual example was
Edgar Wallace: The Man Who Made His Name, a television biography of the thriller writer and journalist. He was a frequent contributor to
Up Sunday, a magazine show that featured him and other commentators talking to the camera about topics of interest to them. Cameron also wrote a radio play,
The Pump (1973), based on his experience of
open heart surgery, which won a
Prix Italia award in 1973. In his last years, he wrote a column for
The Guardian. Cameron wrote two volumes of autobiography:
Point of Departure, a chronicle of his life, and
An Indian Summer, about his relationship with India, his marriage to his third wife, Moni, originally of Indian nationality, and his serious car accident and near death in
Calcutta. ==Personal life==