Alasdair Milne, former BBC director general, dies aged 82

Alasdair Milne, the former BBC director general who was forced out following a series of rows with the Thatcher government, has died aged 82.

His family said Milne, the oldest living former director general, had suffered a series of strokes and passed away on Tuesday.

Milne was force to resign in 1987 at the behest of BBC chairman Marmaduke Hussey, who had been appointed by Margaret Thatcher to bring the broadcaster to heel.

His five-year tenure had seen repeated conflicts with the then Conservative government over issues including BBC coverage of the miners' strike and the US bombing of Libya, reflecting the polarised politics of the era.

But the particular controversy that probably led to the fall of Milne began two years earlier, in 1985, over a documentary that had initially been kept secret from him because its contents were so sensitive.

The Real Lives programme had secured an extended interview with Sinn Fein politician Martin McGuinness, at a time when the conflict in Northern Ireland was intense, with Thatcher having demanded that year that terrorists be starved of the "oxygen of publicity".

When the interview's existence was revealed ahead of transmission, home secretary Leon Brittan demanded that the BBC drop the film. Its board of governors pulled the programme while Milne was away on holiday.

A strike at the BBC followed, and upon his return Milne, fought the governors, arguing the programme should be broadcast. Eventually after at least one stormy meeting Real Lives was aired in October 1985.

But relations between Milne and the governors were seriously damaged – Milne later described the governors as a "bunch of amateurs".

Michael Grade, who was brought in to run BBC1 during Milne's tenure, said he thought there was "nobody who cared more deeply about the BBC" and that he was "an inspirational figure who was caught up in difficult times. The whole BBC didn't understand that the world was changing with Thatcher".

There were also political rows about Kate Adie's coverage of the 1986 US bombing raids in Tripoli, while Milne – again under pressure from the governors – did intervene to prevent the broadcast of an investigative programme about the £500m costs of the secret Zircon spy satellite at the end of 1986.

Eventually Hussey summoned Milne to a meeting in January 1987, in which he was told that the governors wanted him out. With little choice, he resigned, ending one period of turmoil at a broadcaster that regularly battles to be independent of ministers.

Grade added that Milne never recovered from the summary manner of his dismissal after devoting his professional life to the broadcaster. "I thought he was extremely badly treated, the way they bundled him out. I don't think he ever got over it".

Milne was the first programme-maker to be appointed BBC director general and during his tenure the corporation broadcast Live Aid, launched EastEnders and introduced breakfast TV.

Born on October 8 1930 in India to Scottish parents, Milne was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford. Milne served as an officer in the British army regiment the Gordon Highlanders from 1949 after his first degree, before returning to study further at Oxford.

He joined the BBC in 1954 and spent almost his whole career at the public service broadcaster until his ousting. He produced and edited Tonight in the early 1960s and also edited That Was the Week that Was. He rose further through the ranks at the BBC after a short spell in the independent production sector in the late 1960s.

As managing director of television, shortly before his elevation to director general, Milne went to visit the Conservative backbench 1922 committee to defend the BBC's coverage of the Falklands conflict in 1982, amid objections over the broadcaster's efforts to adopt a neutral tone, using phrases such as "British forces". The meeting descended into a shouting match.

Milne married his wife, Sheila Graucob, in 1954. She died in 1992. He is survived by his three children, two sons and a daughter. His son, Seumas Milne, is a Guardian columnist and associate editor.

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