A FORMER foreign correspondent, whose biggest scoop came during the early years of the Cold War, has died aged 83.

John Rettie, who lived in Coverdale, North Yorkshire, spent almost 50 years stationed abroad, working mostly for the Guardian and the news agency Reuters.

In 1954, one of only a handful of foreign correspondents in Moscow at that time, he broke the story of Communist leader Nikita Khruschev’s secret speech denouncing the crimes of his predecessor, Joseph Stalin.

Rettie had been approached by a Soviet contact, who gave a full account of what had been said.

Reuters published his story anonymously, and it became front-page news around the world.

Years later, Rettie concluded that Khrushchev had authorised the leak, a probability vouched for by his son, Sergei.

He also served in Latin America, Finland, Mexico, Sri Lanka and India.

Rettie was described, in an obituary in the Guardian, as an "old-fashioned liberal… endlessly witty and amusing, a wonderful storyteller and teacher" and with an "immense, global army of friends".

Born in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, Rettie went to school in the Yorkshire Dales.

Joining Reuters after studying at Cambridge, he was first despatched to Helsinki, in Finland.

In Moscow, he had access to the Soviet high command.

Rettie watched Khruschev at close quarters for three years. "It all made great copy," he recalled.

Rettie left Moscow in 1957, standing as Liberal candidate for Middlesbrough West ten years later.

He came third in the general election.

After his retirement, he established himself in a small gamekeeper's house on the family estate in Coverdale.

There, he lived alone and found new friends among Yorkshire’s farmers, publicans, journalists, gamekeepers, beaters and breadmakers.

He organise visits to the county for Ukrainian children affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

He is survived by his two ex-wives, a son and a daughter from his second marriage, and a sister.