declined to comment on a possible connection. 1950s: Independent television controversy Winston Churchill's government passed the Television Act 1954 that permitted the creation of the first commercial television network in Britain, ITV. This was criticised in the House of Lords by, among others, Lord Reith. Churchill explained to his doctor, Lord Moran: "I am against the monopoly enjoyed by the BBC. For eleven years they kept me off the air. They prevented me from expressing views which have proved to be right. Their behaviour has been tyrannical. They are honeycombed with Socialists—probably with Communists". 1965: The War Game The War Game, directed by Peter Watkins, is a pseudo-documentary recounting the aftermath of a fictional attack on London with a one-megaton nuclear bomb. Intended for the twentieth anniversary on 6 August 1965 of the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, The War Game was banned by the BBC, which said it was "too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting". The chairman of the BBC board of governors, Lord Normanbrook, wrote in a secret letter to the cabinet secretary, Burke Trend, that "The showing of the film on television might have a significant effect on public attitudes towards the policy of the nuclear deterrent". Although given a limited cinema release by the British Film Institute (BFI), and awarded an Oscar as Best Documentary, the film was not screened by the BBC until 1985. In 2012, John Pilger wrote that, in banning Watkins' film, the BBC was performing "the function of the state broadcaster as a cornerstone of Britain's ruling elite". 1960s Mary Whitehouse launched her 'Clean Up TV campaign' in April 1964. In her view, Hugh Greene as BBC Director General was "more than anybody else ... responsible for the moral collapse in this country." The campaign of Whitehouse and her supporters soon became the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association; Mrs Whitehouse was opposed to the policies of liberalisation pursued by Greene and largely sustained by his successors at the Corporation. Whitehouse's campaign focused much more on the BBC than on ITV, and she had a high public profile for several decades. The tabloid press also criticised the BBC for what it perceived as lapses in programming quality. In 1969, Reuters agreed to open a reporting service in the Middle East as part of a British Foreign Office plan to influence the international media. In order to protect the reputation of Reuters,