David Holden (1924–1977) was a writer, journalist, and broadcaster, best known as the Chief Foreign Correspondent for The Sunday Times, specialising in Middle-Eastern affairs, where he had been since 1965.
His editor, Harold Evans, assigned three of his top journalists to conduct a six-month investigation, which included several trips to the Middle East and one to the United States.
[1] Born in Sunderland (Tyne and Wear), Northeast England, he was educated at Great Ayton Friends' School in North Yorkshire,[2] Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois (USA).
The following year, Holden transferred to the Middle East to cover the political and diplomatic crisis following the 1956 joint invasion of Egypt by Israel, France, and Britain.
He flew into Cairo several days early to cover the peace talks being initiated by Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president, with Israel.
Since 1971, Sadat had been reducing relations with the USSR and had closed the cultural centres of the Soviet Union, East Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.
[3] After Holden failed to contact his home office as agreed from the hotel where he had booked to stay, The Sunday Times became concerned.
"In 1988 the Sunday Times was told by a senior US diplomat in the Middle East that Holden had been killed on the orders of the CIA but it had been carried out by Egyptian agents.