A former Latin America correspondent and features editor for the British newspaper The Guardian, he is known for his radical politics and a connection to Che Guevara.

[4] In January 1966, Gott was a candidate in the 1966 Kingston upon Hull North by-election for the "Radical Alliance", running on a platform which stressed opposition to the Vietnam War; he polled only 253 votes.

[5] In November 1963, working as a freelance journalist for The Guardian in Cuba, Gott was invited to a celebration of the revolution party at the Soviet Union embassy in Havana.

During the evening, a group of invited journalists who were chatting in the garden were joined by Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara for a few hours, who answered their questions.

In 1994, Gott admitted KGB contacts beginning in 1964 (while working for the Royal Institute of International Affairs), and to having taken Soviet gifts, which he called "red gold".