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  • 2018-05-08 (xsd:date)
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  • Did Singer James Blunt Prevent World War III? (en)
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  • James Blunt may be best known as the pop musician behind inescapably catchy songs like You're Beautiful, but according to a persistent Internet rumor, the British singer has a much more notable accomplishment under his belt: single-handedly preventing World War III. In May 2018, this usual bit of Internet folklore made its way into a lengthy New York Times article about the post-Cold War relationship between the United States and Russia: The rumor that James Blunt personally prevented World War III can be traced back to an interview the singer gave BBC Radio 5 in 2010. More specifically, it can be traced back to misleading titles of articles about the interview: Singer James Blunt 'prevented World War III.' James Blunt was a captain in the Life Guards, one of the senior regiments of the British Army, and was in Kosovo in 1999 when Russian troops seized control of the Pristina airport. The musician told BBC that he was given a direct order from General Wesley Clark to overpower the Russian soldiers: Blunt told the BBC that he was conflicted by the command and that he would have refused the order. However, the singer never actually had to make that choice. Blunt told the BBC that shortly after Clark gave his command, he heard General Sir Mike Jackson come on the radio and (figuratively) shoot down the order: Blunt never said that he alone personally refused this order, or that he was singlehandedly responsible for preventing a world war. The musician was relaying a story about his experience in Kosovo and said that, hypothetically, he would have refused this order had Gen. Jackson not intervened. The confrontation between Jackson and Clark during the incident at the Pristina airport was widely reported long before Blunt gave this interview in 2010. An excerpt from a BBC article published in March 2000, for instance, includes a slight variation of the World War III quote — but attributed to Jackson, and with no mention of Blunt: A similar anecdote can also be found in a 2007 profile: Rumors about James Blunt personally preventing World War III are widely exaggerated; it is true that the singer was in the British Army and that he was in Kosovo in 1999, when Russian soldiers took over an airfield there. However, it was Gen. Mike Jackson (not James Blunt), who refused an order to overpower Russian troops, and it was Gen. Mike Jackson (not James Blunt) who said that he refused the order because he didn't want to start World War III. (en)
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