From the London Guardian (25 May 1999)- In 1969 he co-authoured a book, Colour and Citizenship with Nicholas Deakin. He was handsome and well educated... his charm was legendary - refugees before the Second World War he joined the RAF in 1939.

He performed distinguished secret service at the government code and cypher school at Bletchley Park. He ended the war as a wing commander with the United States Legion of Merit.

In 1951 he moved with his family to Zurich following his appointment as founding director of the International Press Institute - in 1968 we ( Anthony Lester) founded the Runnymede Trust to counter racist propaganda and to develop programmes for an increasingly diverse society... His services to race relations were recognised by the award of a CBE. ... Fascinted by printing and publishing, and thus it was in 1970 that he became editorial director of Westminster Press, and then in 1973 , a chairman of Penguin Books a post he held until 1980.

The Sydney Morning Herald of 8 September 1999 reprinted the obituary that previously appeared in the New York Times. On the same day in the SMH was an obituary of Herbert Mair, a former director and chief botanist of the Sydney Botanic Gardens that tells of his love of the Levy Memorial Fountain.

Married to Pam (1946) who survives him with a son and daughter. The Times obituary says he was the Literary editor of the Observer in ...