When she first welcomed British 'morality' campaigner Mary Whitehouse to her home town of St Louis, Missouri, in December 1972, America's own self-appointed moral guardian, Phyllis Schlafly, might have wondered whether she was looking at a mirror image of herself. Both favouring twin-sets, the two women also sported stiffly lacquered hairstyles — but the similarities between them went far beyond their prim appearance. Middle-aged matrons they might have been, but both were experts at — and relished — riling their opponents. Hugh Carleton-Greene, the BBC's director-general between 1960 and 1969, was so often provoked by Whitehouse that he bought a...