John Simpson - Strange Places, Questionable People

Strange Places, Questionable People

JOHN SIMPSON was born in 1944 and educated at St Pauls School, London and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He has worked for the BBC since 1966 and has filled many of its main news positions, from foreign correspondent to diplomatic editor, political editor and presenter of the Nine OClock News and Newsnight. He conducts a weekly programme on foreign affairs, Simpsons World, which is broadcast on News 24 and BBC World. From 1990 to 1996, he was associate editor of the Spectator, and is now a columnist of the Sunday Telegraph.

John Simpson was appointed CBE in the Gulf War Honours List in June 1991, and was the Royal Television Societys Journalist of the Year in the same year. He has won two major BAFTA awards and the Columnist of the Year Award for his magazine writing in 1994. He is the author of nine books on current affairs and literature and lives in Dublin with his wife, Dee Krger.

PAN BOOKS

To my wife, Dee, prima et semper;

to everyone who has loved and helped me during the past turbulent half-century;

to my granddaughter Isobel, born as I began this book;

and to Martha Gellhorn, who died just as it was finished

First published 1998 by Macmillan

First published in paperback 1999 by Pan Books

This electronic edition published 2009 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Rd, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-0-330-50819-3 in Adobe Reader format
ISBN 978-0-330-50818-6 in Adobe Digital Editions format
ISBN 978-0-330-50820-9 in Mobipocket format

Copyright John Simpson 1998

The right of John Simpson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you're always first to hear about our new releases.

Photos not credited are from John Simpsons own collection.

SECTION ONE

SECTION TWO

This book is not intended to be an autobiography. It is partly an explanation for the curious life I lead, and partly an account of the way the world has changed in the thirty years I have been observing it professionally. Mostly, though, it is a collection of stories, often with a light dusting of fiction over them. That is essential, given that most of the people who appear in these pages are still alive and might not want me to describe my dealings with them too fully. Nevertheless, my account of things is as truthful as I can make it, and I havent knowingly bent any facts in order to fit them in. Above all, I havent tried to glamorize my own involvement; on the contrary, I have done my best to be painfully honest. Even so, I notice as I read through the pages which follow that wherever I go I always seem to arrive at a key moment. Can this really be correct? You will have to make up your own mind about that, Im afraid.

I have dealt before with several of the episodes that appear in this book, especially the big set-pieces: the revolution in Iran, Tiananmen Square, the Berlin Wall, the revolutions in Czechoslovakia and Romania, the collapse of Communism in Russia, the Gulf War. But in each case I have tried to go into the kind of detail I have never previously felt able to give.

A great many things seem to have happened to me over the years, and there is not room enough here to cover even the more interesting of them. Since this is only the first of two books, I have put off all sorts of things until the second one, from my disappearance in Lebanon at the time of the hostage-taking to meetings with cocaine barons in Peru and Colombia, and encounters with Fidel Castro and Emperor Bokassa and the Emperor of Japan. Together I have given the two books the title Out To The Undiscovered Ends, which comes from some lines by Hilaire Belloc:

From quiet homes and first beginning,

Out to the undiscovered ends,

Theres nothing worth the wear of winning,

Save laughter, and the love of friends.

Many friends of mine have played an important part in my life, yet their names wont necessarily appear here. This is not the result of ingratitude or lack of interest; it is merely that the telling of stories requires the stripping out of much detail. Just because their names dont appear, it doesnt mean I have forgotten their importance to me.

Several people have helped in compiling this apologia pro mea vita. The BBC has been generous in all sorts of ways, from permissions to quote from past broadcasts to the kindly latitude I received from Richard Sambrooke and Adrian Van Klaveren, who have not only allowed me to go my own way but didnt turn a hair when I announced I was going to leave London and live in Dublin. My editors at the Sunday Telegraph, Dominic Lawson and Con Coughlin, were also most generous. My assistant at the BBC, Farne Sinclair, has helped me in hosts of ways, faxing information to me in the most unlikely parts of the world and digging out everything from the details of antique broadcasts to advice and quotations and management of the manuscript. Considerable thanks are also due to Dan Roan, who worked for me (for nothing, of course: this being the BBCs way) even while he was preparing for his finals at Cambridge.

This book had its origins in a dinner with my agent, Julian Alexander, who has been the godparent of the entire enterprise; and my association with him has not only been highly profitable in every way, it has also been extremely enjoyable. To my wife Dee I owe even more: from the precision of her judgement to the love with which she has surrounded me.

As I say, this isnt intended to be an account of current affairs, past and present. I have tried to speak a little of myself: not the broadcaster and writer, the faintly familiar face from the television, the half-remembered by-line from magazines and newspapers, but the persona behind these things. Perhaps I have said too little; perhaps too much. I havent always been able to prevent myself from settling a few ancient scores, but I have tried to be truthful.

Dalkey, County Dublin, May 1998

BELGRADE, MARCH 1999

I GOT INTO THE LIFT. This entire hotel is empty, I thought: I can take any room I want. I pressed the button for the second floor, where there was a suite I had rather liked. At a time like this, cost scarcely mattered. Who knew if Id even be around to pay the bill, anyway?

I put my suitcase down and turned to look self-critically in the mirror, as you do when youre alone. Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume: a big, lumbering middle-aged fellow stared out at me, a touch paunchy, bags under the eyes, the hair turning from grey to white, fifty-four and looking every day of it. Not through bad living, particularly, but careless living: never bothering about what I eat, how much I sleep, where I go. It wears you down. And now, most careless of all, Id ended up here all on my own. Crazy.