Before Tony Blair joins the new crusaders trying to impose a “regime change”, a Western “settlement” on Iraq, he should at least look at the historical facts that explain the rise of nationalist leaders such as Saddam Hussein. And while he is at it, since he is good at empathy, he might try looking at Britain through Iraqi eyes. Seen from Baghdad, the British have bombed and invaded their country, lied to them, manipulated their borders, imposed on them leaders they did not want, kidnapped ones they did, fixed their elections, used collective terror tactics on their civilians, promised them freedom and then planned to turn their country into a province of India populated by immigrant Punjabi farmers. Small wonder that the author Said Aburish said to me recently: “If you think Saddam Hussein is a hard man to deal with, just wait for the next generation of Iraqi leaders.”
Let us begin with a question: why should you read a book by an author long since dead about a war fought more than half a century ago?
The answer is not simple. I could say that Alan Moorehead was a fine writer and you will be able to see in this first-hand account of the Allied victory over Germany a popular historian warming his skills for a long list of distinguished works that were to follow: among them, Gallipoli, The Russian Revolution, the White Nile, the Blue Nile, and the Fatal Impact.
On the way down to Somerset to see the famous photographer, Don McCullin, for a man-to-man chat about war, women, and the meaning of life, I recalled that the last time we had done this was in the back of a taxi on the road between Suez and Cairo. The Six Day War was about to start and our attempt to get to the likely scene of action had been thwarted by our treacherous taxi-driver. He handed us over to the Egyptian security police who sent us packing. On the long drive back we reminisced about our early days in journalism. McCullin said that his break had not been – as legend has it – The Observer photographs of a youth gang in his home suburb of Finsbury Park, north London, but of something much more in keeping with his subsequent career.
My diary for June 8, 1990 reads: “2pm, Inn on the Park hotel. American TV interviewing me for documentary on Rudolf Hess. Allow for three hours’ filming.” Then after this in angry red ink I have written, “Terrible argument over my request for payment of £250 for my interview. Producer says all American TV companies have banned ‘cheque book journalism’. What a joke!”
All that summer, the American documentary producer had pursued me around the world. She had telephoned me several times in London “to pick your brains” on various theories about Hess, Hitler’s deputy, who had suicided–or been murdered–in Spandau prison, Berlin three years earlier. A couple of months after the first call, she rang me twice in Australia, once at 3am–”Sorry, we couldn’t work out the time difference.” The good news was that the programme was definitely going ahead. The crew would be flying to Berlin and then would be coming to London. Could I hold myself free to do my interview some time in June?
