Posted on 04/05/2005 1:38:33 PM PDT by wagglebee
Frederick Forsyth's life reads like one of his own stories. At 17 he fled Britain and his private school to take up bullfighting in the south of Spain. Fluent in four languages, he joined the Royal Air Force and became, at 19, the youngest pilot in Britain.
Yearning adventure and a chance to experience war first hand, he switched to journalism and served as a foreign correspondent with Reuters and the BBC. Shot at regularly in Biafran conflicts, he soon fell out with the BBC, which accused him of "biased" reporting and resigned his job.
Aged 31, penniless and unemployed, Frederick Forsyth took up writing. It was 1970.
"Money was a serious issue. I had no flat, no car and no job," he tells NewsMax. His solution? Write a thriller. For 35 days, Forsyth battered away on his old, portable typewriter, twelve hours a day to produce the Day of the Jackal. Not a word of it was changed.
Based on an attempted assassination plot on French President, Charles de Gaulle, the book was "written in a fit of money lust," says Forsyth. It was not an instant success. Four publishers rejected it. When finally one agreed to publish the book, it took another three years for the author to make any serious money from the work. "That's when U.S. publishers bought the rights to the book for $365,000, half of which came to me and the other half to the [UK] publishers." The book was soon made in to a film, starring Edward Fox. Forsyth became a household name, and rich. He went on to pen a string of thrillers such as The Fourth Protocol, Odessa File and Dogs of War.
Today, at age 67, Frederick Forsyth still has his chiselled, tanned, good looks. He has sold over 61 million books and has a reputation for being a Jeffrey Archer without the scandal.
Yet this writer seems rattled, discontented and full of angst. Perhaps it is the aging process. He refers to his "old man's bladder" as he heads to the restroom. He has no time for computers or emails. "I am a techno peasant," he says. "At home, I just have my old typewriter … and I don't need a mobile," he adds. "Perhaps I'm just being mischievous." It is a curious reaction, given that Forsyth makes much use of his close ties to the Intelligence Services and his masterful knowledge of the latest in technological warfare in his books, many of which revolve around espionage plots.
He seems bored with writing. His last book, Avenger, was published in 2003, after a four-year gap when many had thought Forsyth had given up on writing, "I'd like to vary the menu," he says. "There are so many other subjects in the world but the thrills and spills are by public demand."
Mention politics though, and Forsyth's eyes light up. He booms with that authoritative voice "Tony Blair is the worst Prime Minister that Britain's had for a century," he says. "We live in a very good country; I just wish Mr. Blair would stop buggering about with it."
Forsyth's hatred of Tony Blair is vented frequently in the columns he writes for the Daily Express, or the letter pages of other British newspapers. A regular five minute slot on the BBC's prime news programme, Today, was axed a few years back after Forsyth's diatribes against Tony Blair's government became too acidic and hard-hitting for the BBC to bear.
When Tony Blair became prime minister in 1997, Forsyth responded by joining the defeated Conservative Party. Today, he is one of the party's major donors, and one of the Tories' top celebrity speakers. This year alone he has addressed over 40 meetings. His powerful, bombastic rhetoric, delivered in clipped and masterful tones, never fails to stir passion and adoration in party activists.
Yet Forsyth is a bit of an unguided missile. Financially independent, uninterested in power himself or any formal position, he is a free agent ready to back any cause or issue that takes his fancy.
Recently, Forsyth backed a campaign to impeach the British Prime Minister even though this went against Conservative party policy. Why? "Because Tony Blair lied to the House of Commons over the issue of weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the Iraqi war."
He says the impeachment proceedings were never likely to succeed because Mr. Blair has such a majority in the House of Commons. But what Forsyth hoped to achieve was to trigger a fresh debate on the way Blair "sexed up" claims that WMD existed, and lied to the House of Commons and British public.
Everyone in the intelligence community knew that Blair was lying about the existence of WMD, according to Forsyth. "The truth was that Britain, like the U.S., had poor intelligence in Iraq. It was almost impossible to get spies into Iraq. There was no hard information. We could only judge by Iraq's purchases, as we had no men on the ground. Saddam would claim that materials imported into Iraq such as fertilizers that could have been used for nerve gases were in fact intended for agricultural purposes." Forsyth bitterly regrets that the Butler Report failed to bring Tony Blair to book.
What then does Forsyth make of the so-called "Neoconservative agenda" to democratize the Middle East? "It is the most extraordinary gamble. The events leading to 9/11 were an awesome series of errors. No one can blame George W. Bush, as he had only been in office a few months. But since 9/11, President Bush has devised, with the help of his extremists, ‘a master plan' to bring Western-style democracy to a huge area of the Third World. Bush takes a view that out of this egg will hatch a cockerell which will topple the dictators of the world."
It is too early to tell but Forsyth is sceptical. "We won't get on top of this for two decades. I wouldn't bet my money on it succeeding." Indeed, he seems very gloomy, warning that the events of the 9/11 have marked the start of the second Cold War.
As for Bush himself, Forsyth says he is a much underrated president. If his master plan works he will be considered "immortal" but it could all turn into a Bay of Pigs, just on a larger scale.
Forsyth's favorite American President is Abraham Lincoln, "Partly because of his oratory and partly his example." He says Lincoln was "not perfect. Much of what is said about him is just not true – for example that Lincoln was not a racist. He was. Lincoln did not believe the black man had the right to work or the right to a profession; he thought they just did not have the brains. Today Lincoln would be indicted for expressing such views."
Forsyth was not surprised by the attack on the World Trade Center's twin towers. Over twenty years ago he says he had considered writing a novel based on a terrorist flying a plane into a skyscraper. He dropped the plot as readers would, he thought, find it too implausible, and it would be too easy to copy.
He says the idea came to him after 241 U.S. Marines were killed in 1983 when a Hezbollah terrorist drove a truck filled with explosives into a barracks on the outskirts of Beirut. "This was the first time in modern times where a terrorist was prepared to kill himself as part of the act of terrorism. It struck me then that if you were prepared to do that with a truck why not with an airplane?"
Forsyth interviewed a guard who stood at the front of the barracks who witnessed the truck hurtling towards the compound. "You know what he told me? As the driver headed to his death, he was smiling. He was wanting to die" It was the first time we had heard of terrorists being ready to die for their cause, he says. It was chilling and "so alien."
Now with the War on Terrorism in full swing, Forsyth worries about the loss of liberties occurring in the West and especially Britain. Blair's anti-terrorist legislation is an "outrage." How, he asks, can a government give itself power to arrest people it declares "enemies of the state" and keep citizens under house arrest on the basis of secret evidence?
The EU, which Forsyth detests, is no better. It has "abolished the writ of habeas corpus with its new European arrest warrant." British citizens no longer have a right of defense or right of appeal. Instead the British government will take you to Heathrow airport and throw you on an airplane. Why? "Because a magistrate in Salonica [Greece] has issued a European arrest warrant."
Forsyth also warns that the new election called for by Mr. Blair will be tougher than he realizes. "I have a deep loathing of New Labour and all its endless mendacity in office - its dissimulation, dissembling, and dishonesty. Its basic betrayal of the British people is unforgivable," he exhorts. "It's those things that offend me."
I'd call this guy an old curmudgeon, but that doesn't go nearly far enough.
Hammer, meet nail. Good for you Frederick.
Forsyth is all over the map. If the Copnservatives / Tories offerred any real alternative to Blair and Labor that would be something.
Always enjoyed his books however, especially DAY OF THE JACKAL and THE FOURTH PROTOCOL.
I like Forsyth, but I think he's delaying the emptying of that "old man's bladder" too long. Some toxins are obviously not being purged quickly enough and are making it into his brain.
"Fist of God", 1995, was one of my favorites. Ironically, it's a thriller about a secret nuclear weapon in the hands of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and involves the US, UK, Israel, Kuwait, and Austria.
It starts: "The man with ten minutes to live was laughing."
Does the Laura Ingraham motto "Shut up and write fiction (sing)" apply here?
You obviously have taken the media line hook, line and sinker concerning Blair.
How can you give Bush a pass and not Blair when they were both looking and the same, SHARED, intelligence?
Now if Forsyth was complaining about the idiotic ban on fox hunting, or some other stupid Labor policy, I'd agree with him on Blair. But to base his anti-Blair rhetoric on the same old, worn out "sexed up" accusations is a bit much for me.
P.S. Wait for the Syrians to pull out of Lebanon before making firm conclusions about Iraqi WMD and capabilities.
Yes, they were looking at the same SHARED intelligence. But it was only Blair that exaggerated it to such an extent.
He didn't have to - that's really my point. But in doing so he lied to the Parliament.
The Syrians say they will withdraw, but will it create the possibilities for Western intelligence to search the Beekaa valley for WMDs? I hope so but I doubt it. Most probably the Iranian/Syrian proxies, the Hizbollah will remain in power there.
How is Michael Howard faring ?
I dunno, I just can't get behind your argument. Do you really think that Blair would make that (prepared) remark without talking with Bush first?
Bush is a patient man, even while under a media blitz. There seems to be a lot of indicators that Bush (and Blair, by extension) will come out on top on this in the end.
I just think there is another shoe to drop here, and I would caution you against any premature conclusions.
Well said, you have it covered.
Blair lied to get his anti-war, on principle, party behind him.
The other big factor is that vast amounts of people in the UK are upto their ears in debt and their houses are supporting it. They are scared to death of anything affecting house prices, like terrorism, so they pretend to be anti the Iraq invasion on principle, but in reality it's simple greed.
He sounds alot like our Pat B. But I would have to say Neville Chamberlain might steal the award for worst PM.
yeah,...well said , AND the BBC accused him of biased reporting
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