Conrad Blackâs email arrived at 1.15 a.m. on 1 April 2006, April Foolâs Day in London. Black, whom I had known since the mid-1980s, was well aware of this bookâs progress, and said he had been contacted by many of his and his wifeâs acquaintances, seeking his advice as to whether they should talk to me. His response was nothing if not graphic:
Dear Tom,
Many people have contacted Barbara and me asking if they should talk with you. Our usual response is that you have made it clear that you consider this whole matter a heart-warming story of two sleazy, spivvy, contemptible people, who enjoyed a fraudulent and unjust elevation; were exposed, and ground to powder in a just system, have been ostracised; and largely impoverished, and that I am on my way to the prison cell where I belong. It is the false rise and well-deserved downfall of crooked charlatans; a variant on your treatments of Maxwell, Fayed, and Rowland. You have expressed essentially this view many times that have been reported to me.
He asked me to prove that I was not writing âa pompous, defamatory celebration of the supposed demise of people you personally dislikeâ. In justification of his indignation, and keen that I should understand his innocence, he continued:
The rough facts are that I am an honest businessman; the chances of my committing an illegality are less than zero, this will be clear when my accusers have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the guilt of innocent people and not just manipulate the agencies of the US and Canadian governments to act on the pre-emptive presumption of guilt and conduct a prolonged assassination of careers and reputations.
Conrad Black believes that he is the victim of political and personal prejudice. He has damned those seeking âa big scalp (mine)â, and believes his persecutors first sought his social ostracism and bankruptcy, and later destroyed his âfine companyâ. Under his ownership, he commented with some reason in his second email during the night, the two Telegraph newspapers in London were better âcompared to what preceded and followed usâ. In his opinion, the only victims of his personal and corporate downfall were the creators of a successful enterprise. Other than himself, he argued, no one lost money â shareholders, traders or pensioners. His critics and his American prosecutor contest that claim.
Convinced of his acquittal, Black pledged himself to âturn the tables on our oppressorsâ. He would wreak vengeance upon those responsible for his demise: âWe will bring this entire, gigantic, malicious persecution down around the ears of its authors.â He was, he wrote later that night, proud of his robustness. Three years after the news of his predicament emerged, and one year before his trial, he observed that no one could deny that âdespite my wildly applauded setback I am completely undaunted, and that I am not a tight-lipped source of âno commentââ. Indeed, his high-profile appearances around Toronto had become the stuff of gossip.
In another email during that night, Conrad Black keenly anticipated the stardom that he would achieve at his trial, which was due to start in Chicago in March 2007:
My trial will be timely; Thermidor will have dawned, and legally responsible capitalism will survive, like Talleyrand and Fouché.
He concluded:
I promise a spectacular trial â¦
Regards, CONRAD BLACK.
Conrad Blackâs life story is not the familiar tale of a tycoonâs ârise and fallâ, or the tragedy of a self-delusional fantasist. Rather, it is the drama of a plutocrat and aristocrat who stands accused as a kleptocrat. He will arrive in Chicago preceded by two damning findings: the first by a court in Delaware, the second by a special committee of investigators appointed with his approval. The investigatorsâ withering 513-page condemnation of Blackâs business methods would have destroyed most men, and his vigorous protestations of innocence have won him some sympathy. The riddle is just how he has found himself in this position. In the search for an answer it is important to understand his marriage to Barbara Amiel, and her own behaviour.
Beautiful, intelligent and vivacious, Barbara Amiel appeared over the years to follow her husband in promoting herself and her opinions. In Toronto, London and New York she became famous for aggressively advancing her libertarian, conservative and politically incorrect philosophy. Exceptionally, she based much of her distinctive and lauded journalism upon her own remarkable life, provocatively describing her personal experiences, especially in relation to drugs, sex, personal relationships and cash. Her 1986 article âWhy Women Marry Upâ is one of her many prophetic, self-fulfilling accounts of seeking fame and millions which would climax sixteen years later in her immortal admission, âI have an extravagence that knows no bounds.â Quite consciously, she invited the public to examine every aspect of her private life, and in turn wrote revelatory accounts of othersâ lives. In many respects she is a unique woman, which was precisely her attraction to Conrad Black.