Jeffrey Archer

"I'm what you might call centre-right but I've always disliked the right wing as much as I've disliked the left wing."

"I have been reading a book by my favourite author, Jeffrey Archer called "The Eleventh Commandment". I crave your indulgence to relate a small part of the book because it illustrates both the power of the media and the good it can do. It is fictional of course but it is nevertheless credible and may happen in real life. In this book the head of the CIA, one tough lady who used to order the assassination of an embarrassing foreign politician without bothering to inform the President, was castigated by the latter for the alleged CIA killing of a Presidential candidate in Columbia. The Director calmly denied that the assassination was by one of her boys. She then decided that the CIA hitman must be liquidated. The man was sent to Russia to kill another Presidential candidate, a particularly obnoxious ex- Communist. The CIA network then arranged for the hitman to be arrested by the Russians for attempted killing of the candidate who later won the election. The hitman will of course be executed since this is Russia, a country that has not yet heard about human rights and the cruelty of legitimately taking human lives. In the meantime the wife of the hitman contacted his secretary to find out where he is. The secretary being infatuated with our hero finally discovered that he is the man reported by a Turkish newspaper to have been arrested in Leningrad for attempted assassination of the Communist Presidential candidate. On her way to inform the wife she was killed through a road accident arranged by the CIA. When the wife finally discovered the fate of her friend, she rang up the deputy director of the CIA who promptly denied that he knew any such person as the husband of the caller or the secretary of the husband. When the wife pointed out that he was actually at her party recently and had talked to the secretary concerned he told her that she must be imagining as he does not know her or had been to her house. At this stage she came up with her trump card. It seemed her daughter had video-taped the party and there was a scene of him talking to the secretary. For good measure she said that the conversation she was having with the deputy director was being recorded and if he tried to dispose her off or to search for the tapes, the T.V. networks would receive full copies of the video-tape of the party and the telephone conversation. At the mention of the T.V. networks getting the tapes the attitude of the deputy director changed completely. Now you can see how the media can play a powerful role in ensuring that justice will be done and the miscreants prevented from misusing their power."