0399176071 (N) by Frederick Forsyth

Author:Frederick Forsyth [Forsyth, Frederick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-09-16T21:00:00+00:00

FAREWELL, AUNTIE

Tom Maltby was a very decent man and kindly. He had been in the Navy during the war and seen combat but never made a fuss about it. He knew exactly what had happened to my BBC career and why. I tried to explain anyway.

I had reported out of Nigeria only what I had seen or, if reported speech, with immediate attribution. Where was the bias? He explained that was missing the entire point.

What I had done, he explained as to an erring nephew, was contradict the High Commission in Lagos; Sir Joseph John Saville Garner, the senior mandarin at the Commonwealth Office (and thus the British government); the BBC World Service; and Mr. Hutchinson.

But they were all besotted by the original flawed analysis, I protested. Nevertheless, it is the only analysis that is acceptable, he pointed out. Then he added the argument that prevented me from resigning straightaway.

“It is about duration,” he said, “if this ten-day or two-week war goes on for, say, six months, they will surely have to reconsider.”

It made sense and he could be right. If the Biafran insurrection did indeed collapse rapidly, the analysis of the mandarins would have been proved right, if somewhat delayed; and my own voiced predictions that this was no storm in a teacup would have been shown to be mistaken.

To avoid the strained atmosphere of my mooning about in the reporters’ room, he suggested I be transferred to the Parliamentary Desk down at the House of Commons. The political correspondent, Peter Hardiman Scott, had a vacancy for an assistant. So in October 1967, that is where I went.

It was a small and friendly office that over the five months I was there taught me much about the way the country is actually run. It also wiped away an awful lot of benign illusions about the merits of MPs and peers. I was able to avoid the vipers’ nest going on up at Broadcasting House as rival coteries vied for power and influence. Then, in February 1968, something happened to change my mind.

In the interim, the Nigerian Civil War had not ended nor improved. It had got worse. The Lagos government had instituted a call-up and hugely increased the size of its army. This was being quietly equipped with torrents of British weaponry, shipped out covertly by the Wilson government, which was assuring one and all that it was neutral.

But the Biafrans had not collapsed. On the contrary. Before secession, Ojukwu had moved the entire financial reserves of the Eastern Region beyond the reach of Lagos and was increasing the size and equipment of his own army on the international black market. Biafra had also set up a representation office in London and engaged the services of an agency to handle media communications.

It had also secured the agreement of Spain to use its colony on Fernando Po island as a staging base and the agreement of Portugal to use offshore São Tomé island for the same purpose. It was no longer cut off.

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