Dictators and Despots A Timewatch Guide

In recent years, the world's become an unsettling place.

We've experienced financial meltdown,

the mass movement of refugees and political upheaval,

both in this country and abroad.

The result is that many old certainties appear far less certain

and history shows that in troubled times

people often turn to someone who promises

they can fix all the problems,

if only they're granted supreme power.

And that is the appeal of the dictator.

It's never a problem to find potential dictators.

My search through the archives of the ground-breaking history series

Timewatch and 60 years of BBC documentaries shows how film-makers

are drawn to dictators...

..for the compelling stories they make.

Who will fight with me today?

I'll see how television analyses the strongmen of ancient history

and the modern dictators

who used the moving image as a means of control.

There's a famous saying that power tends to corrupt and absolute power

corrupts absolutely.

I'll examine the rise and fall of the most recent dictators

followed by television cameras in ever closer detail.

Some believe that, once in power, he had gone mad.

So why are dictators such an object of fascination?

And does our fascination feed their power?

The man who wrote that absolute power corrupts absolutely

knew a thing or two about power.

He lived in this grand country house,

Aldenham Park in Shropshire...

..a fine place to think about dictators, old and new.

It's the home of Sir John Dalberg-Acton - Lord Acton.

A politician and an influential historian,

he's now chiefly remembered for that one compelling statement uttered in

1887, 130 years ago.

Not many people, I suspect,

are aware of the line that followed that famous quote.

"Great men are almost always bad men."

Lord Acton was not somebody who minced his words.

Heil...

But what I'm going to explore, through the film archive,

is why those who are bad and corrupt are so watchable.

Hitler alone has been the subject of thousands of films,

documentaries and books.

But then, the brilliance of the Nazis was to realise very early

the compelling power of imagery in selling the concept of dictatorship.

The first question I want to explore is how did our earliest dictators

define the brand...

..and project their image before the days of mass media?

In 2006,

the BBC examined the rise and fall of a man long regarded as the model

for all dictators who followed...

..Julius Caesar.

Caesar! Caesar! Caesar!

Caesar's appeal was founded on his military genius and his popularity

among the ordinary soldiers.

-Comrades...

-Caesar! Caesar! Caesar!

You have fought and you have bled and you have died for Rome.

CHEERING

But Rome's fortunes are held in the hands of corrupt aristocrats

who profess to rule in your name.

I will restore Rome to the very people that made Rome great.

CHEERING

Like dictators through the ages,

Caesar was able to whip up support by making huge promises.

Caesar! Caesar! Caesar!

So there's Julius Caesar promising to make Rome great again,

which has a familiar ring to it.

Caesar was notoriously vain about his appearance -

in particular his hair.

It's said he wore a laurel crown

merely to hide his receding hairline...

..ancient Rome's version of the comb-over.

And even without TV,

Julius Caesar hit upon a way of spreading his image

through the entire known world.

The closest equivalent to a mass medium in ancient Rome

were the coins.

It signals to the population

that there is a single person,

a single face, who embodies power,

who embodies the state.

Julius Caesar was the first living Roman to have his face pictured on

the coinage...

..a brilliantly simple way of becoming the most famous person

in the ancient world...

..establishing the link between fame and dictatorship

that still exists today.

But eventually, as this film shows, he went one step too far.

-ARCHIVE:

-The Roman Republic was born out of fear

of ever being ruled by a tyrant.

Its founding principle was that no individual should hold

too much power

and every political office should be subject to regular re-election.

But Caesar had demanded an extension of his powers without an election...

..putting himself in conflict with those fundamental rules.

He made himself dictator for life.

But Caesar seems to have made a fundamental mistake.

A really effective dictator would have wiped out his enemies

before they had the chance to strike.

Julius Caesar, a very interesting case.

He's not ruthless enough with his enemies,

he doesn't take them out at any sign of disloyalty,

if there's any whiff of suspicion.

In March 44 BC, his enemies conspired against him.

You have to be incredibly ruthless with everyone around you.

He really takes his eye off the ball and perhaps that's something that

subsequent dictators may have been aware of.

So Julius Caesar, assassinated at the age of 55,

helps us set out a few ground rules for dictators.

They can be vain, so long as they remain popular with the masses.

But to survive long-term

they need to be utterly ruthless with potential enemies.

Despite being labelled a dictator,

Julius Caesar would almost certainly be included in any list

of history's great men.

He's a rare example of the modern-style

crowd-pleasing dictator, before the era of mass communication.

I would like to define dictators as a phenomenon of the modern age.

What's typical of dictatorships is that the source of legitimacy is the

people. You at least have to be able to claim to be from the people,

loved by the people and so on, and not just from a single group

in society, an elite,

the aristocracy. No more divine right.

So bearing that in mind, I need to fast forward to the 20th century...

..and the most mesmerising dictators of all,

judging by the sheer number of films in the archive.

The man who taught Hitler the techniques of mass manipulation

was Italy's dictator, Benito Mussolini.

The first of the modern dictators, the leader,

duce, if you like, of Italy

introduced in a sense the modern conception of dictatorship,

of dictatorship which claimed, at any rate, to spring from the people,

not to be imposed from above by a monarch.

Mussolini was the first to exploit brand-new mass media.

Through radio and film,

he could speak not just to a crowd but to an entire nation.

His dictatorship was the dictatorship that, in many ways,

created the stock images and the elements that were then imitated and

changed and amalgamated by other dictators that came after.

It was very much controlled, orchestrated.

The way in which his chin was portrayed as protruding

and seemingly particularly forceful and so on,

that was all part of the plan,

because it symbolised male will.

To recapture the power and glory of ancient Rome had been the dream

of Italian nationalists since the unification of Italy in 1870.

50 years after the outbreak of World War II,

film-makers examined how far Mussolini was to blame.

Mussolini's elder son Vittorio, now aged 73, visits his father's tomb

in Predappio in northern Italy.

Vittorio remembers the ambitions of his father.

HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

-TRANSLATION:

-My father, Benito Mussolini,

had a big dream. He wanted a strong and fierce Italy,

respected for its law and order

and highest form of social justice.

He wanted a new Italian character worthy of its Roman heritage and the

brilliance of the Renaissance.

Such a race could've been amongst the future leaders of the world.

-TRANSLATION:

-Mussolini was a powerful figure.

A glance, a gesture, was enough to send the crowd into raptures.

People used to become oblivious of everything but their idol and shout

with tremendous enthusiasm.

Mussolini's showmanship impressed one person in particular

and with terrible consequences.

This is a curious thing.

Mussolini was the one man whom Hitler

genuinely accepted as an equal

and, I think one can say, whom Hitler genuinely

took seriously.

The fact that Mussolini and Hitler rose together raises

an uncomfortable question in our own unsettled times.

Did these two fascist dictators emerge around the same time

by coincidence

or was there something about their era that made fascism inevitable?

Timewatch concluded that Europe, devastated by the First World War,

provided just the environment in which Hitler could thrive.

In 1919, he was given the greatest opportunity -

that is to enter politics.

Politics came to Hitler, Hitler didn't find politics.

Hitler, now a political instructor in the military,

was sent to an army camp near Munich.

It was here that he gave his first political speech

blaming the Jews for the country's ills.

This was the beginning of one of the most notorious political careers

in history.

-TRANSLATION:

-He realised that he could speak -

that was his great discovery.

People came in droves because he hit the nerve at a time.

People no longer wanted anything to do with the old politicians,

they wanted someone from the grassroots, one of us,

a simple man of the people as the saviour of the Germans.

Hitler's appeal went far beyond politics.

Bizarrely in retrospect, he was also a sex symbol.

In recent years a huge cache of love letters,

many of which have sexual overtones, was found.

German women writing to Hitler expressing their love.

Saying that they would like to have a baby with him and so on.

But what gave Hitler that massive ego which all dictators share?

On the 60th anniversary of the dictator's death,

Timewatch looked at the first in-depth analysis

of Hitler's psychology.

We know Adolf Hitler as the man responsible for the bloodiest crimes

in history.

He rose to power portraying himself as the saviour of the German people.

But what lay behind this facade?

In 1943, at the height of the war,

the American Secret Service tried to get inside the mind of the Fuehrer.

They ordered a team of Harvard psychologists to put together

a top-secret psychological profile.

Hitler was a weak, frail little boy

but there was one thing that marked him out as special in his family.

He survived. His three brothers didn't.

They all died young.

And what does this mean for Hitler?

Well, in his immature way,

he probably wondered why the others had died while he continued to live.

And it is natural for a child to draw the conclusion that he would be

favoured in some way. Or that he was chosen to live

for a particular purpose.

That he was under divine protection.

Vor uns liegt Deutschland,

in uns marshiert Deutschland,

und hinter uns kommt Deutschland!

CHEERING

This is what Freud called the messiah complex.

There's no question that Hitler believed

he had Christ-like qualities.

That Freudian approach was just the first of many attempts to understand

Hitler's inner character...

..and to understand how it was that someone so dangerous was able to win

over millions of people.

Hitler has been ascribed something called dark charisma,

which made his appearance both in person and on film

strangely compelling.

That mysterious quality is a tremendous boon for a dictator.

Your followers love the publicity

and your opponents can't stop watching.

And that's why in television documentary

he's pretty much omnipresent.

Und um dieses Volk,

wollen wir Ringen and wollen wir kaempfen.

Und niemals erlahmen...

Innovative recreations like that Timewatch film try to create

a living history and bring figures like Hitler back to life.

But I'm going to look now at some history as it unfolded,

documentaries which present what's often called

the first draft of history...

..using television's unique ability to watch a dictator rise and fall.

What's common to all these dictators is that they loved the camera...

..and the camera loved them.

And so I'm going to look at the man who set the pattern for dictators in

the television age 60 years ago...

..Fidel Castro of Cuba.

In the 1950s, with his beard and his beret,

Castro established a powerful brand, the modern revolution.

Castro was a hero to many people in the developing world

who were seeking to free themselves from the bonds of colonialism.

It was his brother in arms, Che Guevara, whose face has become

one of the best-known images in the entire world.

From the very first, Castro fascinated outside observers.

At the height of the Cold War in 1959, he seized control of Cuba,

just 90 miles from the US mainland,

and established a socialist state.

So had this former playground for rich American tourists

now become a nest of communists?

Panorama's star reporter Robin Day

travelled to the Cuban capital, Havana, to investigate.

In every street of Havana the revolution is proudly advertised.

Commerce and industry,

so much of it American-owned, has been taken over.

CUBAN MUSIC PLAYS

The famous Tropicana still presents a lavish extravaganza under this

uniquely Cuban revolution.

But the prices are much cheaper,

the clientele is much less exclusive

and the dancing girls not quite so expert.

The Cubans are a gay, pleasure-loving people.

And the nationalisation of the previously exclusive bathing clubs,

like the nightclubs, has been a popular feature of the revolution.

The luxury hotels too are nationalised,

guarded by Castro's militia, armed with communist-made weapons,

a formidable force if its marksmanship matches its sex appeal.

Robin Day's report gives a sense of how this story ticked all the boxes

56 years ago - revolution in an exotic setting.

Panorama soon returned to the matter in hand.

Castro is a huge,

powerfully built man who impresses by his physical size and strength.

He's a man of stupendous energy who hardly ever sleeps.

He should not be dismissed as a crackpot or a clown.

He impressed even The New York Times reporter as witty,

erudite and skilful.

He's an object of fascination everywhere he goes.

Fidel Castro did become a kind of poster boy for revolutionaries

around the world.

He did have a tremendous charisma, he was a very big, tall man,

he had a very impressive manner and, of course,

he actually recruited a lot of people to his cause,

including Americans,

including quite a lot of people who certainly weren't communists.

Panorama's film appeared shortly after America's botched attempt

to retake Cuba - the Bay of Pigs invasion.

So in 1961,

Cuba was the hottest spot in the Cold War

and Castro took full advantage of his status as a leading player.

Castro's conducted tour is not only to show us the support he has among

the Cuban people and what he is doing for them,

he has other sides to show.

He takes us to the scenes of his triumph last April,

when the invasion launched against him collapsed.

He shows us the wreckage of an American B-26 plane supplied by the

Americans to the invaders and shot down by Castro's forces.

This is a moment as satisfying for Castro as it is humiliating for his

American guests.

Nearby, he conducts us to a house destroyed by a bomb

from the invading force.

Castro says that the ruined building will be preserved as a memorial.

You are regarded in many quarters, Dr Castro, as a communist.

-Is this true?

-We are building a socialistic society.

-Are you...?

-That is before communism.

Do you regard yourself as a neutral in the Cold War?

Why are you thinking war?

I think that the best thing for peace is thinking in peace.

I am with the peace.

You obviously have a great deal of support among the people of Cuba.

People in Miami, Americans,

say that you started a revolution to bring in democracy and you have not

-done so.

-Do you believe that there is not democracy here?

I am sure there is much more democracy...

-I'm asking you a question.

-..than in the United States.

The most free man you can find in all America is the Cuban man.

But through the 1970s and '80s,

Castro's people had to struggle with the reality of living next door to

Cuba's bitter enemy, the USA.

America tried to strangle the island's economy

with economic sanctions.

Many Cubans fled, saying Castro had created a regimented, dictatorial,

one-party state.

His regime was only saved by taking in supplies from Cuba's communist

ally, the Soviet Union.

But when communism collapsed in 1990,

it seemed that Castro must fall.

History has conspired to isolate Cuba.

In Europe, Cuba is losing its main ideological allies.

Moscow, the island's chief supporter,

is making major structural adjustments to communism,

while Castro's comrades in the Eastern Bloc

have jettisoned it completely.

In Latin America,

the 1980s have seen the rejection of totalitarianism of both left and

right - one by one, the dictators have fallen to democracy.

Now the last one-party state in the region, Cuba alone has survived.

In 1991, film-makers arrived in Cuba expecting to witness

the death throes of the Castro regime.

But instead, they found Castro still on top form

after 32 years in charge,

his beard longer and bushier than ever.

An adoring welcome from little Fidelistas.

This is the Castro cult and it's reached truly epic proportions.

The bearded one is larger than life and despite current problems,

he's still a national hero to millions of his subjects,

the closest thing to a communist monarch.

Despite food shortages and claims of political repression,

these film-makers found a strong fanbase out in the streets.

Fidel Castro relinquished power in favour of his brother, Raul,

in 2007.

And on the 50th anniversary of his revolutionary victory in 2009,

film-makers found the Castro family business still firmly in control.

The Castro brand was now so strong that his name alone was revered.

HE SPEAKS SPANISH

While Castro went on to survive numerous CIA assassination attempts,

in the end, it was ill-health which forced him to step down.

HE SPEAKS SPANISH

His younger brother, Raul Castro, has taken over the presidency.

The communist system remains virtually unchanged.

Fidel Castro, who died in 2016,

was a master at creating and then exploiting his image.

Yet, he didn't suffer that fatal flaw which affected many of the

dictators who followed - megalomania.

Everything I've read about Fidel Castro does seem to tend to him

having a considerable streak of narcissism,

but it doesn't necessarily find focus in the same way

as some other dictatorships.

If you travelled around Cuba, you very rarely saw posters of his face.

Nor did you see landmarks named after him.

He wasn't so obsessed with creating himself as a cult,

but he was obsessed with the idea that he, Fidel,

was, authentically, the voice of Cuba.

Castro lived to an old age, still firmly in charge.

Now, I want to look at the dictators who came after,

and who most certainly did develop megalomania.

SHOUTING

Their fall, when it came, was violent and dramatic.

First, how television watched this young man morph into a dictator

who became known as the "Mad Dog of the Middle East".

When army colonel Muammar Gaddafi led a successful coup in Libya

in 1969, he was, remarkably, just 27 years old.

For the first few years of his rule, he was wildly popular,

promising to develop Libya's oil reserves and rebuild the nation

for the poor.

But, at the same time,

there were rumours that he was also funding terrorism abroad.

And so, a hero on the one hand,

a potential villain lurking underneath -

a compelling target for documentary-makers.

A film from 1976 helped establish

Gaddafi's favourite image of himself -

the Bedouin leader, born of the desert.

Bedouin tribesmen in Libya ride to greet their head of state,

Muammar Gaddafi, a latter-day prophet out of the desert,

who has thrust his obscure country into the world headlines

as an apparent haven for hijackers and revolutionaries.

So, who is this man who prays five times a day

and bases his revolution on religion?

The film was all the more exotic for Western audiences 40 years ago,

before there was much knowledge of Islam.

Like all good Muslims, Gaddafi's day starts at dawn with prayer.

Here, he performs the ritual ablutions, which symbolise

a spiritual cleansing, before he can talk with his God.

He's a fervent believer in Islam and religiously follows

the moral code of the Koran, Islam's holy book.

7am - breakfast is a simple meal, a glass of milk,

coffee and a piece of bread.

It's a soldier's house, furnished right out of the local store,

and identical to the other officers' homes in the Tripoli barracks.

He's a good-looking man, with a gaunt and anxious look.

He's 35, twice married and has five children.

He doesn't drink - as the Koran demands - nor smokes.

By the time this film appeared,

Gaddafi was already being accused of funding international terrorism.

It's impossible to know, 40 years on,

why he granted film-makers this degree of access.

But the film appears to take at face value Gaddafi's claim that

he was a religious man, driven by the dictates of his faith.

To understand the man, you have to trace his roots, and they grew here,

600 miles from Tripoli, in the burning desert of Sirte.

He grew up tending his father's camels and goats.

His parents were illiterate Bedouin,

and it was here that Gaddafi's concern was kindled for the poor

of the oasis and the desert interior.

Today, his parents still live here, in a tent.

It was here, at his mother's side, that the young Gaddafi's

great devotion to Islam was founded and nurtured.

I asked them what Gaddafi was like as a child.

His father said that he was a pious little boy,

who never forgot his prayers.

It's impossible to watch this film

and not see Gaddafi's early charisma.

But, as well as burnishing his image, the film-makers were prepared

to ask some difficult questions.

You say you are a religious man.

How do you square your conscience when you give arms and money to

freedom movements who deliberately blow up innocent people,

like the IRA bombing a supermarket in Belfast?

-TRANSLATION:

-There is a clear difference between supporting the

just cause of nations struggling for their freedom and liberation,

between that and terrorism.

And it is one of our basic principles to support nations that

are struggling for the sake of their freedom,

to support those exploited and oppressed,

be they in southern Philippines or in Northern Ireland.

We support them morally, at least.

Many people allege that there are, in fact, political prisoners

in Libya and that they're tortured.

Is this true, sir?

-TRANSLATION:

-This is not true.

The question itself is incorrect.

To say "many people" is not true.

You could say "some people" say, but "many" is not true.

Film-makers watched in fascination as, over the decades,

Gaddafi seemed to delight in his own image as a dangerous outlaw.

An interesting aspect about Gaddafi is vanity, narcissism.

And I think a lot of dictators share that feature.

A lethal combination of aspects to personality.

Gaddafi's enemies charged him with spending Libya's oil money

to fund terror groups abroad.

In 1986,

US President Ronald Reagan described him as a "mad dog" and bombed the

Libyan capital Tripoli as a reprisal for alleged attacks on US citizens.

EXPLOSIONS

Over the next two decades,

Gaddafi's appearance and behaviour seemed to grow ever more eccentric.

And his earlier denial of political repression rang hollow,

as opposition within Libya was ruthlessly suppressed.

But those opposing voices couldn't be silenced forever, and in 2011,

as the Arab Spring uprisings toppled one dictator after another,

Libyans finally turned on Gaddafi.

Film-makers found this former soldier of Islam now at war

with his own people.

It's not by popular support he's become the world's

longest-serving dictator -

it's through terror.

Gaddafi's forces were shelling the city,

despite claims of a ceasefire in Benghazi.

It's Libya's second-largest city,

where Gaddafi had put down protest before in a bloody fashion.

It's very difficult for figures like Gaddafi to accept

any kind of criticism...

..when they have enjoyed such adoration, such absolute power.

This is how he tried to persuade his own people to surrender.

But they were empty threats.

Gaddafi's power was gone.

GUNFIRE

There is jubilation in Libya.

Colonel Gaddafi has been killed.

After 42 years in power, it was an ignominious end.

Gaddafi was dragged from his hiding place in this sewer pipe and shot.

Once a bright hope in the Arab world,

he faced powerful enemies abroad and finally lost support within Libya.

Gaddafi was unquestionably cruel but, nevertheless, compelling.

Television is able to capture that sense of advancing history like no

other medium, and it chronicled the rise and fall of another dictator

in equally compelling fashion.

This dictator was accused of far more than supporting terror.

His critics called him a warmonger.

A study of two films, which bookended his life,

show that Saddam Hussein was at war for much of that time.

Until Panorama went to Baghdad, Iraq's President, Saddam Hussein,

had never given a television interview to a team from the West.

He'd ruled Iraq for two years, when, in 1981, Panorama gained exclusive

access and introduced this new figure on the world stage.

Looming over Liberation Square, in every shop window,

office and workshop, is a portrait of the President.

Virtually unknown in the West, Saddam Hussein,

with his crinkly smile, is an ever-present image to every Iraqi.

Saddam Hussein is everywhere.

Saddam allowed the cameras in because, in 1981,

his fighting spirit made him popular in parts of the West.

He was at war with neighbouring Iran,

an enemy of America.

At certain times, dictators can be very attractive to external powers.

They're perhaps repressing the enemies of other states.

But, you know, be careful what you wish for.

If he no longer wants to be your puppet,

then you find yourself in a lot of trouble.

Saddam was keen to show his softer side.

The camera followed him to a poor farming village.

Saddam works tirelessly to make himself at one with the people.

He promises this village a school and electricity,

and because all this is broadcast on national television,

the president's bounty can be seen and admired throughout the land.

In Saddam Hussein's own words, if you win over the children,

you win over your future.

Sitting at a school desk,

he talks to the children about keeping their classroom clean.

Even at this early stage in his career,

Saddam was rumoured to have murdered many political rivals.

When film-makers tackled Gaddafi on the same subject, he was guarded.

But Saddam Hussein was brutally honest.

Should political opponents be subject to torture and execution?

-TRANSLATION:

-Yes.

It calls for it to be subject to execution and to torture.

In accordance with the law,

we say he who collaborates

with a foreign party is sentenced to death.

British film-makers would never again find Saddam quite so amicable

as they did here, in 1981.

But for the next 25 years,

he fulfilled for the West the role of evil dictator.

Secretive, cruel and ruthless.

In 1990, he invaded Kuwait, prompting the first Gulf War.

Also, the first war in history to be played out live on TV.

GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS

He survived that encounter, but by 2002,

America and her allies were shaping up for a final showdown.

Film-makers returned to Iraq.

Though they found the posters had been updated from 20 years ago,

Saddam remained an enigmatic figure.

In Baghdad, Saddam is everywhere,

but he's only seen through images that he's approved.

He's the widely recognised, yet least-known

dictator in modern history.

The producers tracked down someone who did claim to know

Saddam's innermost secrets.

For years, Washington has tried to analyse

his unique psychological make-up.

When I went there, I found out how Saddam followed his hero Stalin,

using violence not only to gain power, but to keep it.

This is not a madman,

but he does have the most dangerous personality that we know of.

What I call malignant narcissism.

So, on the one hand, he's so caught up with his own vanity,

his own messianic dreams,

that there's no room for the pain or suffering of others,

that doesn't count at all.

He's got no conscience whatsoever and -

making it all the worse - will use whatever violence is necessary

to carry out his ambitions,

and violence has been the hallmark of his very success.

The trigger that Saddam was about to commit something terrible was

he would start blinking rapidly.

Everybody knew that when he started blinking rapidly,

he was going to have somebody killed,

or wreak some terrible thing.

It was usually terminal, as one of his arrested ministers was to find.

His wife came to plea with Saddam and said,

"Your Excellency, my husband has always been loyal to you.

"Please return him to me."

He promised her he would return her husband to her the next day,

which he did - chopped into pieces in a black canvas body bag.

As dictators become thinner and thinner on the ground,

Saddam seems like a throwback to an earlier era -

a man with the power of life and sudden death

over everybody he controls.

An observation which goes right to

the heart of our fascination with dictators.

The will or the whim of a single individual that can alter

the course of history.

The character analysis may well have been accurate,

but looking back now at this 2002 film, there is one understandable,

yet monumental error.

Film-makers had bought the official line on Saddam's secret weapons.

Saddam's darkest secret...

..his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction,

bigger than anyone imagined.

Saddam's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programme

absorbed Iraq's resources for 30 years.

Would he use weapons of mass destruction if he was threatened?

-TRANSALTION:

-I believe that if Saddam Hussein felt that his end

was near, he would use these weapons.

And it's that fear that is behind the mounting pressure to deal

with Saddam once and for all.

As each day passes, so the argument goes,

he's getting stronger and more dangerous.

Now, the Americans seem to be gearing up for another Gulf War

to wipe him out.

It certainly won't be easy.

People who adore him and the people who think he's the most dangerous,

nastiest dictator on Earth agree that he operates on the grand scale.

It seems fair to assume that, when the time comes,

he won't go quietly.

Iconic images record Saddam's overthrow.

CHEERING

Yet we now know that the end of the war was the start

of Iraq's real agony.

This, the first draft of history, has had to be entirely rewritten.

Saddam Hussein was discovered hiding in a cellar.

He was tried, then hanged, in 2006,

still insisting he be addressed as His Excellency, the President.

This last dictator proves as much as any that power corrupts.

He assured the world that he would bring peace and harmony

to his war-torn country.

SINGING AND CHANTING

But instead, as the archive reveals,

he slaughtered his own people by the thousands.

Again, he's proved irresistible to film-makers.

Africa's most tenacious dictator, Robert Mugabe.

In 1979, the former British colony of Rhodesia was still ruled

by a tiny, white minority and they were engaged in a brutal

guerrilla war against African freedom fighters.

-SINGING:

-Long live comrade Mugabe.

-IN CHORUS:

-Mugabe.

Robert Mugabe was just one of several leaders who were condemned

by much of the British media.

Film-makers set out to discover

whether the horror stories were true.

People of Zimbabwe, victory is certain.

Maputo, the capital of Mozambique,

which now plays host to the largest, most secretive guerrilla army

operating against Zimbabwe Rhodesia.

Its leader is said to be a terrorist.

He's so hated and feared that his fellow countrymen are forbidden to

publish his name - Robert Mugabe.

For so long, spurned by the West and branded as the man who massacres the

innocent, Mugabe is now a key figure.

The image presented by the British press has been consistently hostile.

I just don't care what they say as long as I know I'm right.

So they can say anything in their papers,

damage me in every way possible,

as long as the people I lead are behind me and approve

of what we are doing - that's what matters.

By the time the same film-makers returned just 12 months later,

Robert Mugabe had emerged victorious from a peace settlement,

the first Prime Minister of a new country - Zimbabwe.

It looked as though peace and justice

had come to the former colony.

At least, that's how it seemed at the time.

How long will these gentilities last?

Is a one-party state just around the corner?

No, it isn't.

My party's virtually in control.

There is no need for us really to think of a one-party state.

This was going to be a new start.

Robert Mugabe spoke the language of reconciliation.

He actually thanked the Rhodesian regime.

He said to them, "You have given me the jewel of Africa."

So, yes, there was huge optimism.

But over nearly 40 years,

film-makers have chronicled his fall from grace.

In 1985, film-makers returned to meet Mr Mugabe...

..and this time, they were scathing about what they found.

Mr Robert Mugabe, the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.

Once he was a Marxist guerrilla leader in the war

against Rhodesia's whites.

Now, Comrade Bob, as he's called, is due to hold elections.

They're unlikely to be free and fair.

He calls his opponents dissidents

and wants to set up a one-party state.

Robert Mugabe was taking a critical step towards dictatorship.

The political opposition would be outlawed.

CHEERING

..far better a one-party state.

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

It's really in keeping with our own traditions and our own, erm,

philosophy of an African society.

The dissident party are destined not only for rejection,

but for utter destruction, as well.

I don't see the sense, really, in the multi-party state,

as you have it in Britain or in the United States or in western Europe.

Mugabe had already developed a dictator's fondness

for statues of himself.

Mr Mugabe and his party have commissioned a memorial

to the liberation struggle.

Designed by North Koreans, panels depict the history of the war and

describe the credit for victory to Mr Mugabe himself.

Although the evidence wouldn't emerge till later,

Mugabe was already sealing his grip on power

by liquidating potential rivals.

He was very impressed with North Korea's attitude to power,

and after a visit there...

CHANTING AND CLAPPING

..his army was tooled up and he sent a force into Matabeleland

and they committed terrible atrocities.

BBC film-makers returned in 1992

and found no sign of the earlier optimism.

Partly the result of a catastrophic drought,

Zimbabwe's farming sector was on the point of collapse.

The economy was rapidly fading amid

growing evidence of political assassinations.

In the desperate search for water,

disused gold mines are being excavated.

At mines in Matabeleland, they have found water.

They've also found human bones.

So this is where the dead went during the reign of terror of the

1980s, when Mugabe's men marched into Matabeleland

killing, raping, torturing.

Up to 10,000 so-called dissidents are said to have disappeared.

With each bucket-load, there was a macabre collection of human debris.

Femurs, ribs, pieces of clothing.

Angered by films like that,

Robert Mugabe banned the BBC from entering Zimbabwe.

But in 2002, one team decided that conditions there had to be exposed.

In the '80s, Mugabe's regime killed thousands and got away with it.

Today, his rule is threatened once more.

So we didn't get arrested, we're forced to film everything secretly.

We're heading south to a place the state won't even acknowledge exists,

but the locals know only too well.

The Central Intelligence Organisation tortured and murdered

here for months on end.

-TRANSLATION:

-There were a lot of people buried in the pits

that were used as toilets.

We used to fill them in when they were full and then dig some more.

I personally saw at least 300 bodies.

Bones never lie, so they were dug up and dumped elsewhere.

The grave tamperers didn't even bother to fill in the holes

in the ground - plain evidence of mass murder.

Everyone who spoke to us could face torture or even death for doing so.

With the opposition suppressed,

Mugabe entered his fourth decade as dictator.

Robert Mugabe eventually lifted his ban on the BBC,

granting a film crew access on his 90th birthday.

Why he relented, it's hard to say.

Perhaps to demonstrate that he is one of history's survivors.

In Zimbabwe,

birthday celebrations are underway for Africa's oldest

and longest-serving leader.

-SINGING:

-Welcome, Your Excellence.

Once the darling of the West, today,

Robert Mugabe's considered a pariah.

As he celebrates his 90th birthday, I've been given rare access

to the president whom the West love to hate.

-We meet again.

-We meet again, finally.

In an interview, the president dismissed Zimbabwe's problems

and focused instead on Britain.

It's a good question. What happened to Robert Mugabe?

Some believe that, once in power, he had gone mad,

but is that a satisfactory explanation?

I think with Robert Mugabe, he's always been in a situation of war.

It just doesn't work if you've always been at war and your life is

about fear, covering your back and taking out your enemy.

Mugabe has followed the brutal rule that Julius Caesar ignored.

Eliminate your enemies before they can strike at you.

Who will fight with me today?

I set out to ask why dictators have proved so compelling to film-makers.

One answer is, how could they not be?

Larger-than-life figures, often charismatic.

Brilliant at manipulating the crowd,

savvy at publicity.

And in an age in which leaders rely so heavily

on their television skills,

it pays to remember that.

It is fascinating how many terms have been invented over time

to avoid using the label dictator.

Terms like Fuhrer, Duce, Generalissimo.

Fidel Castro liked to call himself the Maximum Leader.

Yet whatever they're called, dictators continually reappear.

If we walk outside of the studio, we'll find a couple of Mussolinis,

potential Mussolinis.

I think it's never a problem to find potential dictators.

It is possible,

in these times of fear and insecurity, we can potentially see,

I think, the appeal of a sort of post-modern dictatorship.

It'll be interesting from a historical perspective,

if somewhat worrying from a living-through-it perspective to see

whether, in fact, this new populism is compatible with democracy.

Power corrupts.

We'll always probably have dictators, but we'll also have ways,

I think, of dealing with them.

And I think we've got to safeguard all those things that we know will

protect us against the worst side of human nature,

and that is to cleave towards the powerful, charismatic father figure.

I'm certain that the film archive contains valuable lessons,

but in this case, very little of comfort

because despite having been told so clearly that power corrupts,

and having seen that it does, there are still many people willing

to say, "Maybe, this time, it'll be different."

And, unfortunately, it almost never is.