:00:05. > :00:14.to maintain the ship. Now on BBC News it is time for
:00:14. > :00:18.HARDtalk. From global media baron to
:00:18. > :00:24.convicted criminals serving time in a Florida prison, the remarkable
:00:24. > :00:28.rise and fall of Conrad Black, it has made full use of lurid
:00:28. > :00:35.headlines, not least in the newspapers that he used to our own.
:00:35. > :00:40.Now Conrad Black is a free man out to rebuild his reputation on both
:00:40. > :00:50.sides of the Atlantic. After a turbulent decade, is he a changed
:00:50. > :01:12.
:01:12. > :01:17.man? Conrad Black, Lord Blyth, welcome
:01:18. > :01:24.to HARDtalk. You have had an amazing few years, full of bitter
:01:24. > :01:32.legal battles, and the best part of three years in a US prison. How has
:01:32. > :01:41.the experience changed do? Significantly, I think so. I
:01:41. > :01:51.consider live to be a privilege in every form. Even though my
:01:51. > :01:51.
:01:51. > :01:58.circumstances were much changed, there were still interest. I had to
:01:58. > :02:05.undergo a process, that I had been falsely accused and falsely
:02:05. > :02:10.convicted, the fact that I knew it had happene had happenenot prepare me
:02:11. > :02:15.but I got through it best I can. Falsely accused and falsely
:02:15. > :02:20.imprisoned, those are notions that I would like to test. But before I
:02:20. > :02:24.test them, I would like to spend some time considering the rise of
:02:24. > :02:29.Conrad Black. I want to know why you chose to exercise all your
:02:29. > :02:33.energy and you dry up in the newspaper industry. It was not your
:02:33. > :02:41.family's business. Why were you so determined to become a global
:02:41. > :02:46.player in newspapers? My greatest interest was in the newspaper
:02:46. > :02:53.business, and the reason was because about time, and we are
:02:53. > :02:59.going back, many years ago, more than 40 years, in the late 60s, at
:02:59. > :03:09.that time, it was a very good business as a business. It had 20%
:03:09. > :03:13.margin, pre-tax profit on total turnover, and that is quite a
:03:13. > :03:20.handsome return for a business. It was not really labour intensive,
:03:20. > :03:24.you had plenty of personnel, but it was not overly labour intensive,
:03:24. > :03:29.like the retail business, and it was not terribly capital intensive
:03:29. > :03:34.as well. You had to buy new presses every 20 years, but you did not
:03:34. > :03:39.have to constantly renew it. And beyond that, it was the news, and
:03:39. > :03:47.by definition it was interesting. It brought you in contact with news
:03:47. > :03:51.makers. You had a ringside seat on everything. There was a financial
:03:51. > :03:55.proposition that you found attractive, and to build this
:03:55. > :04:02.empire, you acquired newspapers right across the globe, but it
:04:02. > :04:07.brought to something else, the proximity to power. Not just power,
:04:07. > :04:11.but interesting people. A lot of them are not powerful but they have
:04:11. > :04:20.done interesting things. When you brought the Daily Telegraph, you
:04:20. > :04:27.said you had finally a meaningful political voice. That is true.
:04:27. > :04:32.it ego? It is a rather truncated description. But one can enjoy it
:04:32. > :04:37.for reasons other than ego. It is not that I thought, and no way in
:04:37. > :04:43.my book that you will find any suggestions of it, but I thought I
:04:43. > :04:48.had any great power, but it is undoubtedly interesting in a way,
:04:48. > :04:57.and not a describable way, satisfying to know that you had
:04:57. > :05:00.access. When you dined with prime ministers... but I was never
:05:00. > :05:10.distracted into the delusion that it conferred any great power on to
:05:10. > :05:14.
:05:14. > :05:23.myself. Very rarely did I any desert any influence on anybody. --
:05:23. > :05:31.exert. But you will not be stand back newspaper proprietor. That is
:05:31. > :05:35.a complete fraud. That is like the head of a company is saying that he
:05:35. > :05:40.is not concerned with the quality of the product. I said as long as
:05:40. > :05:44.we separate opinion from comment, and as we make the paper
:05:44. > :05:54.interesting, you would have my absolute support, and not one of my
:05:54. > :05:58.editors would say that I embark a varied that support. You speak of
:05:58. > :06:04.Max Hastings, I called him once at ten minutes to midnight. He
:06:04. > :06:11.exaggerates. He said the best cure to mental depression was a cup of
:06:11. > :06:16.tea. I want to tease out the rise of Conrad Black. You had acquired
:06:16. > :06:21.more newspapers, you were making big profits, the turnover of the
:06:21. > :06:27.group was $2 billion, and then things started to go wrong. Profits
:06:27. > :06:32.were down, investment was down. And yet as we now know, and that brings
:06:32. > :06:36.us to the legal battles that to Ford, the payments be received by
:06:36. > :06:41.you, Conrad Black, from various financial vehicles, were
:06:41. > :06:46.extraordinary high, into the millions and millions of dollars.
:06:46. > :06:56.That raised amount -- alarm bells from the minority shareholders.
:06:56. > :07:06.never made more than $2.5 million. It is not excessive for a $2
:07:06. > :07:09.
:07:09. > :07:14.billion company. It is not a change. I did not say it was chump change.
:07:15. > :07:24.You were paying yourself an awful lot of money. Just of options of
:07:24. > :07:32.stock. Don't imagine that they were living on skid row. I have been in
:07:32. > :07:36.lifestyle like yours, with the private jets, the mansions in
:07:36. > :07:42.different locations, and they are high profile extravagance which
:07:42. > :07:47.made newspaper headlines around the world. You loved all of it. No. I
:07:47. > :07:52.do not like any reference to extravagance. The private planes
:07:52. > :08:01.were not private, the company had two, and I used one of them. But so
:08:01. > :08:06.did editors and employees. I did not use them exclusively. There was
:08:06. > :08:11.a great deal of hyperbole in certain sections of the media. I
:08:11. > :08:18.find that kind of discussion, I know that you asked me the
:08:18. > :08:22.questions, but I find that kind of discussion to be extremely vulgar.
:08:23. > :08:26.I do not think that shareholders would regarded as vulgar to inquire
:08:26. > :08:33.that the fact you were using those players for your own personal use
:08:33. > :08:39.was legitimate. That was a real concern. The total net cost of the
:08:39. > :08:47.planes, the one plai we hat
:08:47. > :08:50.we had newspapers in �120 in the Geographic Society would not have
:08:50. > :08:55.head the head of National Geographic
:08:55. > :09:01.magazine would not have heard of any of them any of them them
:09:01. > :09:06.on United Airlines. The plain that I sometimes used, cost the company
:09:06. > :09:11.perhaps $1 million a year. I was not the only used up. Far from it.
:09:11. > :09:20.We had a $400 million pre-tax profit. Let's keep things in
:09:20. > :09:25.to live with the perception, that began with began with tigation
:09:25. > :09:29.commissioned by your own company, it went through US federal criminal
:09:29. > :09:33.investigators, it went through the courts, to the Supreme Court, back
:09:33. > :09:38.to an appeals court, there has been a constant drip of allegations
:09:38. > :09:43.against you, many of them were ultimately not turned into criminal
:09:43. > :09:51.charges, that at the end of all of this, you sit here as a convicted
:09:51. > :09:59.criminal. That is the trip. No, it is not and I will tell you why. In
:09:59. > :10:05.the first place, let us take note of the $500 million... it takes
:10:05. > :10:15.down -- it comes down to the rejection by jurors. And the
:10:15. > :10:17.
:10:17. > :10:23.spurious retrieval by a judge in such -- Chicago of $285,000. That
:10:23. > :10:27.money, it is uncontested, it was approved by the audit committee,
:10:27. > :10:33.are approved by the directors, part of a much larger profit that the
:10:33. > :10:37.company made as a result of my actions, was received by its office,
:10:37. > :10:46.and I was assured by the senior legal officer out that it was
:10:46. > :10:53.lawful, and it was fully publicised and highlighted in the filings.
:10:53. > :10:59.problem that you have, as I ended in my previous statement, was that
:10:59. > :11:04.you are a convicted criminal. And you said no. The reason I said no,
:11:04. > :11:10.is to fold, I requested to be judged on the basis of what the law
:11:10. > :11:18.would decid would decidWith respect, that is irrelevant. You
:11:18. > :11:22.chose to do business in the US. Implicitly, you must abide by the
:11:22. > :11:32.laws of the land. And Nelson Mandela at lives in South Africa.
:11:32. > :11:37.
:11:37. > :11:45.Would you call him a convicted criminal? And you feel that you
:11:45. > :11:51.work living in North Korea, as how they approach to the rule of law?
:11:51. > :11:58.90% are settled on a plea. The 3% that are trialled, 85% of them are
:11:58. > :12:03.in dictions. People receive four times as great... that will not
:12:03. > :12:09.stand up in any court of law. The basis for your innocence? I will
:12:09. > :12:13.tell you the basis for my innocence. If these matters occurred in this
:12:14. > :12:20.country, no charges would have been laid, the same in Canada. The
:12:20. > :12:29.second thing, if it had been vacated by the High Court
:12:29. > :12:35.unanimously, they would not have remanded into the same people, the
:12:35. > :12:40.instruction to look at the grave city of their own areas. -- gravity.
:12:40. > :12:46.I agree on its face and that it was a conviction... it leaves you with
:12:46. > :12:51.a criminal record and are able to enter the US. That is the reality
:12:51. > :12:55.that to appear are able to deal with. You have to accept that if
:12:55. > :13:02.you are going to answer the questions, my presence here is
:13:02. > :13:08.irrelevant. I can deal with it, but I expect the status to change.
:13:08. > :13:16.Three, the case that remains of it, is still under appeal. Of course it
:13:16. > :13:21.is under appeal. You never give up. Why should I, I am innocent.
:13:21. > :13:26.stand before me not as an innocent man but a convicted criminal. It is
:13:26. > :13:32.the psychology that I am interested in. Let me ask you something that
:13:32. > :13:37.is relevant to what you are asking me. Let's say for a moment that I
:13:37. > :13:43.actually broke the law, but what is the idea? I served three years in a
:13:43. > :13:49.US prison, so I am not a criminal any more. You still had a criminal
:13:49. > :13:55.record. If you actually believe all the buck, and no Americans do,
:13:55. > :13:59.because they know how the system works, it is this insane head boy
:13:59. > :14:04.it using trainers that I encounter in this country. The British know
:14:04. > :14:11.that the US is a half-mad country, they know how corrupt the justice
:14:11. > :14:16.system is, why am I being confronted with this? If it is a
:14:16. > :14:23.half-mad country, with a legal system akin to North Korea, why did
:14:23. > :14:30.you embrace it? You have a palatial home in Florida, you had a home in
:14:30. > :14:35.New York. You appear to relish life in this land which you now...
:14:35. > :14:40.a great country, the fact that it has prosecuted me. North Korea is
:14:40. > :14:46.not a great country. The legal systems are the same, but not in
:14:46. > :14:50.any other ways. Do you believe the legal system is rotten in the core,
:14:50. > :14:55.you would not have invested tens of millions of dollars in businesses
:14:55. > :14:58.that were fundamental to you and your shareholders. It would have
:14:58. > :15:08.been utterly irresponsible. If I had known how corrupt the legal
:15:08. > :15:13.system was, I would not have I just wonder, perhaps on a
:15:13. > :15:18.philosophical level, as you sat in prison, you had plenty of time to
:15:19. > :15:26.think. I wonder if you were thinking about other mistakes that
:15:26. > :15:33.you made. Beyond a certain point, you will appreciate that it is not
:15:34. > :15:36.a legitimate thing for the BBC to ask me that. I have confessions to
:15:36. > :15:42.make and unmake them to authorised professionals indiscreet
:15:42. > :15:49.circumstances. -- and I make them. I believe in confession and I
:15:49. > :15:53.believe in the punishment of crime. I also believe it when people have
:15:53. > :15:59.paid the legally approved penalty, that is the end of that. They
:15:59. > :16:05.should stop being badgered. What about reflecting on shareholders?
:16:05. > :16:10.Let me tell you something, brother. They had a flourishing company for
:16:10. > :16:14.two years after I left. The you are seeing the collapse of Hollinger
:16:14. > :16:20.had nothing to do with you. The I ran a good company and nobody
:16:20. > :16:25.disputes that. Do you regard it as a mistake that you gave up your
:16:25. > :16:29.Canadian citizenship? You used some words which infuriated you fellow-
:16:29. > :16:35.countryman. You said that Canada had become a trap for you and it
:16:35. > :16:42.had become an impediment to your progress. Do you regret that?
:16:43. > :16:48.I have made amends for it. It is more complicated than that. Can I
:16:48. > :16:54.Finnish answer to the previous question? Abul put them together. -
:16:54. > :17:01.- Finnish answer. I will put them together. I did contemplate,
:17:01. > :17:06.naturally, as any sane person would, what mistakes I had made. If I had
:17:06. > :17:11.not made any, I would not have been there. I made mistakes to be there.
:17:11. > :17:16.I am not trying to catch you out but I would be fascinated to know
:17:16. > :17:20.what you regard as a mistake. too much trust in a partner could
:17:20. > :17:25.turn date to be criminal and they could not have known that. I did
:17:25. > :17:30.not know how dangerous the legal system was. I was naive. I thought
:17:30. > :17:33.there was no problem and that would be the end of it. They tore the
:17:33. > :17:37.place apart and fattened up the legal fees and destroyed the
:17:38. > :17:42.company. That is what normally happens. I made a number of
:17:42. > :17:47.mistakes. I did not take the corporate government seriously. It
:17:47. > :17:51.is essentially a fraud but I did not realise it had great currency
:17:51. > :17:56.and could severely disrupt my ability to run the company. All of
:17:56. > :18:02.those were mistakes. The message is, you were naive. Nothing more than
:18:02. > :18:07.that. I committed no ethical or legal errors. I asked you about
:18:07. > :18:11.Canada. You give up your citizenship. You wanted to come
:18:11. > :18:17.here. You could not do that without giving up citizenship. The manner
:18:17. > :18:22.in which she did it infuriated Canadians. More than 60 % said they
:18:22. > :18:27.do not want you to become a citizen again. You are referring to one
:18:27. > :18:31.poll in a newspaper that I never did own that said 68 % of people
:18:31. > :18:36.were opposed to what was put as a question that was never in fact on
:18:36. > :18:40.offer as an alternative. You said I should not be allowed back in the
:18:40. > :18:46.country. Do you think that the British public would be comfortable
:18:46. > :18:52.with the notion of using in your seat in the UK house of Lords?
:18:52. > :18:56.Playing a role in the British legislative process. I come back to
:18:56. > :19:02.it, on the record, in the United States, you have a criminal record.
:19:02. > :19:06.Do the British people want that? think if they knew the facts they
:19:06. > :19:11.would be comfortable. Unless it was pushed in their faces in a rather
:19:11. > :19:16.exaggerated way by the British media then they would not much care.
:19:16. > :19:23.Why should they care? It is academic. I would have no thought
:19:23. > :19:26.of trying to play any role in the House of Lords unless controversy
:19:26. > :19:32.and emotion had subsided and there was a general comfort level about
:19:32. > :19:39.this. Let's face it, 90 % of people don't care about me and why should
:19:39. > :19:44.they? If I was a resident here, -- unless I was a resident here, I
:19:44. > :19:51.could not come flitting in and out. Also, if I ceased to be, as they
:19:51. > :19:56.have been because of this persecution in the United States,
:19:56. > :19:59.distracted from these problems. I only know the names of about six to
:19:59. > :20:03.seven of the cabinet secretaries. I used to know all these people. I
:20:03. > :20:07.was involved. Before I would consider thinking I could think in
:20:07. > :20:12.these terms, I would have to be back here but everything settled
:20:12. > :20:16.down and know what I am talking about. You said you used to know
:20:16. > :20:24.these guys. I wonder where the meaning of your life lies now. You
:20:24. > :20:32.were such a driven man to get into newspapers. What drives you now?
:20:32. > :20:37.am and relaunch mode. You come back from it. I was officiously -- I was
:20:37. > :20:42.viciously, murderously assaulted. You will never go back into
:20:42. > :20:49.newspapers. It is not a vibrant industry these days. You will not
:20:49. > :20:55.go back to the top table of the political elite. What will you do?
:20:55. > :21:00.I am disappointed with politicians. In all my time, only three or four
:21:00. > :21:07.made a difference. This has flourished my time as a writer. It
:21:07. > :21:12.has not damaged mac talents as a financier. Disappointed by
:21:12. > :21:17.politicians is an interested -- interesting phrase. I don't expect
:21:17. > :21:23.things from them. You expected from George W Bush. You thought you
:21:23. > :21:28.could call in some chips. You had supported them. It never happened.
:21:28. > :21:33.It was supported by his father. His father gave it to him. Your request
:21:33. > :21:39.for a pardon? It was supported by a number of other people. They told
:21:39. > :21:43.me that something could be done. ignored due? He did not reject it.
:21:43. > :21:50.He did not do anything. What does that tell you about the alliance's
:21:50. > :21:55.and friendships you thought you had? That is a general question.
:21:55. > :21:58.Most people I thought were friends. 95 % of the people, including
:21:58. > :22:04.prominent people in this country that they thought were friends,
:22:04. > :22:09.have been magnificent. If Mitt Romney were to win the presidency,
:22:09. > :22:15.would you like to see him offer you a pardon? Is it something you might
:22:15. > :22:21.expect? I would not expect a pardon. You cannot go to the United States
:22:21. > :22:26.unless something happens. The way I had been treated, I cannot. I would
:22:26. > :22:36.face up but with fortitude and courage. America is a great world.
:22:36. > :22:38.
:22:38. > :22:46.What I think will happen, and I won't predict that time, booby the
:22:47. > :22:51.decision by the home and security department, I am not a person of
:22:51. > :22:58.such moral turpitude is to be a threat to American society. That is
:22:58. > :23:03.the recommendation of the court in due cackle and on my prohibition. -
:23:03. > :23:09.- the court in Chicago. I do not care about a pardon. I hope to win
:23:09. > :23:14.my appeal. If I do not, I deliver the verdict. I will publish more
:23:14. > :23:23.akin to that. -- I will live with the verdict. As far as I am
:23:23. > :23:29.concerned, I won that battle. final thought, not so long ago, you
:23:29. > :23:33.were a guy could tick away from 500,000 holidays by a corporate jet
:23:33. > :23:38.to far-flung islands. -- who took your wife away. I am trying to
:23:38. > :23:45.destroy your lifestyle. And the recent past, you had to clean out
:23:45. > :23:50.of prison toilet. A shower stall. I never cleaned the latrine. I stand
:23:50. > :23:58.corrected. As a result what happened to you, are you a humbler
:23:58. > :24:02.man? I hope so. Do you think? hope so. I think so. I don't want
:24:02. > :24:07.to be in the position of moral a signing my own expense account. I
:24:07. > :24:14.try. I do my best. I am a conscientious Christian who tries
:24:14. > :24:18.to be a decent person. I am not under the illusion I am the nicest