The Conrad Black Book Club: A Matter of Principle, Chapter 5 (wherein Black is poor and sends his own faxes)
The press comes down hard on Black as news of his unceremonious ousting from Hollinger becomes public. Blackguard Rupert Murdoch is the prime offender, allegedly whipping up negative ink out of nothing, but Black is most disgruntled by the betrayal of his onetime friend (and former lieutenant governor) Hal Jackman, who publicly smears Black with accusations of a death wish, a Napoleon complex and an “absurd” lifestyle.
Black chalks it all up to anti–corporate governance zealotry and accuses the press of prematurely sentencing him with no evidence (for the record, he acknowledges that convicting the execs at Enron and Worldcom was a probably a good idea). He keeps returning to that one comforting thought: his unflagging honesty will keep him out of trouble (we admit that his optimism is kind of irresistible, but it’s so, so misguided).
Meanwhile, he struggles to keep Hollinger Inc. (the Canadian arm of the company, where he’s still a director) afloat; alas, to no avail. His corporate credit card, expense account and company car are all confiscated, leaving him with no choice but to, uh, use his own credit card and his own car. The horror!
He proceeds to try wrangling the sale of the company to a pair of British identical twin brothers (who, we imagine, sport matching monocles and handlebar moustaches). In the meantime, he gets quietly—but brusquely—fired from his directorships at CanWest, CIBC and Brascan. Of course, he does get a nice goodbye from Galen Weston (who we assume also offers him a lifetime supply of President’s Choice chicken wings).
Jobless and alone, Black realizes he’s dirt poor—his cash supply has dwindled down to a paltry, unmanageable $100,000. He desperately starts selling off his assets (but insists that to this day he has a perfect credit record). The auditors, meanwhile—our old city service review pals, KPMG—muck up his case even further. They originally said the non-competition payments were authorized; now they’ve changed their tune.
After weeks of negotiations and sitting in his library faxing the Barclays all by himself—with no assistance (good for him!)—he finalizes the deal. But the stress has taken its toll. On Conrad, who admits to loneliness and perspiration, and on Barbara, who loses weight, colour and, briefly, command of her senses when she walks three miles in the cold to Don Mills and buys Conrad two combs that he didn’t even need. He didn’t even need the combs, guys.
In the words of the Lord:
• On the venom of the press: “The press, whose members I had always treated with consideration, continued to attack in the vilest and most relentless assault I have seen on anyone entitled to the benefit of any doubt about his conduct. Such reflexive, resonating, widespread antagonism was unnerving and contagious.”
• On becoming a devotee of Charles de Gaulle’s political ideology at age 10: “My francophilia and realization of the impermanence of triumph and disaster, the value of endurance, and the manipulability and forgetfulness of a general opinion dated from these days.”
• On his unfortunate nighttime tendencies: “For the first time in my life, I had night sweats. I was awakened by my racing heart, stirred to acute fear by unremembered dreams.”
• On his return to the commonplace: “It was the last time I would see our corporate airplane…Commercial aviation had been the means of travel for most of my life and I could quickly get used to it again.”
what a great men is conrad
i always admire him
This man does not deserve what has happened to him. The original statements said he stole $hundreds of millions. Then he was charged with only stealing $60 million…not hundreds He was then convicted of stealing just 1% of the $60 million or $600,000 yet he’s in the Guinness Book of records as paying the highest bail amount of anybody in US record. He paid $21 million which was more than Al Capone paid when he was charged. Does that make sense to any intelligent person out there? Just about every newspaper in the US wrote about his big time crimes when in truth the crime really was in the way they wrote about his conviction. They made him out to be such a bad criminal. I’m glad he’s systematically suing then all. Interesting, in all the libel suits so far, he has won them all. Not just some but all! Most have settled out of court and wrote apologies in their newspapers telling the world how stupid they were to assume. This man is good for Canada for he brings life to our otherwise boring/dull country. Of all the crimes he was charged with, he was convicted of the smallest one where the directors weren’t around to approve the deal. The directors approved of all the other ones so if you have a problem then talk to them but don’t call Mr Black on any of those charges. Isn’t this the same thing that Frank Stronach use to say when asked how he could justify a $50 million yearly consulting commission. He’s not guilty for asking and getting it. His board of directors were guilty of corporate neglect for all shareholders for agreeing to it. However,in Black’s case, for the smallest sale, they weren’t available to approve it so they didn’t and he was convicted because he didn’t have their approval. They approved all the rest so why would he not assume they would approve this small deal? The real crime is how the US system can convict a man of something he did in a foreign country. Can anyone answer this? A Canadian judge ordered him not to remove those boxes. Nowhere did a US judge do that yet they convicted him in the US of a crime that took place in Canada. Can US law reach into Canada?? I sure hope not! What about those investigators looking into “the party” where Mr Black charged his company 1/2 of the cost or $20,000. To investigate that party…to justify the $20,000 they spent $100 Million! Where’s the real crime I ask you? Everyone deserves fair treatment and he didn’t get it. He was convicted at the highest levels by individuals who had their own agendas. Canada is poorer without him!
I have to admire Mr Black for going to the US and putting his reputation on the line. I