The History of the Times

by Graham Stewart

  On 11 September 2001, the principal leader writers were enjoying lunch with the independent directors of the Times Newspapers Holdings Board when news was brought to Les Hinton, the company’s executive chairman, that there had been an attack on the heart of America. Hinton broke the news to his guests. Apologizing, the leader writers cast aside their napkins and made their way as promptly as decorum allowed out of the dining room. When they returned to their office it was to discover that a succession of hijacked planes had slammed into the Pentagon in Washington DC, and both towers of the World Trade Center in New York.

  Another journalist who would not easily forget where he was when the news broke was The Times’s new US editor, Nicholas Wapshott. Inconveniently, he was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. He had opted for the majestic leisureliness of taking up his duties by arriving in America with his family on the QE2. For The Times, this was potentially a disaster. The outgoing US editor, Ben MacIntyre, had already departed and now his replacement was quite literally all at sea. Managing to telephone Wapping from on board, Wapshott announced that he would file from the ship, only to discover that the office had decided he could not be of much practical use. Matters for the new US editor then got worse. Rather than docking in the lea of Manhattan, the QE2 was diverted to Canada, drifting him yet further away from the action. Nor was Wapshott the only Times journalist caught off guard by al-Qaeda’s lightning strike. Having spent the previous three years reporting Westminster politics, Roland Watson was in his first fortnight as the paper’s new Washington correspondent and, like George W. Bush, was down in the Deep South when news of the attack broke. Unlike the President, Watson did not have Air Force One to whisk him away and, with all flights grounded because of the emergency, he had to drive as fast as he could to New York in time to cover the aftermath. En route, he checked into a motel room near Savannah, Georgia where he set up a temporary office to file copy to Wapping. The motel receptionist became suspicious of the stressed looking guest who was feverishly trying to place calls, was receiving faxes about missile defence and refused to let an employee into his room to change the towel. Listening at the door she thought she overheard him saying something like ‘Falcon thirty-one secure’. She called the FBI.59

  It was James Bone who saved The Times from the humiliation of having no staff reporter in situ to cover one of the most dramatic news stories in living memory. By chance, he had been several streets away – just emerging from a newsagent – when the first plane cruised into the north tower of the World Trade Center and was an eyewitness as the flames licked down it. Twenty minutes later, he stared in disbelief as the southern tower was hit. He watched as helpless souls jumped from the inferno to their certain deaths, and this proved the starting point for his report that led The Times the following day. He conveyed the unfolding horror, quoted witnesses and reported everything that could be seen at the time without the temptation to coat it with grandiloquent prose. It was not a story that needed varnishing. While those around him turned to get away, Bone knew he had to get as close as possible. He explained how, ‘immediately after the two attacks, thousands of people streamed north up Broadway to get away. As I struggled against them I recognised something in the smell of the debris and smoke.’ He watched as the towers crumbled to the ground, rumbling and engulfing the scattering crowds in a pall of smoke.60 The pictures told the rest of the story. Bone maintained a tone of straight, factual reporting that could only be described as immensely professional. Having been almost caught out, The Times ended up having one of the best eyewitness reports of any newspaper.

  Inevitably, graphic photographs dominated the paper. The Times, like most of its competitors, opted to dominate the front page with the image of the explosion at the moment of impact between plane and tower. On inside pages, Michael Binyon and Richard Beeston, the diplomatic editor, provided a profile of the immediate chief suspect, Osama bin Laden. News of the catastrophe and its implications appeared on pages one to six, augmented by a twenty-four-page special supplement with further comment and analysis provided in T2. There, Sandra Parsons and her team wrestled impressively with an even shorter deadline, helped by the extraordinary literary velocity of Giles Whittell who had just returned from his posting in Moscow. In the space of an afternoon, the entire newspaper was rewritten. Never in its history had The Times been forced to change and expand so much of its content in so little time.

  Indeed, if a newspaper’s mettle is tested by its response in a moment of acute flux and crisis, The Times passed with honours. The tone remained calm, serious and devoid of hysteria or hyperbole. The leading article stretched the length of the page and avoided repetition, dim cliché or hot-headedness. It and its successor the following day called for the US to retaliate in a manner that would retain the world’s sympathy. It did not rule out an invasion of Afghanistan if attempts failed to persuade the Taleban to hand bin Laden over, but it suspected that ‘unless an attack killed bin Laden and the great majority of his followers, it could do more harm than good’. However distasteful Islamic fundamentalism might be, ‘religious revivalism does not in itself imperil others. The distinction must be drawn between fundamentalism and the Islamist extremists whose weapons include terror.’61

  ‘Good will prevail over evil’ ran the front-page headline for 13 September as horror gave way to resilience. Articles by Ehud Barak, Michael Portillo and the former presidential hopeful Gary Hart framed the Op-Ed page. As evocative as any sentiment was the Peter Brookes cartoon. It bore no comment, just a drawing of the world. It was upside down. Over the following days, The Times continued to provide strong and comprehensive coverage, with text on the news pages interspersed with short ‘brief lives’ of those mostly unknown but to their friends, family and God. Their hopes and aspirations were listed. One story after another spoke understatedly of the decency and quiet heroism of ordinary people.

  On 14 September, President Bush declared a war on terror. Bin Laden was the prime suspect and the first target. So began the period of diplomatic and military build-up that was to create a new special relationship between Bush and Blair. Philip Webster travelled more than forty thousand miles with the Prime Minister on his trans-global mission in the month following the attacks. Attention switched to the best means of prosecuting this new kind of war. In 1998, President Clinton had responded to the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam embassy attacks by launching cruise missiles against supposed al-Qaeda bases in Sudan. These had clearly proved not much of a deterrent. Yet, given the Soviet army’s experience in Afghanistan, invading the mountainous and unforgiving country to flush bin Laden out of his base was a potentially costly and perhaps disastrous option. Against this drawback had to be weighed the risk to the world’s only superpower being seen as too impotent even to prevent a third-world theocracy from entertaining the most wanted criminal on the planet. For The Times’s leader writers this was a crucial point and consequently there was unanimity among them that the war on terror would have to be prosecuted even if it meant a ground invasion of Afghanistan. The counterblast was provided by Simon Jenkins. The prospect of waging a war on terror disheartened him. It is a ‘small wonder’, he wrote, ‘that Mr Bush and Mr Blair react by declaring a Hundred Years’ War on an abstract noun’.62 Writing within hours of the 9/11 attacks for the following day’s paper, he expressed his outrage as strongly as every other journalist at the mass murder by the terrorists but questioned the wisdom of retaliation. Throughout his period as one of The Times’s foremost columnists, he had preached the doctrine of avoiding military engagement in conflicts for which there was no clear viable solution. He was not going to change his mind now. ‘To react to an atrocity by abandoning the customary self-control of democracy is to help the terrorist to do his work,’ he maintained. For all its barbarity, al-Qaeda’s attack on America ‘does not tilt the balance of world power one inch. It is not an act of war … Maturity lies in learning to live, and sometimes die, with the madmen.’63

  The Times, however, like the Pen
tagon and the MoD, was soon preparing for war. At the very least, this involved removing the Taleban from power and, if possible, trapping bin Laden and his supporters there before they could flee. The campaign would not only be expensive for its prosecutors but also for newspapers which were struggling to cope with the budget-shrinking effects of the deepening recession in the advertising market. As Stothard recognized, The Times had no option but to provide comprehensive coverage regardless of the cost. Citing the tenacity of those fighting for their faith, the difficulty of the terrain and the grim experience of successive invaders, including the Russians, there was no shortage of experts prophesying disaster. Yet none of the critics satisfied The Times’s leader writers that there was an alternative means of ridding Afghanistan of the Taleban and their notorious guest.

  It quickly became clear that the war’s critical experts had misunderstood American tactics. Unlike the Russians, the Americans were not proposing a massed invasion with the intention of conquering the country themselves. Rather, their objective was ‘regime change’ in Kabul with the fighting on the ground carried out by the tribes of the Northern Alliance. Small detachments of British and American special forces would assist the Northern Alliance’s efforts and provide laser-targeting for what would be America’s major contribution – precision aerial bombing of Taleban and al-Qaeda positions. The critics’ point had been that the Soviets had got bogged down fighting a wily and formidable foe, the mujahidin, yet the Anglo-American plan was to enlist and bribe these very fighters to win for them. There were two potential pitfalls with this strategy. The tribes and rival warlords of the Northern Alliance had a history of mutual acrimony. Their internal hatreds were one of the reasons they had lost so much of the country to the Taleban in the first place. They had been fighting the Taleban for six years and during that time had suffered continuous reverses. The second problem was that, while they might be able to regain the initiative in their northern Tajik heartlands, it was assumed they would meet stern resistance from the Pashtun peoples of the south. The Pashtuns were far more supportive of the Taleban. The third problem was articulated by Simon Jenkins:

  I hope the word ethical never again crosses the lips of a British government minister. Not in modern history can Britain have forged a public alliance with such unsavoury characters as Abdul Rashid Dostum, Abdul Malik, Ismail Khan, Mohammad Ustad Atta and other northerners, mostly financed by heroin. These men have given a new dimension to the word terror.64

  On 7 October, American bombing commenced. Anthony Loyd reported from the Northern Alliance’s lines near Bagram airport, south of Kabul. He could not help thinking, ‘Their morale has improved immensely since their sudden promotion to incidental ally of a superpower.’65 Janine di Giovanni was based at the Northern Alliance’s headquarters. Afghanistan appeared to be a landscape marked out by the landmarks of unending conflict. ‘At the foot of the hill, among the scattering of 100m tank shells and alongside the shadow of a giant T55 tank, are Greek ruins dating from the time of Alexander the Great, the leader of a Western military power that made its mark in Afghanistan 2,300 years ago,’ she wrote with more than a hint of foreboding. ‘Yesterday soldiers from the Northern Alliance took positions behind giant stone urns that once belonged to Queen Hairum to fight yet another battle in Afghanistan.’66

  The defence editor, Michael Evans, provided expert military analysis. Times reporters who were on the receiving end had much to contend with. By early November, Loyd’s level of discomfort worsened under the onslaught of acute dysentery. Janine di Giovanni described how, after seventeen days in Afghanistan, the only bath available to her was a dust bath. ‘The tension here is not just getting the story,’ she admitted. ‘It is the fight for survival – finding a place to sleep, grabbing the first bowl of goat-tasting rice, finding a generator that works to charge your satellite phone.’ The dust swirled ‘into typhoon-like proportions, blinding you, getting in your equipment, making you constantly filthy and irritable.’ The result was a dose of bronchitis, a hacking cough and swollen glands. In this, at least, she was not alone. Surveying a foul-smelling shack where fellow reporters were taking refuge, she compared it to ‘a giant Victorian tuberculosis clinic’.67

  Whatever the travails of the press corps, the war was going extraordinarily well for the Northern Alliance. By 9 November, it had captured the strategically important town of Mazar-i Sharif. The belief that the Taleban had solidly entrenched support in the country was shattered. They too were reliant on the intervention of foreigners to fight their battles. This became apparent to The Times journalist Ian Cobain who was reporting from the Alliance’s positions near Saregh. He watched while ‘two ageing T54 tanks trundled slowly up the side of the escarpment to join in the bombardment and fired round after round into the Taleban positions’. One of the tank commanders shouted with undisguised joy, ‘“These aren’t Afghans I’m killing, they’re all Chechens and Pakistanis.” In Russian, he added: “I’m having a wonderful afternoon.”’68 On 13 November, the Northern Alliance reached the outskirts of Kabul and discovered the Taleban had abandoned their capital.

  The success of the Northern Alliance confounded even the war’s greatest supporters. Indeed, the very speed of their advance worried those who believed a stronger Anglo-American military presence was urgently needed on the ground in order to ensure fair play. Although there were already special service units operating, the first British troops to arrive officially in Afghanistan were not flown in until 16 November. On his own preferred battleground of the Op-Ed page, Simon Jenkins countered that Kabul had been liberated many times and its sense of joy had never lasted long. ‘Afghanistan’s history says that this adventure will end in tears. In Kabul we must fight more than terrorism. We must fight history.’69 Another principal columnist saw events very differently. ‘Sometimes war works,’ concluded Anatole Kaletsky as the news of the Taleban’s flight was digested. He could not resist a dig at all the experts who had insisted the campaign would be a disaster from the first payload being dropped. Ridding Afghanistan of a regime that created more refugees than Rwanda and the Congo combined was a positive good. What was more, the sight of the Taleban running away had destroyed the belief that Islamic fundamentalists were somehow invincible: ‘The sudden collapse of the Taleban has proved more clearly than ever that even Muslim fundamentalists are fundamentally human. They try to be on the winning side. They shun defeat. They respect power. They respond to military force and financial incentives. The defeat of the Taleban has shown to the entire Muslim world that the mullah’s vision of an ultra-orthodox Islamic Utopia is a catastrophic delusion.’70

  There was something else gained by the decision to confront the Taleban: intelligence on al-Qaeda. Wondering through the newly liberated Kabul, Anthony Loyd asked to be directed to where the Arabs had lived. He was pointed towards four houses that had, it transpired, been at the centre of al-Qaeda’s operations. What the looters had left were the most valuable items – documents. The al-Qaeda operatives had left in a hurry. There was evidence that some documents had spilled onto the floor as they attempted to cart them away. An attempt to set fire to the remainder had fizzled out. There was a profusion of letters, military manuals and aircraft magazines. There were Canadian passport applications, notes on how to blow up bridges and how the air-conditioning systems of apartment blocks worked. There were details on how to manufacture the toxic biological agent, ricin. There were also notes on how to detonate a dirty bomb using TNT to compress plutonium into a critical mass in order to ensure a nuclear chain reaction and, ultimately, a thermonuclear reaction. ‘This was only what was left behind by frightened men escaping the advance of the Mujahidin,’ Loyd mused. ‘The sensitive material is still with them.’71

  The war, meanwhile, moved south. A fierce fight took place at Kunduz where the surrounded Taleban made a forlorn stand. They took a pounding. Those that were left surrendered in late November. Kandahar fell, and the last pretence of Taleban rule with it, on 7 December. This war obj
ective secured, the American forces could concentrate on eliminating al-Qaeda’s bases in the mountains around Tora Bora. Bin Laden and his closest associates were believed to be holed up there, somewhere in the underground complex of passageways and caves. Janine di Giovanni moved over to Tora Bora to observer operations, while the American air force began dropping 15,000-pound ‘daisy cutter’ bombs in an attempt to blast out the defenders. By 17 December, however, when the last caves were completely overrun, there was still no sign of bin Laden. Troops continued to comb the area until January, but the assumption was made that he had slipped into northern Pakistan. He would live to fight another day.