We turned to politics, where he was equally incendiary about the Tea Party.
‘Has Obama’s election helped the process of eradicating racism in America?’
‘No, it’s made it worse. Look at the Tea Partiers, who are controlling the Republican party. Their policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term.
‘What underlines that? Screw the country. We’re going to do whatever we need to do to get this black man out of here.’
‘But it’s not necessarily a racist thing …’
‘It is a racist thing.’
‘Does it unnerve you that the Tea Party is gaining such traction?’
‘Yes, it shows the weak, dark underside of America. We’re supposed to be better than that. That’s why people were in tears when Obama was elected. This is America, you know? And then it started turning, because these [Tea Partiers] surfaced, stirring up muddy water.’
The last tense seconds before I go head-to-head with America’s public enemy number one – Iranian President Ahmadinejad.
CHAPTER 6
THURSDAY, 22 SEPTEMBER 2011
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wins most polls in America for ‘Most Dangerous Man Alive’ now that Osama bin Laden has been killed.
His annual visit to the United Nations General Assembly in New York follows a familiar pattern: he makes a long, ranting speech about how dreadful America is, a load of delegates walk out and the US media go crazy.
Ahmadinejad’s outrageous outbursts in the past have included claims that the Holocaust never happened, 9/11 was an inside job and there are no gays in Iran.
Today I was invited to meet him after his speech, along with a small group of twenty or so other US media figures. It was originally going to be off the record, then they changed their minds and allowed in cameras.
It was an extraordinary ninety minutes.
Ahmadinejad is a small, unassuming-looking man. He arrived, flashed a sheepish grin, praised God liberally, thanked us all for coming, and then invited questions.
His answers were detailed, forceful, provocative, defiant and occasionally downright offensive.
Asked by my CNN colleague Wolf Blitzer if he still thought there were no gays in Iran, Ahmadinejad fired off a lengthy homophobic tirade about ‘this ugly deed’.
But he was also, to my surprise, quick-witted and at times – like many dictators – disarmingly charming.
I kept my own question simple. ‘Mr President, could you tell me what your biggest mistakes have been in your presidency?’
He smirked. ‘I will make a list and make it available to you at the end of the meeting.’
‘Well, how about giving me the top three now?’ I persisted.
He stared straight into my eyes. ‘One of them is that I got to meet you quite late in the game,’ he said, and chuckled.
‘Maybe we should have met earlier,’ I replied. ‘The reason I’m asking is that former Vice President Dick Cheney recently wrote a book about his eight years running America and didn’t admit to any mistakes. I’m curious as to whether you’re prepared to admit you’re not so perfect.’
He dropped his smile. ‘I never pretend to be completely free of errors. See, there are a limited number of people who make no mistakes, and those are people like the Prophet of Islam, Jesus Christ, Moses, and some of their followers and successors. Everyone else makes mistakes. I’m just one of those many. But I will certainly make a list, for you specifically – my memoirs for when my service is over …’
The room broke into laughter (a remarkable thing when hard-bitten journalists were trying very hard not to even smile in his presence with cameras watching).
From that moment on, I became, rather disconcertingly, his go-to man for a quick laugh. Ahmadinejad answered several other questions with, ‘As I was saying to my good friend Piers Morgan, I’m not perfect …’
I came away from the meeting with a much better understanding of the man, though, which was useful.
I’d say that Ahmadinejad’s not as mad as people think, and that he says everything in America, however controversial, for deliberate effect, and to rally support with his own people back home. He was also better briefed than I expected on world affairs, albeit slanting his responses to suit his own political agenda.
When asked about Iran’s political prisoners, he replied that at least he didn’t have anything like Guantanamo Bay. And when someone quizzed him about ‘Iran’s economic crisis’, he mockingly replied: ‘I don’t think I’ll take lectures on the economy from Americans right now, thank you.’
But on balance, given the intensity of his hateful remarks about the United States and Israel in particular, I’d remain very concerned about Ahmadinejad if I were President Obama or Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Not a man you’d trust with the family silver, as they’d say on Downton Abbey.
MONDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER 2011
I was having a quiet drink with John tonight at the Mandarin when a woman approached our table and said, ‘Mr Morgan, there’s a man over there who would like to meet you.’
I looked over to see an old guy sitting nearby. He caught my eye and gave a slight wave of his hand. There was something about him that commanded attention. ‘Sure, of course,’ I replied.
She led me over, and introduced us. His name, Clint Hill, meant nothing to me.
‘You may be interested in interviewing me some time,’ he said.
‘Oh, really? Why?’
‘Because I was on President John F. Kennedy’s Secret Service detail team.’
‘You were?’
‘Yes. On the day he died in Dallas.’
I stepped back and took a long hard look at this guy. He was rugged faced, steely eyed, straight backed.
‘Were you with him when he got shot?’
‘I was.’
‘Where?’
‘I was in the car travelling behind the president.’
Now he had my full, transfixed attention.
‘What did you do when the bullets were fired?’
‘I ran from the car behind to the presidential car.’
I suddenly knew exactly who he was.
It is immortalised in one of the most famous, notorious, iconic pieces of video footage in history.
As JFK is shot, a solitary Secret Service agent leaps from the car behind and charges toward his president’s car. He’s seen scrambling aboard the car as the First Lady, Jackie Kennedy, starts to throw herself back on the boot, desperate and screaming, reaching out to him.
The agent tries to comfort her, then stands aboard the back of the car as it races at high speed to the nearest hospital.
I stared at this man again; he looked both proud and sad-eyed now.
‘You were that agent?’
‘I was that agent.’
I felt goose bumps. This man was a piece of history.
‘That must have been a terrible day for you.’
‘It was the worst day of my life.’
‘Do you feel guilty?’
‘The president died on my watch. Of course I feel guilty.’
‘How often do you think about it?’
‘Every day.’
‘Could you have saved him?’
‘I don’t think there’s anything we could have done to stop what happened happening. I wish there had been. If I’d got there a second before, maybe I could have taken the third bullet.’
A tear appeared in his eye.
‘Do you believe in any of the conspiracy theories?’
‘No. I think the president was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, who acted alone.’
He spent four years protecting Jackie Kennedy (she had been Hill’s specific charge that day) before and after the assassination, and is now writing a book about his extraordinary experience.
‘What was Jackie like?’
‘She was a wonderful woman, I loved her.’
Another tear.
MONDAY, 3 OC
TOBER 2011
Amanda Knox has been dramatically freed by an Italian court, after successfully appealing against her conviction for murdering British student Meredith Kercher.
I knew Meredith’s journalist father, John, when I worked at the Mirror.
He used to file foreign desk stories with us, and was a thoroughly decent man. I can only imagine the new emotional torment he and his family are enduring since the verdict came in.
Bad enough having your daughter killed in such a brutal fashion, let alone not knowing who did it.
I can’t decide what to make of this case, other than noting that most Americans, driven by their partisan media coverage about it, believe Knox to be completely innocent.
And most Brits, driven by our own equally partisan media coverage, believe she either had something to do with the killing or had knowledge of how it happened.
I suspect if Amanda had been British, and Meredith an American, both these viewpoints would have been reversed.
TUESDAY, 18 OCTOBER 2011
I’ve flown to Las Vegas to interview Herman Cain, the surprise new front-runner in the Republican presidential race.
He’s a flamboyant character, a former CEO of the Godfather’s Pizza chain, and the only black face amid all the candidates.
We soon got into a heated debate about social issues.
After he declared homosexuality a ‘sin’ and inferred that gay people aren’t born gay, I said: ‘You genuinely believe millions of Americans wake up in their late teens and go, “You know what, I quite fancy being a homosexual”?’
‘You haven’t given me any evidence to convince me otherwise, and nor has anyone else,’ he replied in all seriousness.
‘My gut instinct tells me it has to be a natural thing.’
‘OK, so it’s your gut instinct against my gut instinct. That being said, I respect their right to make that choice. You don’t see me bashing them or anything. I just don’t have to agree with it.’
‘It would be like a gay person saying, Herman, you made a choice to be black?’
‘We know that’s not the case. I was born black. Piers, this doesn’t wash off, I hate to burst your bubble!’
‘I don’t think being a homosexual washes off.’
‘Well, maybe. This is just my opinion.’
We moved on to abortion.
‘I believe that life begins at conception, and abortion under no circumstances.’
‘No circumstances?’
‘No circumstances.’
But when I asked him if he’d force his own daughter or granddaughter to have a baby in such circumstances, he retorted: ‘You’re mixing two things here, Piers. It’s not the government’s role or anybody else’s role to make that decision. It gets down to a choice that the family or that mother has to make. I can have an opinion on an issue without it being a directive on the nation,’ he continued. ‘The government shouldn’t be trying to tell people everything to do, especially when it comes to social decisions they need to make.’
So he’s pro-life and pro-choice.
Got it.
THURSDAY, 20 OCTOBER 2011
Colonel Gaddafi is dead.
Libyan rebels found him hiding in a sewer pipe, and brutally killed him in a ferocious gunfight.
With sublime irony, the ageing despot’s last words to the rebels were reported to be: ‘What you’re doing is wrong, guys. Do you know what is right or wrong?’
He’d ruled his country since I was four years old, and is the latest victim of this extraordinary despot-deposing Arab Spring.
Exciting though it is to see young, oppressed people rising up to kick out these tyrannical leaders, it’s also very unclear what will follow next.
Nobody really seems to know.
SATURDAY, 22 OCTOBER 2011
A beautiful sunny day in New York, so I decided to go for a coffee in Central Park.
After half an hour or so reading the papers in a delightful café buried in the bowels of the park, I heard a small commotion going on a few yards away from me.
A middle-aged woman with a strong New York accent was berating some guy standing with his son.
‘Do not do that!’ she shrieked.
I looked closer to see what the grave offence could be.
‘Mr Morgan is entitled to his privacy!’ she yelled.
What? The man, who was carrying a camera, looked completely bemused, as did his young son.
So the woman clarified the situation, very loudly: ‘I saw you taking his photo – you shouldn’t do that without asking permission!’
My heart instantly swelled with admiration. This brave, heroic lady had rushed to protect me from a sneaky tourist paparazzo.
Or had she?
The man, who looked and sounded Scandinavian, was shaking his head violently. Then he looked towards me, threw his arms in the air and exclaimed: ‘Who is he?’
I realised this act of valour was about to turn very embarrassing, very fast.
‘Who is he?’ shouted my saviour. ‘Don’t give me that, you know who he is!’
The man stared closer at me, still shaking his head.
‘No, no, I do not.’
‘He’s Piers Morgan from CNN!’
‘Who?’
‘Don’t pretend! You were taking his picture, I saw you!’
The man sighed. ‘No, I was taking photographs of the tree behind him. It is very pretty.’
We all turned to where he was pointing and, sure enough, there was a very attractive tree.
An uncomfortable silence ensued.
And then came the words that typified the never-say-die philosophy of New Yorkers: ‘Well, if you are thinking of taking Mr Morgan’s picture, don’t! OK?’
With that, my heroine stomped off with her yapping terrier. The Scandinavian continued to shake his head, more slowly now. And I sank back in my seat, behind my copy of the New York Times, feeling a slight reddening of humiliation creeping up my neck.
WEDNESDAY, 2 NOVEMBER 2011
I first interviewed Condoleezza Rice for my launch week at CNN back in January, and to say it’s been a busy news year since then is a stunning understatement.
‘Dr Rice,’ I began our second interview tonight. ‘Since we last spoke, we’ve had the Arab Spring uprisings, bin Laden has been killed, Gaddafi has been killed and Mubarak overthrown. There has been the biggest financial crisis we’ve ever seen, and a guy who used to sell pizzas leading your party’s chance to take on the president.’
She nodded. ‘It’s been a busy several months, that’s right!’
Of all the US politicians I’ve met this year, I’d rate Dr Rice near the top in terms of intellect. She also has a warm charm that wasn’t always obvious from her usually stern appearances as Secretary of State under President George W. Bush.
Hardly surprising, then, that she attracted many male admirers. Unfortunately, one of the most ardent turned out to be Colonel Gaddafi.
After he fled his compound, soldiers found a scrapbook he’d kept on his beloved Condoleezza. And she confirmed today that when she once paid an official visit to him in Libya, he played her a video featuring a staggeringly inappropriate song called ‘Black Flower in the White House’.
‘I had actually known that he had this fixation on me,’ she admitted. ‘A couple of foreign ministers had told me. It was all weird and a bit creepy.’
MONDAY, 7 NOVEMBER 2011
Dr Conrad Murray has been convicted of the involuntary manslaughter of Michael Jackson.
It was the right verdict.
Murray didn’t mean to kill Jackson, but he was grossly negligent in the way he administered drugs to him.
One of the jurors explained afterwards that they found him guilty for three reasons: 1) he took far too long to call the emergency services; 2) he had no back-up equipment at the house for such an emergency; and 3) he left Jackson alone in a room after pumping him with the super-strong sedative Propofol.
The truth is that Jackson’s life prob
ably could have been saved if Murray had not committed these three cardinal sins of medical practice.
And for that, he must now pay the price.
TUESDAY, 8 NOVEMBER 2011
A fascinating day in D.C., during which I interviewed two iconic American political figures – Newt Gingrich and Colin Powell.
Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the house, is now running for president and gaining momentum in the polls. He’s a real political bruiser, and doesn’t suffer fools. When I tried suggesting that the reality of politics is that he’s being perceived as the ‘anti-Mitt’ candidate, he scoffed: ‘I’ve been involved with politics since 1958, I helped grow the modern Republican party of Georgia, and you’re explaining to me the reality of politics!’
But we bonded well after that, and he gave me one of the more memorable answers to one of my favourite questions, ‘What’s been the greatest moment of your life?’
‘Oh, on the Serengeti Plain. Watching two cheetahs who have just finished eating an antelope, sitting up on this rock, sunning themselves. An extraordinary thing.’
‘Extending the metaphor, you seeing antelope, Barack Obama, cheetah, Newt Gingrich?’
He smirked.
General Powell is a beloved figure in America – his military service alone would qualify him for that, as he was one of the country’s great modern generals.
But his time serving as secretary of state under George W. Bush propelled him into global superstardom.
It was Powell, of course, who was tasked with selling to a sceptical world the ‘proof’ about Saddam Hussein’s WMD arsenal to justify war in Iraq – something he now admits was based on completely false information.
‘Did you feel you were used in some way?’ I asked.
He thought for several seconds.
‘No. But when I realised that a considerable part of the intelligence was wrong, and we should have known it was wrong, I felt terrible.’
Powell is a good man. And I think he was used.
WEDNESDAY, 9 NOVEMBER 2011
We’ve spent the last few weeks negotiating with Mickey Rourke’s ‘people’ – trying to fix up an interview with him.
Mickey doesn’t care for the normal behavioural niceties of Hollywood. This was a city that built him up, then spat him out and left him to fend, almost literally, with the wolves. He owes it nothing, and cares not for its hypocrisy and self-pretence.
Shooting Straight: Guns, Gays, God, and George Clooney Page 15
