The Fourth Estate

by Jeffrey Archer

  When they arrived at the New York Tribune building later that afternoon, Armstrong stood on the sidewalk and stared up at the art deco skyscraper. It was love at first sight. When he walked into the lobby and saw the seventeen-foot globe marked with the distance in miles to the world’s capital cities, including London, Moscow and Jerusalem, he proposed. When the hundreds of staff who had crammed into the hall to await his arrival began cheering, the marriage was consummated. However much the best man tried to talk him out of it, he couldn’t stop the signing ceremony taking place.

  Six weeks later Armstrong took possession of the New York Tribune. The headline on the paper’s front page that afternoon told New Yorkers, “DICK TAKES OVER!”

  * * *

  Townsend first heard of Armstrong’s offer to purchase the Tribune for twenty-five cents on the Today show, just as he was about to step into a shower. He stopped and stared down at his rival, slumped in an armchair and wearing a red baseball cap with “The N.Y. Tribune” emblazoned on it.

  “I intend to keep New York’s greatest newspaper on the streets,” he was telling Barbara Walters, “whatever the personal cost to me.”

  “The Star is already on the streets,” said Townsend, as if Armstrong were in the room.

  “And keep the finest journalists in America in a job.”

  “They’re already working for the Star.”

  “And perhaps, if I’m lucky, make a small profit,” Armstrong added, laughing.

  “You’ll have to be very lucky,” said Townsend. “Now ask him how he intends to deal with the unions,” he added, glaring at Barbara Walters.

  “But isn’t there a massive overmanning problem which has beleaguered the Tribune for the past three decades?”

  Townsend left his shower running as he waited to hear the reply. “That may well have been the case in the past, Barbara,” said Armstrong. “But I have made it abundantly clear to all the trade unions concerned that if they won’t accept my proposed cuts in the workforce, I will be left with no choice but to close the paper down once and for all.”

  “How long will you give them?” demanded Townsend.

  “And just how long are you willing to go on losing over a million dollars a week before you carry out that threat?”

  Townsend’s eyes never left the screen.

  “I couldn’t have made my position clearer with the trade union leaders,” Armstrong said firmly. “Six weeks at the outside.”

  “Well, good luck, Mr. Armstrong,” said Barbara Walters. “I look forward to interviewing you again in six weeks’ time.”

  “An invitation I’ll be happy to accept, Barbara,” said Armstrong, touching the peak of his baseball cap. Townsend flicked off the television, threw off his dressing-gown and headed for the shower.

  From that moment he didn’t need to employ anyone to tell him what Armstrong was up to. For an investment of a quarter a day he could be brought up to date by reading the front page of the Tribune. Woody Allen suggested that it would take a plane crash in the middle of Queens to remove Armstrong from the front page of the paper—and even then it would have to be Concorde.

  Townsend was also having his problems with the unions. When the Star came out on strike, the Tribune almost doubled its circulation overnight. Armstrong began to appear on every television channel that would take him, telling New Yorkers that “If you know how to negotiate with the unions, strikes become unnecessary.” The trade union leaders quickly sensed that Armstrong enjoyed being on the front page of the paper and regularly appearing on television, and that he would be loath to close the Tribune down or admit he had failed.

  When Townsend finally settled with the unions, the Star had been off the streets for over two months, and had lost several million dollars. It took him a great deal of his time to rebuild the circulation. The Tribune’s figures, however, weren’t helped by a series of banner headlines telling New Yorkers that “Dick Bites the Big Apple,” “Dick Pitches for Yankees” and “Magic Dick Shoots a Basket for the Knicks.” But these appeared humble when the troops came back from the Gulf and the city gave the returning heroes a tickertape parade all the way down Fifth Avenue. The front page of the Tribune was given over to a picture of Armstrong standing on the podium between General Schwarzkopf and Mayor Dinkins; the inside story, covering the event in detail, mentioned Captain Armstrong’s MC on four different pages.

  But as the weeks went by, Townsend was unable to find any mention of Armstrong reaching a settlement with the print unions, search as he might through the columns of the Tribune. When Barbara Walters did invite him back on the program six weeks later, Armstrong’s press secretary told her that there was nothing he would have enjoyed more, but that he had to be in London to attend a board meeting of the parent company.

  That at least was true—but only because Peter Wakeham had called to warn him that Sir Paul was on the warpath, and demanding to know how much longer he intended to keep the New York Tribune on the streets while it was still losing over a million dollars a week.

  “Who does he imagine allowed him to stay on as chairman in the first place?” asked Armstrong.

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” said Peter. “But I thought I ought to let you know what he’s been telling everyone.”

  “Then I’ll just have to come back and explain a few home truths to Sir Paul, won’t I?”

  * * *

  The limousine drew up outside the district court in Lower Manhattan a few minutes before 10:30 that morning. Townsend, accompanied by his lawyer, stepped out of the car and walked swiftly up the courthouse steps.

  Tom Spencer had visited the building the previous day to deal with all the legal formalities, so he knew exactly where his client needed to go, and guided him through the maze of corridors. Once they had entered the courtroom, the two of them squeezed onto one of the overcrowded benches near the back and waited patiently. The room was packed with people chattering away in different languages. They sat in silence between two Cubans, and Townsend wondered if he had made the right decision. Tom had kept pointing out that it was the only way left open for him if he wished to expand his empire, but he knew that his countrymen, not to mention the British Establishment, would be scathing about his reasons. What he couldn’t tell them was that there was no form of words which would ever make him feel he was anything other than an Australian.

  Twenty minutes later, a judge in a long black gown entered the court and everyone rose. Once he had taken his seat on the bench, an immigration officer stepped forward and said, “Your Honor, I ask permission to present one hundred and seventy-two immigrants for your consideration as American citizens.”

  “Have they all carried out the correct procedure as demanded by the law?” the judge asked solemnly.

  “They have, Your Honor,” replied the court officer.

  “Then you may proceed with the Oath of Allegiance.”

  Townsend and 171 other would-be Americans recited in unison the words he had read for the first time in the car on the way to the court.

  “I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required to do so by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation of purpose or evasion: So help me God.”

  The judge smiled down at the joyful faces. “Let me be the first to welcome you as full citizens of the United States,” he said.

  * * *

  As eleven o’clock struck, Sir Paul Maitland coughed
slightly and suggested that perhaps the time had come to bring the meeting to order. “I would like to begin by welcoming our chief executive back from New York,” he said, glancing to his right. There were murmurs of assent from around the table. “But it would be remiss of me not to admit to a little anxiety caused by some of the reports coming out of that city.” The murmurs were repeated, and if anything were slightly louder.

  “The board backed you, Dick, when without seeking its approval you purchased the New York Tribune for twenty-five cents,” continued Sir Paul. “However, we now feel you should let us know for how much longer you are willing to tolerate losses in the region of nearly one and a half million dollars a week. Because the present situation,” he said, referring to a row of figures in front of him, “is that the group’s profits in London are only just covering the losses we are sustaining in New York. In a few weeks’ time we will have to face our shareholders at the annual general meeting—” he looked up at his colleagues seated round the table “—and I am not convinced that they will approve our stewardship if this state of affairs continues for much longer. As you are all aware, our share price has fallen from £3.10 to £2.70 in the last month.” Sir Paul leaned back in his chair and turned to Armstrong, indicating that he was ready to listen to his explanation.

  Armstrong looked slowly around the boardroom table, aware that almost everyone present was there because of his patronage.

  “I am able to tell the board, Mr. Chairman,” he began, “that my negotiations with the New York unions, which I must admit have been keeping me up most nights, are finally reaching their conclusion.” He paused as one or two smiles appeared on the faces around the table.

  “Seven hundred and twenty members of the print union have already agreed to take early retirement, or to accept a redundancy package. I shall be announcing this officially as soon as I return to New York.”

  “But the Wall Street Journal has estimated,” said Sir Paul, referring to an article he had extracted from his briefcase, “that we need to reduce the workforce by between fifteen hundred and two thousand.”

  “What do that lot know, sitting in their cozy air-conditioned offices downtown?” said Armstrong. “I am the person who has to deal with these men face to face.”

  “Nevertheless…”

  “The second tranche of sackings and redundancies will take place in the next few weeks,” continued Armstrong. “I remain confident that I will have concluded those negotiations by the time of the next board meeting.”

  “And how many weeks do you imagine it will be before we see the benefits of these negotiations?”

  Armstrong hesitated. “Six weeks. Eight weeks at the most, Chairman. But naturally I will be doing everything in my power to speed the process up.”

  “How much is this latest package going to cost the company?” asked Sir Paul, returning to a typewritten sheet of paper in front of him. Armstrong could see he had been ticking off a list of questions one by one.

  “I don’t have an exact figure to hand, chairman,” replied Armstrong.

  “I would be content, for the purposes of this meeting,” said Sir Paul, looking up from his notes, “with what I think the Americans call ‘a ballpark figure’.” A little laughter broke the tension round the table.

  “Two hundred, perhaps as much as two hundred and thirty million,” said Armstrong, aware that the accountants in New York had already warned him it could be nearer three hundred million. No one round the table offered an opinion, although one or two of them began writing down the figures.

  “It may have escaped your notice, chairman,” added Armstrong, “that the New York Tribune building is on the books, and is conservatively valued at $150 million.”

  “As long as it’s producing a newspaper,” said Sir Paul, now turning the pages of a glossy document supplied to him by a legal firm from Chicago called Spender, Dickson & Withers. “But in a closing-down situation, I’m reliably informed it is worth no more than fifty million.”

  “We are not in a closing-down situation,” said Armstrong, “as everyone will soon come to appreciate.”

  “I only hope you’re right,” said Sir Paul quietly.

  Armstrong remained silent as the board moved on to discuss the rest of the agenda item by item. He sat there wondering why he was treated so badly in his own country while he was hailed as a hero in the States. His mind drifted back to the proceedings when he caught Eric Chapman, the company secretary, saying “… and we have a satisfactory surplus in that account at the present time, Mr. Chairman.”

  “As is quite right and proper,” said Sir Paul. “Perhaps you’d be kind enough to take us through the figures, Mr. Chapman.”

  The company secretary bent down, lifted an old-fashioned leather-bound ledger up onto the table and slowly turned its pages. “The pension fund,” he began, “is financed, as members of the board are aware, by joint contributions. The employees pay 4 percent of their wages into the fund, and management tops it up with an equal contribution. On a year-on-year basis, we are currently paying our former employees approximately £34 million, while we receive in income from present employees the sum of £51 million. Thanks in part to a shrewd investment program carried out by our merchant bankers, the account’s balance currently stands at a little over £631 million, against a requirement properly to fulfill our legal obligation to former employees of around £400 million.”

  “Most satisfactory,” purred Sir Paul. Armstrong continued to listen intently.

  “Though I must inform the board,” continued Chapman, “that I have taken actuarial advice, and that although this may appear a large surplus on paper, it is, with life expectancy rising every year, no more than a necessary cushion.”

  “We take your point,” said Sir Paul. “Any other business?”

  No one spoke, and the directors began placing pens into pockets, closing files and opening briefcases.

  “Good,” said Sir Paul. “Then I declare the meeting closed, and we can all adjourn for lunch.”

  The moment they left the boardroom and entered the dining room Armstrong took over. He marched straight to the head of the table, sat down and began attacking the first course before anyone else had taken their place. He waved at Eric Chapman as he entered the room, indicating that he wanted him to sit on his right, while Peter Wakeham took the seat on his left. Sir Paul found a vacant place halfway down the table on the right-hand side.

  Armstrong allowed the company secretary to chatter on about his golf handicap, the state of the government and the economy. He didn’t take a lot of interest in his views on Nick Faldo, Neil Kinnock or Alan Walters. But when Chapman moved on to his greatest passion, the pension fund, he listened intently to his every word.

  “To be fair, Dick, it’s you we have to thank,” Chapman admitted. “You were the one who spotted what a goldmine they were handing over to us. Not that it’s ours really, of course. But the surpluses always make for good reading on the balance sheet, not to mention the audited accounts that have to be presented at the AGM.”

  After five slices of prime roast beef had been placed on Armstrong’s plate and he had covered them with gravy, he turned his attention to Peter, who still accorded him the hound-like devotion he had become used to since they had served together in Berlin.

  “Why don’t you fly over to New York and join me for a few days, Peter?” he suggested, as a waitress went on piling potatoes onto his side plate. “That way you’ll be able to see what I’m up against with the unions—and, more importantly, what I’ve achieved. Then, if for any reason I can’t make it back in time for next month’s meeting, you could report to the board on my behalf.”

  “If that’s what you want,” said Peter, enjoying the thought of a visit to New York, but rather hoping that it would still be Dick who reported back to the board the following month.

  “Take Concorde over next Monday,” said Armstrong. “I have a meeting scheduled with Sean O’Reilly, one of the paper’s most important trade uni
on leaders, that afternoon. I’d like you there to see how I handle him.”

  After lunch, Armstrong returned to his office to find a mountain of mail on his desk. He made no attempt even to sift through it. Instead he picked up a telephone and asked to be connected to the accounts department. When the call was answered he said, “Fred, can you let me have a checkbook? I’m only in England for a few hours, and…”

  “It’s not Fred, sir,” came back the reply. “It’s Mark Tenby.”

  “Then put me through to Fred, will you?”

  “Fred retired three months ago, sir,” the chief accountant said. “Sir Paul appointed me in his place.”

  Armstrong was just about to say “With whose authority?” when he changed his mind. “Fine,” he said. “Then perhaps you would send me up a checkbook immediately. I’m leaving for the States in a couple of hours.”

  “Of course, Mr. Armstrong. Personal or company?”

  “The pension fund account,” he said evenly. “I’ll be making one or two investments on behalf of the company while I’m in the States.”

  There followed a longer silence than Armstrong had expected. “Yes, sir,” said the chief accountant eventually. “You will of course require the signature of a second director for that particular account, as I’m sure you know, Mr. Armstrong. And I should remind you that it’s against company law to invest pension fund money in any company in which we already have a majority shareholding.”

  “I don’t need a lecture on company law from you, young man,” shouted Armstrong, and slammed the phone down. “Bloody cheek,” he added to the empty room. “Who does he imagine pays his wages?”

  Once the checkbook had been sent up, Armstrong abandoned any pretense of going through his post, and slipped out of the room without even saying goodbye to Pamela. He took the elevator to the roof and ordered his helicopter pilot to take him to Heathrow. As they took off, he looked down on London with none of the affection he now felt for New York.