HARDtalk: The early years review

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story? What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Hard Talk. I'm Stephen Sacker. This programme began in 1997 and, as you may know, it is coming to an end at the end of this month.

0:52So today we're going to look back at some of our memorable guests from the early years before my time in this studio. It is an extraordinary archive featuring presenters Tim Sebastian and the late George Allagaya. We hope you enjoy it. Generally, you have to shake things up pretty much in order to do something of consequence. The fact that I was sent to Jake for life and I spent 27 years there, these are things which affected me collectively and individually, and that they are my personal experiences about apartheid. There were moments of, you know, fun and joy. I'm not going to say I wouldn't have done it for five years or whatever.

1:34But what's finally sobered me up was the idea of having a child. I need a cigarette. You're making me hot. Can I have a light, please? I think it's very important to remind people that these things are happening, that they are bad, and that the more you show just what's happening, the more everybody can say whether they've been near a war or not. They can recognize that war is a perfectly terrible, cruel thing. Tim Sebastian traveled to New York to visit the then business mogul Donald Trump in 1998. You have to be a killer in business? I think you have to be smart in business. I don't think you have to be a killer.

2:18I think you have to be smart. Does that mean eyes in the back of your head, always looking to see who's going to get you, who's trying to pull one of a fast one on you? Well, one of the things I say in the book, and I say very strongly is you have to be paranoid. There is a certain advantage to having a certain degree of paranoia. You watch, you can be a little bit careful. You watch what's happening behind your back. And I think that's probably very true in business. You talk in your book about getting even, the importance of getting even. Is revenge sweet? I believe strongly in getting even.

2:52If somebody has hurt you, if somebody's gone out of their way to hurt you, I think that if you have the opportunity, you should certainly go out of your way to do a number on them. And I've had more criticism about that one statement in my book than any other statement. The clergy is called, the ministers, the priests, the rabbis, they've all said, what a terrible thing to say. That's against our teachings. I just believe it. I believe in an eye for an eye. In the early 90s, you faced the possibility of losing everything. In fact, on paper, you had lost pretty much everything. I had faced the possibility of losing everything.

3:24And I went back to work. I focused. I focused my mental energies and all of my energies. You never thought of giving up? No. I think one of the reasons I really succeeded and bigger than even in the 80s is the fact that it's a little word called perseverance. I didn't stop. It's quite a long word, actually. It's a long word, come to think of it. But I didn't stop. And I did persevere. I went against a lot of odds. And I came up with a phrase, survive till 95. That was in the early 1990s. And it turned out to be right, because the world changed, the economy changed. And there was a survival tactic till a certain year.

4:02And in 1995, things started changing. But I mean, it really started changing for me almost right at the beginning because I went back to work. I refocused my energies. How desperate were you at that time? How depressed did you get? Well, to start off with, I really blame myself a little bit because I've always been able to pick markets. And I really wasn't focused toward the end of the 80s because I was having too good a time. I was enjoying my life too much. Things were going too well. You dropped your guard. I did drop my guard. And it's no different than you. If you do 15 great interviews, you know, you're sort of on the 16th, you can take it easy because, well, that happens in life.

4:37That's a human trait. And I did drop my guard. And what I did is I re-put up my guard and re-put up my defenses and my offenses much stronger than I ever did in the 80s and worked probably harder than I did in the 70s and 80s and actually became much more successful. You had to believe in your own abilities. Wasn't there a time when you thought, I really can't hack it. I should get out of this. I'm not suited to this. There were some pretty depressing times because I had owed billions and billions of dollars. 975 million or so was personally guaranteed. And that's a pretty deep hole. And when you're that deep in debt, you're mired in debt and you're that deep in debt.

5:16I mean, that's a pretty rough situation to be in. And the vultures are circling around you. Well, you had plenty of vultures. You had plenty of bad people circling and some good people that frankly wanted to get paid. But it was just – it was hunker down time as they say in Georgia and I did do that. Did you learn some lessons about the people who were your friends and the people who weren't your friends? I wrote once – they were painful. And I wrote once that I would love to sort of have a bad period financially just to see who my friends would be and who my enemies would be. Now, never write it again, because it's not fun.

5:54In 2001, Tim Sebastian interviewed Mira Markovic in Belgrade as her husband, former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, awaited trial for war crimes in The Hague. Slobodan Milosevic is in The Hague, facing the most serious charge on the planet, genocide. Here in Belgrade, his wife protests his innocence. Who does she think was responsible for the thousands of forced deportations and the mass murders? And does she expect her husband one day to come home? The bloodshed in the Balkans, in the former Yugoslavia, was the result of the policy pursued in the West with the intention... The West is responsible for all the bodies, Mrs Markham.

6:42Please, please, I am now answering your question. Do not interrupt me. The bloodshed in the Balkans resulted from the policy conducted from outside Yugoslavia with the intent to destroy Yugoslavia, to obliterate it. The policy was successful and yielded results. Yugoslavia ceased to exist. It disappeared in a bloodbath. Mrs. Markovic, don't you accept any responsibility?

7:14The bloodshed you mentioned in former Yugoslavia and in present Yugoslavia is the result of a policy conducted towards Yugoslavia from outside Yugoslavia. Our responsibility for that bloodshed is minor. The responsibility must be borne by those outside Yugoslavia who conceived and financed this bloodshed, who carried it out using us. So the West is responsible for the mass graves. The rest is responsible for the places of internment and torture. The West is responsible for the rape. The West is responsible for the forced deportations of tens of thousands of people across the Balkans. People are not going to believe you, Mrs.

7:59Milosevic. Yes. People are not going to believe you. They've seen the pictures. They've seen the forced deportation of people for the first time since the Second World War. Didn't those pictures touch you as a human being? Did they touch you?

8:20As far as the mass graves are concerned, those that are fresh, the more recent ones, those from the recent period, from the last two, three years, The people who cause the war are responsible. All pertains to war. Graves, rapes, death, suffering, hunger is all part of war. As for the new graves they are looking for, they are 30, 50, 100 years old, dating back to different times and different wars.

8:54You're behaving like a haughty policeman. I agreed to talk to you, believing you wanted to hear the other side.

9:06You are a very unpleasant man. No one has ever talked to me in such a rough way. It is so unchivalrous. Had I known you talked to me like this, I'd not have accepted. Not because I don't have to answer your questions. I have them. The one who tells the truth is always superior. I am superior to you because I'm telling the truth and you can never talk over me because you are an exponent of hate against my people and my husband. But it is not nice of you to talk to me so brutally. It is simply not chivalrous, not gentlemanly. In 1998, my late colleague George Alagaya spoke to South Africa's president, Nelson Mandela.

9:54You were put away for 27 years, 27 of the best years of your life. What is the cost of that incarceration to Nelson Mandela, the man? I would like to think not in terms of cost. I would like to think in terms of the advantages which I gained from being, from serving a long center, at Jay Sundar, the ability to sit down and to think about your past, the present, and the future, the ability to be able to see yourself in action in the past, and the mistakes and weaknesses which you committed, and weaknesses which emerged in the course of your work as you look back, and the excitement of preparing for the future.

10:49And I found this very rewarding. But if I may say so, sir, I mean, I'm a married man. The thought that I am not able, the thought that I would not be able to provide care, tenderness to the people I loved would hurt me enormously. It must have been terrible for you for 27 years. Oh, yes. I have mentioned this, that this was one of the things that worried me a great day, that my wife was without security, undergoing humiliation, persecution by the regime. My children also subjected to such persecution. They go to a school and the police are immediately there. And they say, look, this is an African child.

11:37He has no right to be in a colored school. And my children, I expect. Now, I've watched you these last three years in South Africa, the way you build bridges, the way you go, and you're able to see P.W. Buerta. You're able to see the wife of Pervoud, who did so much to invent apartheid. But there is one man with whom I don't see this chemistry, with F.W. de Klerk. You don't seem to like him. No, that is not correct. position. I address a meeting of the African Handels Institute. These are African businessmen. He was then criticized by one of them. I got up and I said, whatever criticism, I mean, Mr.

12:23de Klerk has made a lot of mistakes, some of them fundamental, as all of us have done. But you must never forget the role that he played in this country to ensure that he mobilizes his own lobby to join the process of transformation, of peaceful transformation. Had it not been for the contribution that he made, the process of transformation in this country would have been all the more difficult. Whether I like him or not, the point is I must acknowledge what he has achieved, the contribution that he has made. And I do so, with all humility. In 1999, Tim Sebastian sat down with the singer and activist Nina Simone.

13:11Tell me about music as a political weapon, which you've used it as. Oh, now, that's a hard one. As a political weapon, it has helped me for 30 years defend the rights of American blacks and third world people all over the world to defend them with protest styles. And it helps to change the world. When you get up on the stage and you sing, what's in your mind? Just the singing? No, to move the audience, to make them conscious of what has been done to my people around the world. So you sing from anger? No, I sing from intelligence. I sing from letting them know that I know who they are and what they have done to my people around the world.

14:20That's not anger. Anger has its place. Anger has fire, and fire moves things. But I sing from intelligence. I don't want them to think that I don't know who they are, darling. When you left America in 1972, you left because you couldn't stand it. Just that. Racism. You couldn't stand it any longer. I couldn't stand it. Walking down the street? Still can't stand it. Crossing the street. You get racism crossing the street. It's in the very fabric of American society. You can't stand to go to America? No, I can't. I went this year for the first time, and I worked at Newark's New Stadium and Seattle.

15:14They were so happy and surprised to see me because they hadn't seen me in seven years. But you didn't feel well treated? This time? Yes. This time they were more than happy to see me. They hadn't seen me so long they thought I was dead. But you wouldn't go back and live there? No way. Before I let you go, one question. There is a report that at a business meeting once you pulled out a knife. I sure damn did. Did you? Yes, I did. Why? Because, oh dear, because there was a record company. You were about to say something. I can't say. I was a record company that stole my albums and didn't pay me.

16:04And they came to Switzerland. And I said, where's my money? They said, we're not going to give you any money. I said, oh, yes, you are. And I got a gun. It was a gun. It wasn't a knife. And I followed him to a restaurant, and I tried to kill him. I missed him, and I went back to America. You actually pulled the trigger? Yes, I did. and felt better for it. Oh, yes. Sorry I didn't get him. You also seem to have had a lot of problems with the music industry. Racketeers, you've talked about. For God's sakes, they don't pay you. I still have 60 albums being pirated in England right now. Nobody's actually paying you for this?

16:50No. I have a great lawyer from San Francisco and he goes after as many pirates as he can, but he can't catch them at all. They run the streets too fast. I've been pirated all over the world. Tim Sebastian met the late, great actor and comedian Robin Williams in 1999. Robin Williams, a very warm welcome to the programme. Thank you. A warm hand on my opening. Thank you. Stand up where your heart is. Versus San Francisco. So, yeah, I have a great time doing stand-up. It's where my whole body is, I think, because it demands everything, mind, heart, soul, body. It's like prize fighting. Like last night I was watching Andre Agassi playing tennis.

17:35Ideally, it's this thing where it's really alive. It really is important. And you could talk about extraordinary things, and that helps. It gives you your edge, do you think? It fights fear. Whether that's an edge or not, I don't know. I mean, but it helps me just get back and, you know, put it all out there and stand behind it. Because there's no net, there's no end of it saying it's the director. It's the project. It's the director. The script was not right. And people go, no, it's you, smart boy. Hey, pretty furry boy, make me dance. Make me dance? Yeah, come on. Bring it out. Yo, put it out, Robin.

18:11Put it out. I don't know. It's that idea of just seeing what you can talk about, you know, as we approach the millennium. When your computer will suddenly go, yeah, too many zeros, too many zeros. Goodbye. Three zeros, three zeros. Good night. You've got moil. What? When did you get Jewish? It's that thing of what can you do to talk about all these different things? And the simple stuff. Like life. How lonely was your childhood? I was an only child. It was and it wasn't. I mean, you learn to play with yourself, pardon the pun. But you have, you adapt, you imagination, you find a way of getting through it.

18:46It wasn't awful. No, I had actually kind of a wonderful time because of that. And then later on, you know, I learned that it was very interesting and how it formed who and what I am. You created a lot of characters, did you? Yeah, little things that didn't really surface till college where all of a sudden I realized I had this mimicry, this ability to... Because I think I'd been kind of listening and absorbing all that stuff and then in college I had a chance to release it. So who were you mimicking in those days? My grandmother, who I never met, who I'd always do her on the phone. Sonny boy, talking to you.

19:15I'm out right now watching Elvis. And, you know, I would be doing her. She used to love to watch wrestling, so I would... Right now, gorgeous George has a man in a hold. And I would talk to her, and I remember doing... And I would do her for my mother and make my mother laugh because she would, you know, just, oh, that's so good. You know, go to bed. But, you know, she, you know, it gave me... I think that was a start. Fame came too early for you, didn't it? That sounds like... 25, 26? 25, 26. I don't remember. It was actually fame was that good. They say if you lived through the 60s, you can't really.

19:47They say you really remember, you're a liar. I think it was at 25, 26. Yeah, it was pretty wild. Didn't bring you much happiness in the beginning. There were moments of, you know, fun and joy. I'm not going to say I wouldn't have done it for five years or whatever. But what's finally sobered me up was the idea of having a child. And I wasn't having a child. My wife was having a child, you know. I was not passing the bowling ball, as they say. And I wanted to not miss that. So I sobered up and I did it without, you know, Betty Ford or, you know, AA. And people keep saying, you're a friend of Bill's?

20:17I'm like, Clinton? No, friend of Bill's. The other group, Alcoholics Unanimous. But I did it on my own because of one reason, my son. And I thank God I did. Robin Williams, I wish you luck. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Buona fortuna. Grazie. We thank you and be happy for all this. Will you sign the treaty now? Bring this. No way. In the first year of Hard Talk recordings, Tim Sebastian spoke to Martha Gilhorn, one of the first female war correspondents. In the 1930s, a bright, young, idealistic writer goes to Spain to cover the Civil War. More than 40 years later, she's covering the war in Bosnia.

20:57What is this fascination with human conflict and what has it done to her? Martha Gellhorn, welcome to Hard Talk. Do you mind answering questions instead of asking them for a change? Yes, I do mind. It's work for the unemployed, what I'm doing now. So let's go and do it. What is it about you and wars? I don't start them. After all, I just go to them. Well, actually not anymore, but it isn't anything about me and wars. It's about the history of our time. That's what we had, war. And I cared very much about the outcome. I think probably this century will go down as a real shocker in history because not only the number of wars, but the bitterness, the killing capacity of them.

21:48The people who suffered, and then the most modern thing about war is that now the worst person to be is a civilian. I mean, if you've got a chance, pick up a gun and join whatever group is wearing a uniform. You're much safer than civilians. And that, I think, started, that started definitely in Spain. The war on the civilian, the helpless and unarmed population, and has gone on steadily ever since. When you look back on the wars that you've covered, do you think that we have learned any lessons from one century? Do you think that war reporters have helped us learn any lessons from war? Do you see this terrible slaughter and genocide going on?

22:40I think that they are useful. It's a strange word. Yes, in the sense that if nobody told anybody, you know, we would assume if our own lives were okay, we'd just assume everything was all right. I think it's very important to remind people that these things are happening, that they are bad, and that the more you show just what's happening, the more everybody can say whether they've been near a war or not. They can recognize that war is a perfectly terrible, cruel thing, and it's hardest on the least privileged. It's always hardest on the poor, simply. We hope you've enjoyed our dive deep into the Hard Talk archive.

23:35Thanks for listening.

23:59I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.