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Some thoughts on Jonathan Aitken after his recent talk for Business Alpha
by A G - a businessman in Edinburgh's New Town
"If it falls to me to start a fight to cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism in our country with the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play, so be it."
(Jonathan Aitken launching his libel action in 1997.)
Eton and Oxford educated, Jonathan Aitken started his career as a Fleet Street journalist in the 1960s serving as a war correspondent in Vietnam, Biafra and the Middle East. In 1974 he became a Conservative Member of Parliament spending 18 years on the backbenches until being appointed as Minister of State for Defence in 1992. He joined the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 1994. His shock resignation in 1995 followed media allegations of sleaze in the final months of the Tory government.
Paul Foot wrote in his essay "Prince and Pimp":
'Are we all bare-faced liars?' The question came from Jonathan Aitken, Minister of State for Defence Procurement, in January 1994. It was put to the then editor of the Guardian, Peter Preston. The words 'we all' referred to Aitken himself, his wife Lolicia and his faithful Arab friend Said Ayas. The answer to the question was 'yes'. They were all bare-faced liars, but none more so than the debonair minister himself. Why did he lie? Preston's question was trivial: who paid for Aitken's two nights at the Paris Ritz in September 1993?
The truth was that the bill had been paid, via Said Ayas, by Prince Mohammed, heir to the throne of Saudi Arabia. There was nothing especially horrific about this. Aitken's association with the Saudi monarchy was well known. A couple of nights at the Ritz cost a thousand quid or so - a bagatelle in Aitken's world. True, he had not declared any such benefit in the MPs' Register of Interests, and the acceptance of Ayas's largesse conflicted with the Rules for Ministers - but this was a minor breach, easily dealt with by an admission and an apology.
Instead, Aitken lied. He made up a ludicrous and convoluted story to prove that he and his wife had paid the Ritz bill. He lied with mounting enthusiasm and passion. He proudly shared his lies with the Cabinet Secretary, the Chief Whip, the Prime Minister. As the controversy grew, he chose to step up what was on the face of it a petty spat with a national newspaper into a mortal contest. By choosing this course of action he risked everything. Why?
Jonathan Aitken was not a reactionary dim-wit. On the contrary, he was a consummate, able and independent-minded politician who had even stood up to Margaret Thatcher. He had campaigned in defiance of the Tory Whip against the laws enforcing official secrecy. He had stood trial under the hated Official Secrets Act. Almost everyone who met him liked him. He was witty, well-informed, attractive. When he finally got given a job in government, he performed powerfully at the Despatch Box and was swiftly promoted to the Cabinet. Seasoned Labour politicians had him down as a future prime minister.
So why did he respond to apparently trivial inquiries with such ferocious mendacity? The answer is simple. Money. Jonathan's was the poorer branch of a celebrated and wealthy family. His great-uncle was the fabulously rich press lord, Lord Beaverbrook, who told his great-nephew that he was able enough to make his own way in politics without the burden of a huge inheritance. Young Jonathan did not go along with this avuncular assessment. Political power, he agreed, was worth striving for. Media acclaim was seductive. But by far the most pressing priority in life was to become seriously rich. He wanted to be an MP. He wanted to be a minister. He wanted to be prime minister.
At the same time, and more than anything else, he wanted lots of quick and easy money. Where to start? The answer was obvious. Slater Walker. In 1974 everyone who was anyone was talking about this get-rich-quick financial empire founded by a city slicker and a Tory MP. The first lie I ever extracted from Jonathan Aitken was in reply to an inquiry about some insider dealing he'd been up to at Slater Walker. He even threatened to sue Socialist Worker, where I was working at the time, for libel until he realised I had the necessary print-outs from his stockbroker.
When Slater Walker went down the pan soon afterwards, Aitken resolved that his future fortune would no longer be entrusted to the vagaries of the Stock Market. He headed for something far more reliable: the oil fortunes of the Middle East and of the Saudi royals in particular.
By the middle of 1976,' Guardian journalists report, 'Jonathan was effectively on Prince Mohammed's payroll': probably the fattest payroll on earth. The Prince provided Aitken with sumptuous offices in Mayfair, the money to invest (surreptitiously) in a newly franchised television company (TV-am), a merchant bank (Aitken Hume), a health hydro (Inglewood), a wonderful house within easy walking distance of the House of Commons, a mansion in his Kent constituency, a Jaguar. In return, Aitken put himself entirely at the Prince's disposal. He would do anything, his secretary reported, to 'keep the Arabs happy'. He would even help to provide them with what they were denied at home by their wives and their laws: prostitutes. All the gifts which providence had showered on Jonathan Aitken were devoted to pimping for the billionaires from Riyadh. [Italics by A G]
Channel Four's "Real Lives" programme said that:
"No politician in recent times has fallen further than Jonathan Aitken. The man who had it all - talent, riches, good looks - fell on his 'sword of truth' when he sued The Guardian and Granada Television over allegations of improprieties while he was Minister for Defence Procurement. His lies over who paid the bill at the Paris Ritz Hotel in September 1993 earned him a criminal conviction for perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice. On 8th June 1999 he was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. The judge took a particularly dim view that Aitken had involved his daughter in the deception."
This would be a humbling experience for anyone, but for a man whose hallmark had once been the utmost arrogance, the pain was particularly great. "Defeat, disgrace, divorce, bankruptcy and jail" completed what Jonathan describes as "the Royal Flush of personal disasters - especially as they all took place within the public eye."
For me, one of the most poignant comments on the extent of this riches to rags story is a simple, almost unnoticed, advertisement in the unclassified section of a local newspaper:
SALE BY TENDER
A S.S. ROLEX oyster perpetual day/date wrist watch
A pair of 18ct. white gold diamond and gem set cuff links
Tender closing date 11th June, midday.
Inspection and Tender forms from
<snip> AUCTIONEERS 15, NORTH STREET, <snip>, EAST SUSSEX
The reality of his fall from such a great height finally struck home to him on the day that Jonathan Aitken was sentenced and "sent down" to begin life as a common criminal. As you can imagine, the reception he got from his fellow guests was a particularly "warm" one, as it was not often that they had the opportunity to rub shoulders (or worse) with an ex Tory Cabinet Minister. Jonathan Aitken had, wrongly, imagined that once the cell door was closed behind him, he would at least get some peace and quiet to get some sleep, and begin to try to come to terms with what had happened to him. He was soon to discover that the tabloid press had done a great job in preparing the way for his arrival, and for most of the night there was a sustained and deafening chorus of voices, all describing in graphic detail what he might expect when he met his new neighbours.
In the temporary security of his cell, Jonathan Aitken did the only thing that he could think of that might possibly bring him some hope in what seemed like a hopeless situation - he got down on his knees and prayed. He did this not because it's the sort of thing that many people would do, regardless of whether they actually believed in prayer, but because he had come in the recent past to believe that not only there really was a God, but that God loved him - despite all that he had done - and that God would hear his prayer, and, he fervently hoped, answer it.
He prayed from Psalm 130:
Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;
2 O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.
3 If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.
5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
6 My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
7 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.
8 He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.
Jonathan Aitken could pray that prayer with absolute conviction for two reasons. Firstly, he was in the depths! He really was waiting for the morning, but not perhaps with the same eager anticipation as the watchmen. But secondly, and more importantly, he had come to know Jesus as his Lord a few months before, and had already experienced the power of prayer in his life. Whilst he was in the midst of all the private and public turmoil that followed the charges of perjury that were brought against him, someone that he vaguely knew came to him and, much to his surprise and embarrassment, offered to pray with him. Until that point Jonathan Aitken, coming from an institutionalized Anglican background, had occasionally graced God with his presence on high days and holy days, but the thought of praying out loud with someone else, he describes as being somewhat akin to the thought of being treated by the dentist without anesthetic.
He felt, however, that in his position he couldn't afford to say no, and duly took part in his first prayer meeting. Others followed, and much to his surprise, he began to be aware of a sense of peace and directing that defied explanation. Jonathan Aitken's spiritual journey was underway, and with the prayers and help of Christian friends he found after a while that he had moved from an abstract, nominal faith to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He describes this as not being a conversion in the "Road to Damascus" mould, but more like a train journey where you go to sleep in one country and wake up in another, knowing that you are in a different place, and that you have crossed a border, but don't know when exactly you crossed it.
To quote his own words:
"In the eighties I was a dutiful external Sunday Christian. That is very different from being a Christian of the kind I believe I now am. In the past my commitment was flawed. It was to go to church with my family once a week, and to do right things with my lips, but to go on doing wrong things in my life.I was on the move towards spiritual searching before my troubles began. In 1995 I remember surprising my civil servants when I carved out time for the Parliamentary Retreat. This was a series of one to one sessions throughout Lent with a man who has had a tremendous influence on me, Father Gerard Hughes, the author of God of Surprises.
My searching was partly prompted by life's success and finding it more empty than I had expected. We don't always know ourselves when spiritual seeds are planted. I am sure that among the crucial milestones was spending three years in a Dublin hospital from the age of four and being nursed through a period of tremendous medical danger by a wonderful nun, Sister Mary Finbar. Being a choir boy and leader of the choir at an old Suffolk church and confirmation at public school, were also seed plantings that I had forgotten about until I looked back and realised what a debt I owed to people like my school chaplain and Sister Mary Finbar.
If you have had as much time as I have had to examine past mistakes, it's not too difficult to makes some reasonably accurate judgements. I think that where my relationship with God was concerned, I rather treated God as though He were my bank manager. I thought He was important enough to visit in His premises quite regularly and that He was a kind person willing to forgive the spiritual equivalent of over-spending on the credit card. But I thought I was in charge of the account so I could get away with what I wanted, and that is not a Christian life, but a self centred and proud life.
I had a painful, but also a particularly fruitful period, which ran from the collapse of the libel case in June 1997 until waiting to go to prison in June 1999. One of the key steps were prayer partners - people who came alongside me most unexpectedly, and said 'we would like to pray with you'. It was a group of half a dozen people - some, like Michael Alison, old Parliamentary friends, and we met once a week and from that I was steered to the Alpha course at Holy Trinity Brompton."
Thus it was that Jonathan Aitken began attending an Alpha course, and once again he found himself doing something that he was still hugely unsure about, and that only a little while before would have been absolutely unthinkable. He was particularly concerned about what had been described to him as "the Holy Spirit weekend", and attended with the greatest reluctance and not a little unease. Much to his astonishment and subsequent joy, he had a real and profound encounter that weekend with the Holy Spirit that shook him to his core and that completely changed the direction and purpose of his life. He had moved from being totally self centred to a point where he wanted, more than anything he had ever wanted before, to be totally God centred. He knew, as we all do, that that is easier said than done, but he also knew, as I hope we all do that:
Philippians 1:6
"being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
To go back to the prison cell, Jonathan Aitken emerged blinking and somewhat nervous from his new home the next morning, and anxiously eyed the occupants of the cells on either side of him, from where the loudest and most awful threats had seemed to emanate. To his great relief, the welcome he got was not at all what he had been expecting, and in fact was truly warm in a way that can only be expressed and enjoyed from one confessed and captured criminal to another. He may have been from a background of wealth, privilege and power, but he was one of them! They explained that the previous night's threats and intimidation were "nothing personal", and that (in common with 80% of the prison population) they had been high on drugs!
As time went on Jonathan Aitken came to see these people, with whom he would have never previously come into contact, in a way that he could never have expected before. Here was a High Tory, straight out of the "Hang 'em and Flog 'em" school of correction, being confronted with his prejudices to an extent that many of us, perhaps, should be, but probably never will.
"But the journey was essentially a private journey of prayer. Gradually the inside and the outside of my life started to match up. I think it was Luther who said in our pain and our brokenness we come closer to God and that has been my experience. Against all the forecasts nothing bad happened to me in prison. I am sure this was because I was protected by an invisible wall of prayer. I used to receive an embarrassing amount letters and the vast majority ended up 'I am praying for you.'
A prison cell can be a great place to pray in. I can understand why monks like cells so much. When you are in a tiny space, with nothing but a chair and your bed it is very simple. A prison is a very quiet place in the early morning and I found I had wonderful quiet times with no distractions. I also became involved in the formation of a prayer group. Paddy, my prayer partner, had the qualities of a recruiting sergeant and within no time we had a very strong prayer group, which developed into a Bible study group. A third of prisoners can't read or write and I used to have a long queue outside my cell because I was willing to read people's intimate letters from their wives and girlfriends and write back for them. There was a joke that the quality of love letters coming out of Brixton prison suddenly shot up!"
Again to quote Jonathan Aitken, "This gave a whole new meaning to prayer cell groups!" Since coming out of prison at least fifteen (including Jonathan Aitken!) of the group of eighteen to twenty that met have gone "6 and 8" (straight), compared with the typical statistic in the UK and the USA of a 70% re-offence rate within a year of leaving prison. But, as you would hope and imagine, the story doesn't end there!:
"I had wanted, as part of my spiritual searching, to see if I could do a correspondence course in theology. Then someone said I should go to Wycliffe and I was offered a residential place. A week before my interview I would have said I could not accept that, because after leaving prison I would be under an obligation to get a job to help my family and so on. But unexpectedly my creditors refused to accept any settlement of the debt and four days before I went to Wycliffe I knew I was going bankrupt. So the one thing I couldn't do after prison was earn money.
I don't envisage being ordained. I don't think I am worthy of that. In fact I don't have any plan for the rest of my life. It reminds me of a line I heard in a sermon: 'What makes God laugh? People who have plans'. I do want to devote the rest of my life primarily to the service of God. I am not interested in going back to business or making money. I am joining the board of Prison Fellowship and I am going to write Chuck Colson's biography.
My evangelical friends would say my friendship with Chuck is not a coincidence but a God-incidence. We have both gone from political power to a crashing fall from grace and then come to Christ, going to prison and then afterwards throwing ourselves into Christian service. He has been mentor, friend and prayer partner and has shown me that you can turn disgrace to something useful to your neighbour and pleasing to God.
God is a God of new beginnings. We can all have little resurrections in our lives. This dawned on me in a police cell waiting for a decision whether they were going to charge me. For the first time I read Mark's gospel from beginning to end, and I remember being overwhelmed by the power of the narrative and the Passion chapters. I began to see dimly there my own story. It is a story of hope and trust and in the end of great contentment."
Jonathan Aitken's reference to "God-incidences" is particularly interesting in view of Paul Foot's comments in the same essay as I quoted from earlier, with my italics added:
"The history of British libel law is littered with victories by famous and wealthy men even when there is substantial evidence against them. The very form and process of a court libel action favours the accomplished, well-spoken plaintiff against even the best of Grub Street. In this case, the legal establishment rode to Aitken's assistance as though he really was the wounded knight of his own imagining. On Aitken's application, an elderly judge, married to a Tory shire councillor, decided he would take the case without a jury, and the Court of Appeal, led by the Lord Chief Justice, agreed. The core of democratic balance in a court of law - the jury - was suddenly gone.
After the first week of the Aitken libel action last June, the Guardian and Granada journalists looked glum. The former MP (he lost his safe seat in the May landslide) was lying all right, but he was lying with such charm, verve and enthusiasm that he looked and sounded like a winner. The case seemed lost. The dramatic story of how Aitken was finally defeated by his own lies is superbly set out in the final chapters of this book. [The Liar: The Fall of Jonathan Aitken by Luke Harding and David Leigh]
The truth came out not by due process of law, but thanks to a mixture of journalistic diligence and sheer good fortune. The Swiss hotel where Mrs. Aitken was in fact staying that September weekend had, by chance, gone bust. A Guardian reporter, Owen Bowcott, begged the receivers for access to records which would normally have been kept miles out of his reach. Against all the odds, permission was granted. By chance, the records included a reference to an American Express account, which revealed that Mrs. Aitken had hired a car and dumped it in Switzerland at precisely the time she was meant to be paying the bill at the Paris Ritz. If Mrs. Aitken had flown to Switzerland on Swissair, the flight documents would have been kept secret.
By chance, she flew British Airways, whose staff, after the inevitable subpoena, released the necessary documents to the court in the nick of time: Mrs. Aitken, it turned out, had flown directly to Switzerland. She had not been in Paris that weekend. She did not pay any bill at the Ritz. Aitken was a liar. To defend his own lies, he had enlisted his wife and teenage daughter to lie on his behalf in witness statements which, but for the last-minute revelations, would have added up to perjury."
Coincidences or God-incidences?
You will remember the almost unnoticed small ad that I mentioned earlier. It was picked up by someone in the local church, who commented in a "Thought for The Week":
"This bald statement in the small ads of last week's newspapers marked, for those who cared to notice, the demise of Jonathan Aitken, who is now in prison for perjury. His debts amount to more than £2m. and the seizure of his wrist watch and cuff links by the bailiffs, for sale by public tender, was intended to take at least a small slice off the top of that debt mountain.
One might enquire quite who would want to purchase second hand a pair of jewelled cuff links or a Rolex watch worth several thousand pounds, on the grounds that anybody likely to sport gold links or a posh watch would be able to afford new ones and not have to resort to the 'bargain basement'. Could it be that some ghoulish potential purchaser wants to walk around wearing on his wrist the watch - with personal grime attached, apparently - of a 'disgraced Tory politician'? It is, alas, humanly possible.
The Aitken case is a very sad one, and as the full details of it have emerged, sadness seems to have been piled on sadness. The original matter of having a Paris Ritz hotel bill paid for by Saudi 'clients' was not perhaps the most heinous offence in the world, but equally it is true that Aitken sought to clear his name in a case which, had he won by means of a deception, would have been of substantial financial benefit to him and of no benefit whatsoever to the cause of truth. In a biblical frame of mind, and thinking of the Daily Express masthead, he had set out to fight with the "simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of traditional British fair play", thus adapting Ephesians 5:16-17.
Despite, or perhaps because of it all, Jonathan Aitken is a believer, and we who also believe must remember that for the sinner rehabilitation begins in God's eyes as soon as it is sought."
Little did the author of this little piece know at that time how God planned to use Jonathan Aitken, but he knew enough to know that the "metanoia" or change of direction in Jonathan's life began the day he stopped looking to himself for answers, and turned towards God.
Jonathan has since completed a two year Theology Degree at Oxford University, and apart from speaking throughout the U.K., spends much of his time working for Christian Solidarity Worldwide www.csw.org.uk , and is a Director of Charles Colson's Prison Fellowship Trust www.pfm.org
He has also written a number of books, including the autobiographical "Pride and Perjury", available from www.pioneer.org.uk/direct
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