It has been confusing for anyone relying on the British media to fathom what has happened over the eight years of my persecution in the United States. And the volume of affecting messages I have received from the UK indicates that there remains some curiosity about it there. The short story is that a greenmailing shareholder who was trying to force the sale of the company (Hollinger International), and a quick realisation on the capital appreciation we had made in what had ceased to be a growth industry (newspapers), agitated for what is called in the United States a Special Committee, in 2003. This would look into all grievances of the requesting shareholder, and I agreed at once, as I had nothing to hide.
The Special Committee engaged as its counsel Richard Breeden, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who had turned corporate governance into a vastly profitable business. Breeden discovered that an associate of mine had committed crimes (of which I was the principal victim), and I made an agreement with Breeden to co-manage the company while everything was examined. Breeden violated the agreement at once, represented me to the media as a thief, denied me any access to management and cut off all benefits, down to my corporate email address. My fellow director (and friend, as he remains) Henry Kissinger sponsored ‘substantive talks’, and while I was proposing a variety of innovative disentanglements advantageous to all parties, Breeden sued my associates and me for $200 million and caused me to be fired as chairman of the company that I had founded and always led.
I sold the parent company to the Barclays, who notified the New York Stock Exchange of their readiness to offer $18 for all shares.
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