A Matter Of Principle Summary

A Review of Conrad Black’s A Matter of Principle

Conrad Moffat Black, former newspaper tycoon, historian and celebrity is an interesting man, to say the least. The topic of his fall from professional, financial and social grace is legendary and is one that still elicits numerous newspaper columns and debates. The latest matter of interest in his lengthy protracted battle is his extraordinary memoir, A Matter of Principle. Written largely from his prison cell in Coleman Federal Correction Complex in Florida, the book is a compelling narrative of his tribulations. With his command of the English language, Lord Black is at once strikingly eloquent, acidly cynical, ferociously angry, and surprisingly funny. However, the book teeters at the edge
And in between his tales of rubbing shoulders with the powerful, he offers his take on world affairs, yet almost ironically maintains that he has never exercised his power to sway public policy. He also spares a page-and-half to rant on Jean Chrétien for opposing his proposed dual citizenship (Black was to be inducted into the British House of Lords). Near the end of Chapter three, the readers are also introduced to some of Black’s questionable activities - the sale of Hollinger Inc.’s newspaper properties to CanWest, and the resultant non-compete payments. Chapter four marks the beginning of Black’s misfortune as he describes the investigation by Hollinger’s audit committee into the company’s funds. The Hollinger board, summarized by Black in painfully boring detail,
On Paul Healy, Hollinger’s V.P. of investor relations, Black says “he had a little porcine face so puffy it made his spectacles seem smaller… a maladjusted, scheming courtier, alternately fawning and snarling at the hand that fed him for so long.” Black specifically saves a lot of firepower on Eddie Greenspan, his lead defence attorney who fizzled in American courts; he says “The deterioration of such a man is objectively sad, and is made more so by the inelegance of his acts of denial and displacement of responsibility for his own shortcomings and aggressive paranoia." On the jury that convicted him, he says, “I was unprepared for such a procession of mainly monosyllabic and listless people.” Such vilifying attacks are a few of many examples of Black’s verbal war on his