High life
Going West
Taki
New York
One of the reasons I abandoned my old friend Jeffrey Bernard in hospital and fled back to New York was that his ward was full. I didn't trust myself to stay at home on Saturday. Either I would end up strapped in a hospital bed, with a piece of wood holding my jaws apart in order not to bite, or I had better put 6,000 miles between me and them. Please try and understand, dear readers; I haven't gone completely mad. But all that CND rabble, with Lady Antonia waving Vogue magazine and that twitching Susannah York, would have been too much. I am not as strong as I used to be. I could have died from apoplexy, or emolio, as my Latin American friends would say. So, once again I crossed the Atlantic heading westward, preferring the muggers and New York manners to the 'peace' marchers.
But as my recent luck would have it, I once again made a terrible mistake. For all the years I've been coming here, I should have known better. I forgot, you see, about the institution that is the symbol of all that is cheap and empty, the principle purveyor of insulting, vulgar drivel: American televi- sion in general, and the CBS network in particular. Now, before anyone asks why do I watch it, I must explain that as soon as the Beirut outrage took place I had to turn it on. After all, even American TV is better than waiting for 24 hours to read what An- thony Lewis has to say against South Africa.
But this time it was too much. Throughout Sunday, while the marines were dying and the number of dead grew by the minute, the airways were filled with nine, yes nine hours of American football, which is probably the only sport I know which is worse than English football. In between commercial breaks would come reports that more marines had died, and, finally, there was a 'serious' discussion between some journalists and that pinched faced Bechtel Corporation businessman who now runs America's defences, and honest Henry Kissinger. The hacks were a sight to behold. Two of the three had hair- dos i-la-Scargill, blow-dried and pulled over from one side to the other to cover the bald spots. But it wasn't their appearance that made one recoil. It was their questions. All three hacks were trying desperately to score points on such irrelevancies that if MY
two-year-old had asked their questions I would have cried with shame. So awful was the show that Kissinger came out as dignified as a pope, and as wise as King Solomon. Kissinger, incidentally, was the only one with guts enough to suggest that the US should now work closely with the Israelis and try to undo the harm the Reagan administration did when it forced Begin to pull his punches last year.
But if I give the impression that the coverage of the Beirut outrage, squashed as it was in between the New York Marathon and nine hours of football — oh, I almost forgot, and the commercials — was inde- cent, the regular Sunday night news held more surprises. By chance I turned on CBS, Mr Paley's network, and there on the screen was a film showing another acquain- tance of mine, one John DeLorean. The clip showed DeLorean playing with some large bags full of white powder, and saying 'this is good as gold and much lighter'. Then he and some men toasted each other and then an FBI man came into view and handcuffed the man Labour trusted to rid Northern Ireland of people on the dole.
Now there's nothing wrong with showing' such a film except for the fact that millions of viewers saw a tape that was sold to the Pornographer who owns Hustler magazine, Larry Flint, who in turn sold it to CBS or made it available to them, as he himself said following the programme. The man who sold it to the porn king was a member of the Prosecution staff, which means that DeLorean now has a pretty good chance of getting off without a trial simply because there are no people left anywhere in the land that didn't see the film clip (CBS Played it non-stop for two days). Mr Paley's network called it a public service.
As the presiding judge said, 'Was it ask- 19g too much to respectfully withhold disclosure for just a week?' No, I say, it wasn't asking too much. Well, I shouldn't Complain. Maybe I should have stayed in London despite Lady Antonia and Juicy arucie Kent.
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