Strange Places, Questionable People

In this autobiography, BBC foreign news editor, John Simpson reflects on his career. His experiences range from being punched in the stomach by Harold Wilson, posing as a mercenary in Zaire, escaping summary execution in Beirut, to tangling with the cocaine barons of Colombia.;Wilson was the first British journalist on the scene as the Berlin Wall came down, and also followed the revolution sweeping Eastern Europe from Berlin to Prague to Bucharest. Weeks later, he was in South Africa to witness the release of Nelson Mandela. He has met and interviewed: Colonel Ghaddafi, Ayatollah Khomeini, Indira Gandhi, Mikhail Gorbachev, Radovan Karadzic, and Fidel Castro. Wilson's association with the BBC also enables him to give an insider's view of the change which has overtaken the corporation since he joined it in 1966.