[A-List] Echoes of Watergate

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

Jonathan Aitken, very much a part of the state's inner sanctum at one
time, was skewered by a combination of Mohammed al-Fayed and the
Guardian as part of the offensive that brought down the last
Conservative government. Aitken rode his luck, suing the Guardian for
libel and arranging members of his family to perjure themselves in his
favour. By chance a Guardian journalist, raking through some old hotel
records in Switzerland, was able to place Aitken somewhere at the exact
time that he had stated in testimony he was somewhere else. The case
collapsed and Aitken was tried for perjury and sent to prison. Nothing
too harsh, but the shame of it, you understand. There he found God and
is now writing a biography of Charles Colson, who also found God after
Watergate and who, like Aitken, has never unreservedly apologised for
his actions. Prior to his downfall, Aitken published an admiring
biography of Richard Nixon, whose reputation he has been talking up for
years. It might be worth investigating the activities of Christian
Solidarity Worldwide, e.g., do they have anything to do with Billy
Graham and son Franklin, based in Sudan?


Aitken wants to be 'God's odd-job man'
BRIAN DONNELLY
The Herald, 13 September 2002

JONATHAN Aitken, the disgraced former Tory minister, said yesterday that
he intended to devote the rest of his life to being "a sort of odd job
man" in God's service.

Speaking in Edinburgh, Mr Aitken, who served seven months of an 18-month
jail sentence for perjury and perverting the course of justice, told
Christian business people how religion helped him through "the depths of
despair" while in prison.

Mr Aitken, 60, who has just completed a theology course at Oxford
University, said that he would now concentrate on doing religious talks,
working with charities such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide, and
writing.

Once one of Britain's most powerful politicians, the former chief
secretary to the Treasury is working on a biography of Charles Colson,
the politician- turned-preacher who found religion when jailed after the
Watergate scandal.

Mr Aitken, an old Etonian whose great-grandfather was a minister from
Torphichen, West Lothian, and whose son is studying theology at
Edinburgh University, said that he was "grateful to have learned lessons
from his mistakes".

Brought back from the brink of suicide by religion and the love of his
son, he said: "I am a happy person, although my life is not without some
difficulties, financial and otherwise."

He is also to address a gathering of about 700 at St George's Tron in
Buchanan Street, Glasgow, tomorrow night.