Independent Europe Defense? Come On.

Who Will Save Greenland?

I’ve only once been labeled a traitor. That was back in May, 1977, when the British minister of state for defense stated in Parliament that I was “giving encouragement to the Queen’s enemies.” My crime was to have reported in a TV documentary that the Tornado fighter, then under development by a British-German-Italian consortium for their respective air forces, was likely to be a complete dog, overweight and overpriced. It had been sold as “Europe’s answer” to the onslaught of U.S. fighters flooding the NATO marketplace.

Sitting alongside me in the press gallery were a row of senior executives of my employer, Granada TV, then a leading British broadcasting company. As bipartisan denunciations of my reporting thundered down, one of these bosses gripped my arm in panic. “My god,” he whispered, “they’re saying you’re a Soviet agent!”

“Worse,” I replied. “They’re saying I’m an agent of the American aircraft industry.”