Conrad Black’s back — and he doesn’t love America so much anymore.
Black, the former CEO of Hollinger International who controlled such publications as the Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post and the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph, was convicted in the U.S. in 2007 of fraud and obstruction of justice. Though he appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court (which threw out two of his four convictions), Black spent three years in prison before being released in 2012.
The 68-year-old one-time champion of America doesn’t see the country — and its justice system — as so outstanding any longer.
“[M]y affection for the country has been seriously eroded and I consider the justice system to be a teeming anthill of corruption, and hypocrisy, a disgrace made more abominable by the complacency of most Americans about it,” Black, who maintains his innocence and lives in Canada, told The Daily Caller in an email.
“The U.S. has 5% of the world’s population, 25% of its incarcerated people, and 50% of its lawyers, who consume almost 10% of GDP. It convicts 99.5% of its accused people, (compared to 61% in Canada and 55% in the UK),; has six to twelve times as many incarcerated people per capita as Australia, Canada, France/Germany, Great Britain, and Japan, and 48 million people with a criminal record. Even deducting those convicted of non-stigmatizing offenses such as DUI or disorderly behavior many years before, it still means that over 15% of American adults are officially felons. This is an atrocity.”
According to the most recent U.S. Attorneys statistical report [pdf], the actual federal conviction rate in 2010 was 93%, not quite the 99.5% Black claimed. The rate is much lower in state courts.
Despite his disappointment with the U.S, Black is out with a glowing portrait of America’s rise to world preeminence, “Flight of the Eagle: The Grand Strategies that Brought America from Colonial Dependence to World Leadership.”
“The advance of the U.S. in less than two centuries, two long lifetimes, from colonial status to a position of pre-eminence in the world beyond anything ever attained by any other country was, of course, partly the result of the good fortune of the English language, Common Law, democratic tradition and access to a vast rich continent,” he told TheDC.
But, he added, America’s rise “was also largely the result of actions of courage, genius, and innovation by fewer than 20 American statesmen and military commanders at the most critical points in the country’s history, according to carefully developed strategic designs.”
Black says the most interesting thing he discovered in his research was the “extent to which the Revolutionary War was a dispute about taxes rather than rights, and how brilliantly [Thomas] Jefferson and others presented it as the dawn of human liberty, when it had little effect on the rights of anyone, including Americans themselves, other than that their government was thereafter resident in the U.S.”
“The Americans and British citizens had approximately equal civil rights (except for slaves of course, who scarcely existed in Britain), before the war, and after the war, and with each other throughout,” he explained.
Black is the author of several books, including biographies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Richard Nixon. Though he is down on the United States now, he believes Americans will eventually turn to better leaders who will put the country back on track.
America “is in decline, but when Americans realize the proportions of the challenge and elect some leadership capable of rising to the occasion, as many distinguished presidents in crises in the past have done, it will revive and arrest the decline,” he said.
He added, however, that “other countries will continue to gain relatively, as many of them were comparatively backward 30 or 50 years ago.”
Black, who is a British citizen, is prohibited from entering the United States for 30 years. Nonetheless, he says he continues to trudge onward in his post-American era.
“I have relaunched myself commercially, though in non-public areas, and I am already writing a history of Canada,” he said. “Life goes on, there is a great world beyond America, and there is life after the U.S.
See below TheDC’s full interview with Black about his book, the most interesting world leaders he’s conversed with, what books most shaped his worldview and much more:
Why did you decide to write the book?
No history of the strategic decisions vital to the development of the United States and its influence in the world had been written before, as Henry Kissinger remarked in his introductory note.
What is your central contention?
The advance of the U.S. in less than two centuries, two long lifetimes, from colonial status to a position of pre-eminence in the world beyond anything ever attained by any other country was, of course, partly the result of the good fortune of the English language, Common Law, democratic tradition and access to a vast rich continent, but was also largely the result of actions of courage, genius, and innovation by fewer than 20 American statesmen and military commanders at the most critical points in the country’s history, according to carefully developed strategic designs.
You describe nine phases of America’s rise. Was one more pivotal than the others? If so, which one and why?
Apart from the second and third — removing the English and setting up the country with its Constitution and financial institutions, without which none of the development would have occurred on anything like the same scale and timetable — I would have to say the fifth section, which was suppressing the Southern insurgency and abolishing slavery. If the country had splintered with a third of it composed of slave states and the French installed in Mexico, as they were, the United States would not have been significantly more powerful than the leading European powers or Japan.
Do you think America is exceptional?
No, in the usual sense. It is now only exceptional in matters of scale. It secured the victory of democracy and the free market in the world, but is not one of the world’s better functioning democracies or markets. Of course, this could change, and probably will, for the better.
Where is America headed? Do you buy the view that America is in decline and China is rising to overtake it?
It is in decline, but when Americans realize the proportions of the challenge and elect some leadership capable of rising to the occasion, as many distinguished presidents in crises in the past have done, it will revive and arrest the decline, though other countries will continue to gain relatively, as many of them were comparatively backward 30 or 50 years ago. China has too many problems, I think, to surpass the United States, though it will clearly be increasingly influential, but so will the strongest core of Europe, led by Germany; large developing countries such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Turkey, and smaller but important and very rich and well-organized countries such as Canada and Australia.
What is the most interesting fact you discovered researching the book?
The extent to which the Revolutionary War was a dispute about taxes rather than rights, and how brilliantly [Thomas] Jefferson and others presented it as the dawn of human liberty, when it had little effect on the rights of anyone, including Americans themselves, other than that their government was thereafter resident in the U.S. The Americans and British citizens had approximately equal civil rights (except for slaves of course, who scarcely existed in Britain), before the war, and after the war, and with each other throughout.
You have met many world leaders over your life. Who was the most impressive?
Just to exchange a few words with, Charles de Gaulle and Pope John Paul II. To converse with at length, Richard Nixon, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Helmut Schmidt, and Lee Kuan-Yew. As a foreign minister, Henry Kissinger.
What is your view of President Obama’s tenure in office?
Unsuccessful: the accumulated debt of the US after 232 years of independence when he was inaugurated was $10 trillion, and after four and one half years, it is $17 trillion, and a large part of the debt isn’t arms-length sales of bonds but simple money supply increases through issuances of bonds in exchange for purpose-issued notes at artificial interest rates. It’s a shell game. He has allowed America’s alliances to wither and done nothing about Iranian nuclear development, and wasted time with ecological will’o the wisps , while failing to address any of the terrible problems in the U.S. education, justice, and health care systems. It is a great thing to have a non-white president and he is often an engaging personality, but so far he has been an unsuccessful president, as was, for different reasons, his predecessor.
What three books most shaped your worldview?
“The Decline of the West” by Oswald Spengler; “The World Crisis” by Winston Churchill; and “The War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle.”
Do you still have the same view of America and the American legal system as you did before you went to jail?
No; my affection for the country has been seriously eroded and I consider the justice system to be a teeming anthill of corruption, and hypocrisy, a disgrace made more abominable by the complacency of most Americans about it. The U.S. has 5% of the world’s population, 25% of its incarcerated people, and 50% of its lawyers, who consume almost 10% of GDP. It convicts 99.5% of its accused people, (compared to 61% in Canada and 55% in the UK),; has six to twelve times as many incarcerated people per capita as Australia, Canada, France/Germany, Great Britain, and Japan, and 48 million people with a criminal record. Even deducting those convicted of non-stigmatizing offenses such as DUI or disorderly behavior many years before, it still means that over 15% of American adults are officially felons. This is an atrocity.
What’s next for you? Are you planning another book or business venture?
I have relaunched myself commercially, though in non-public areas, and I am already writing a history of Canada. Life goes on, there is a great world beyond America, and there is life after the U.S.