Over the next few weeks, allmediascotland.com is to publish, each weekday, edited extracts from the memoirs of Scottish war correspondent, Paul Harris. ‘More thrills than skills: A half-life in journalism’, is being scheduled for publication next year.
I GAVE a series of lectures on regional security and intelligence gathering techniques in the Balkans.
The lectures were given at a location north of London.
Secret and un-signposted, the facility was entered through a farmyard where battered rustics turned hay with pitchforks.
I was not introduced to the people I was addressing, although I was usually invited to have lunch with them after my presentations.
I remember one suited gent had a tie with the American flag and the initials, NSA, emblazoned on it.
“Doesn’t that stand for the National Security Agency?” I suggested.
“Yeah, I’m the boss,” came the terse response.
At that particular seminar, there was, present, the head of virtually every significant European security or intelligence agency.
Gradually, I made some interesting contacts.
