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Back A Firing Offense
Chapters (57)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. Prologue
  6. I: PARIS (MAY–JULY 1994)
  7. 1
  8. 2
  9. 3
  10. 4
  11. 5
  12. 6
  13. 7
  14. 8
  15. II: WASHINGTON (JANUARY–MARCH 1996)
  16. 9
  17. 10
  18. 11
  19. 12
  20. 13
  21. 14
  22. 15
  23. 16
  24. 17
  25. 18
  26. 19
  27. III: WASHINGTON–BEIJING (MARCH–MAY 1996)
  28. 20
  29. 21
  30. 22
  31. 23
  32. 24
  33. 25
  34. 26
  35. 27
  36. 28
  37. 29
  38. 30
  39. IV: WASHINGTON–BOSTON–MONTREAL (MAY–JULY 1996)
  40. 31
  41. 32
  42. 33
  43. 34
  44. 35
  45. 36
  46. 37
  47. 38
  48. 39
  49. 40
  50. 41
  51. 42
  52. V: SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA (OCTOBER 1996)
  53. 43
  54. Acknowledgments
  55. Author’s Note
  56. Praise
  57. Also by David Ignatius

I knew of only one newspaper in the world that still had any reason to be nice to me. It was the Santa Rosa News-Herald, located in a small town about fifty miles west of where I had grown up. I had worked there the summer after my junior year at Stanford, covering the Elks Club and the school board and Little League baseball and anything else they asked me to do. I had over a hundred bylines in the paper that summer—an average of over one a day. One Saturday I’d had three stories on the front page. As local papers went, it was pretty decent. Santa Rosa was on the edge of the Sonoma Valley wine country; its readership was relatively upscale for a small town, and its news hole hadn’t shrunk as much as those of the other small papers. The publisher had tried to keep in touch with me after I went overseas for the Mirror. He’d sent me letters in Beirut and Hong Kong, which always closed with something to the effect of: Don’t forget your old friends in Santa Rosa, now that you’re a big star.

I made an appointment to see the publisher of the Santa Rosa News-Herald. I wasn’t a big star now. I was an unemployed reporter—quite possibly an unemployable one. I felt guilty even calling him. I hadn’t bothered to answer the last letter he sent me in Paris, after my great exposé of Maurice Costa. In truth, I had forgotten my old friends in Santa Rosa. But he didn’t seem to hold any grudge; bad behavior is expected of people who become famous. The publisher’s office had changed very little over the years. He still had testimonials on the wall from the American Press Institute and the California Press Association, along with some rinky-dink journalism awards.

The publisher was much nicer to me than I deserved. He sat me down on one of his big couches, where advertisers used to hold forth in the old days when they came to complain about our stories. He didn’t seem to know much about what had happened to me recently, except that I’d gotten into some sort of trouble with the media elite, which was a plus as far as he was concerned. I said I needed a job, and he smiled the biggest smile I had seen in months. An old friend was asking him for a favor, and what makes a man happier than granting a favor?