Hot War Cold War: History from a Reporter's Notebooks Volume 1 - Softcover

Ian Mather

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0956761216 ISBN 13: 9780956761217

Publisher: Ian Mather, 2016

Synopsis

Ian Mather's career as a newspaper correspondent covered many conflicts of the late Twentieth century. From hot wars, such as Vietnam, to the Arctic wastes of the Cold War, he witnessed major events at first hand. This is his story, as recollected from the unique resource of hundreds of notebooks he kept during his career, which included many years as Defence Correspondent of The Observer. Since journalism is the first draft of history, and notebooks are its raw materials, they are, therefore, historical documents, and often unique. PART ONE covers the years 1967 to 1980, from the dying embers of British rule in Aden, through the Nigerian Civil War, the United States' involvement in Vietnam, and Russia's invasion of Czechoslovakia. The author witnessed war and upheavals in the Sub-Continent, and the violent eruption of fundamentalist Islam in revolutionary Iran. Then, as the decade closes, these worlds are brought head-to-head in the Russian invasion of Afghanistan - an event at which he was the only journalist present.

About this title

About the Author

Ian Mather has been a journalist for 48 years, most of the time as a foreign and defence correspondent for national newspapers. For the largest part of his career he was with The Observer, where he became defence correspondent and a foreign correspondent. Starting with the British withdrawal from Aden he has reported from many conflict zones, including Vietnam, the Nigerian civil war, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Indo-Pakistan war, the Yom Kippur war, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iran-Iraq war, the 1991 Gulf war and the conflicts in the Balkans. As a Defence Correspondent at a time when the Cold War was at its height, he reported at close hand on the eyeball-to-eyeball nuclear confrontation between the superpowers - a role that took him inside nuclear bunkers, bombers, submarines, missile silos and testing sites from the High Arctic to the Pacific Ocean. Uniquely, in the dying days of communism, he witnessed at first hand the collapse of security and controls around Soviet missile testing and Soviet submarines. As a Diplomatic Editor, he reported on numerous international news events, including major summits. He is now freelance journalist and an international election monitor. He is married with three grown-up children, and lives in Muswell Hill, London.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ian Mather
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0956761216
• ISBN 13: 9780956761217
• Binding: Perfect Paperback
• Number of pages: 365
• Editor: Ian Mather