GORDON THOMAS
is the author of fifty-three
books. Total sales exceed 45 million copies. Several were Main Selections
for Book of the Month Club, the Literary Guild Book and the Readers Digest
Book Club. He has received two Mark Twain Society Awards for Reporting
Excellence. Seven of his books are major motion pictures including five times
Academy Award nominated Voyage of the Damned; Enola Gay, which won the Emmy
Awards Foreign Critics Prize. Experiences won the Juries and Critics prize at
the Monte Carlo Film Festival. He holds an Edgar Alan Poe Award for
Shipwreck.
His books of
best-selling David Morton novels are being filmed by IAC International as a
22-hour television series to be screened worldwide in 2003. His Gideon?s
Spies: Mossad?s Secret Warriors became a major documentary for Channel Four
which he wrote and narrated. It followed three years of research during which
he was given unprecedented access to Mossad?s key personnel. The book has so
far been published in 16 languages.
Gordon Thomas
lives in Ireland, with his wife, an interior designer. His four children work
in various sections of the entertainment industry.
GORDON ON GORDON
"I
am the author of fifty-three books published world-wide, several of which have
dealt with various aspects of the intelligence world. As a foreign
correspondent my assignments have ranged from the Suez Crisis in 1956 to
Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Having
worked as a foreign correspondent, I have first-hand experience of the dire
consequences of unsuccessful foreign policies. Korea, Vietnam, Algeria,
Cyprus, Iraq, Iran - I covered them all. But it was Tiananmen
Square
which me most bruised. Kids rolled out 14 foot long by tanks ? I've seen a lot
of death and horror but this was something else.
Forty-five
years of reporting gave me a shelf of best-sellers - and the skills needed to
persuade the men and women of Mossad to open up.
I was born
on the floor of a house in a graveyard, in Wales. During the '30s Depression
his mother was visiting my grandparents, cemetery-keepers, when she went into
labour. A blizzard prevented her reaching hospital. Because my father served
in the RAF, I spent my childhood abroad. While at school in England I wrote
my first book, Descent Into Danger, the true story of a British agent
in Russia during World War 11.
I wrote
the whole thing in 30 exercise books. I had no idea how to find a publisher. I
looked up the first one, Alan Wingate, and sent him a letter. The book was
accepted. Descent Into Danger was also serialised by the Express Newspaper
Group and I was given a job.
In 1956,
during the Suez Crisis, Express newspapers sent me Arabic, to Egypt as a
junior reporter.
One by one
all the senior correspondents, legends of the 1940s and 1950s, were expelled
and there was only me. I got my first big exclusive when Nasser told me in a
moment of aberration that he intended to nationalise the Suez Canal. I filed
the story. Two hours later the phone rang and it was Lord Beaverbrook himself.
He said 'I hope you're right because if you're not your career is over'. At
three o'clock
the Egyptian Foreign Office denied any plans. The stock markets tumbled. At 6
o'clock Nasser nationalised the Canal.
When BBC 2
started I joined as the first resident writer. I started 'Tomorrow's World',
'Horizon' and 'Man Alive'. I became a writer, director and producer.
I made
documentaries on Dr Christian Barnard, the heart surgeon, and Dr Joseph Issels,
the controversial cancer specialist. But television seemed too ephemeral, and
I'm not a person who likes big teams.
I have
explored some extremely dark subjects, from slavery to the bombing of
Hiroshima in my books and screenplays.
My
father-in-law was a professional intelligence officer who worked for MI5 and
ran a network in East Germany.
He introduced me to many intelligence agents including William Buckley, the
CIA station chief murdered in Beirut.
During the
course of research I discovered the CIA had been the greatest pioneer of
torture I'd ever come across in the West. They had enlisted a hospital
attached to McGill University in Montreal and a Scots-born psychiatrist,
Professor Ewan Cameron, experimented to see if it was possible to cook minds.
I've met a
lot of people in Intelligence. Some are very spooky indeed. You wouldn't cross
the room to avoid them, you just wouldn't go into the room in the first place.
Those in Mossad I found particularly interesting ? so devious.
In the
run-up to the Gulf War, I had a rare interview with Saddam Hussein.
?In our
deserts the makers of deadly perfume have worked hard to provide us with the
weapons to defend ourselves and destroy the Zionists should they ever attack
us, or their allies should they, too, dare to attack us." Saddam told me.
It was the
first hint that Iraq possessed biological weapons. The interview was published
around the world.
I have
reported all the major Middle East
wars since 1956, including witnessing the effect of biological and chemical
weapons in the notorious massacre of Kurds during the Iran/Iraq War. My
intelligence contacts, particularly in Israel, helped to pave the way for me
to go on producing Globe-Intel reports."
Also by Gordon Thomas:
Non-Fiction:
DESCENT INTO DANGER
BED OF NAILS
PHYSICIAN EXTRAORDINARY
HEROES OF THE R.A.F.
THEY GOT BACK
MIRACLE OF SURGERY
THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE AND YOU
THAMES NUMBER ONE
MIDNIGHT TRADERS
THE PARENT'S HOME DOCTOR (with Ian D Hudson, Vincent Pippet)
TURN BY THE WINDOW (with Ronald Hutchinson)
ISSELS: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A DOCTOR
THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED (with Max Morgan-Witts)
EARTHQUAKE (with Max Morgan-Witts)
SHIPWRECK (with Max Morgan-Witts)
VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED (with Max Morgan-Witts)
THE DAY GUERNICA DIED (with Max Morgan-Witts)
ENOLA GAY/RUIN FROM THE AIR (with Max Morgan-Witts)
THE DAY THE BUBBLE BURST (With Max Morgan-Witts)
TRAUMA (with Max Morgan-Witts)
PONTIFF (with Max Morgan-Witts)
THE YEAR OF ARMAGEDDON (with Max Morgan-Witts)
THE
OPERATION
DESIRE AND DENIAL
TRIAL: The Jesus Conspiracy
JOURNEY INTO MADNESS
ENSLAVED
CHAOS UNDER HEAVEN
TRESPASS INTO TEMPTATION
GIDEON'S SPIES
MAGDALENE: WOMAN OF THE CROSS/ THE 13th DISCIPLE
SEEDS OF FIRE
MINDFIELD
Fiction:
THE CAMP ON BLOOD ISLAND
TORPEDO RUN
DEADLY PERFUME
GODLESS ICON
VOICES IN THE SILENCE
ORGAN HUNTERS
POISONED SKY
Screenplays:
EMMETT (With Gordon Parry)
ENSLAVED (With Kevan Barker)
ORGAN HUNTERS
THE JESUS CONSPIRACY
CHAOS UNDER
HEAVEN
MAMBO
UNDERPASS
DESIRE AND DENIAL (With Kevan Barker)
MINDFIELD (With Kevan Barker)
ISSELS (With Kevan Barker)
