LAWFUEL – Conrad Black, former newspaper magnate and convicted of fraud and awaiting sentence, is about to launch his biography on America’s famous, fallen president, Richard Nixon.
The Chicago Tribune reports that it’s an awkward time to launch a book — a few weeks before being sentenced for fraud and obstruction of justice.Yet it may also be a welcome distraction for Conrad Black, who has written a nearly 1,200-page biography of Richard M. Nixon, one of America’s most vilified presidents. “Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full” is set to hit U.S. bookstores in October, a date picked by his American publisher because it fell after the July 13 verdict in Black’s criminal trial.
Black acknowledges his felony conviction will complicate selling his book. Pending his sentencing in late November, U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve has refused to let Black return to Canada and has restricted his movements to the Chicago area and to a county in South Florida, where Black has a mansion in Palm Beach.
“As it is now, my geographic limitations are not conducive to a massive book tour,” Black said wryly in an interview Tuesday.
It’s hard to miss the parallels between Nixon’s lofty rise to the Oval Office and dramatic fall during Watergate and the recent events in Black’s own life. Only a few years ago, Black headed the world’s third-largest media empire and counted people such as Henry Kissinger, Margaret Thatcher and William Buckley as friends. Now, his assets are frozen and he is facing a possible sentence of 24 to 30 years in prison.
Known as a pugnacious fighter himself, Black still declares his innocence and has hired a prominent New York attorney to pursue his appeal. Meanwhile, he isn’t embracing Nixon as a metaphor for his own life.
