The man behind the bow tie : Arthur Porter on business, politics and intrigue

222 Pages·2014·2.82 MB·English

by  Porter

For my family.
I dedicate this book to my father and mother, who created me, nurtured me and
gave me the spirit to overcome and succeed. I also dedicate this book to my
wife, Pamela, and my daughters, Gemma, Fiona, Adina and Charlotte—“Team
Porter,” who supported me through geography, time, success and adversity.
I am truly in your debt. This may be my story, but it’s for you.
Contents
Preface
1. From a Great Height
2. “Arthur, You Will Be a Doctor”
3. From Cambridge to Canada
4. “The Most Popular Man in Detroit”
5. “It Is Better Knowing the King”
6. A Man of Many Hats
7. The Hospital That Porter Built
8. Nothing is Private Anymore
9. When in Rome . . .
10. Fountain of Youth
11. Anything Is Possible in La Joya
12. Cheating Time, Doing Time
Epilogue: I Know Who My Friends Are
Photographs
Index
Copyright
Preface
In my jail cell in Panama, I have a bed, a lamp and a fan. A thin curtain separates
me from the nine other prisoners sharing this cell. Beyond, hundreds of hardened
criminals are roaming the halls. I have swelling around my ankles and shortness
of breath. When I put my stethoscope to my chest, I hear more crackles than
before. I have an idea of what a chest x-ray would show, and it’s not good. I
occasionally cough blood, but overall, thanks to drugs I smuggled into prison, I
am functioning well for a fifty-seven-year-old man with lung cancer, who hasn’t
seen a doctor in months.
Sitting here, I think about the world beyond these walls. I think about my
wife, who is under house arrest in Montreal, and my four daughters, spread out
across the globe. I think about the charges against me in Canada. Fraud.
Conspiracy to commit fraud. Fraud against the government. I think about the
damage to my reputation and the fair-weather friends who have come and gone.
And I think about the next meeting with my lawyer and how I will get out of this
place.
It is a lot to take in, and it is not always easy to keep a brave face. But there
are many ways to get through it. One way is to view my cancer dispassionately,
as something outside myself. I notice improvements or setbacks and move on.
Another way is to stay as busy and productive as I can. I never sit still. I solve
problems and perform tasks. I improve my living quarters. I go for walks and
conduct business. Or I treat patients, my fellow inmates, for injuries, infections
and diseases. I focus on the next goal. That is how I survive.
Days like today are especially difficult. After all, it was two years ago today
that my life started to unravel.
When the media has turned their attention to me, whether in glowing or
disparaging articles in the newspaper or on the nightly news, they always seem
to be fascinated with just how a half-black, half-white boy from Africa got to
where he was. Perhaps because I’ve never stayed in one place for too long, or
because I’m always making new friends and pursuing new business partnerships,
or maybe it’s as simple as my being neither black nor white—for whatever
reason, people have always had difficulty pinning me down or slotting me into a
category. Some have considered me chameleon-like, changing colours to suit my
environment.
It’s true: I have lived and worked in Sierra Leone, England, Canada, the
United States, the Caribbean and everywhere in between. But that is where the
comparison ends. Unlike a chameleon, I have never blended into my
environment—ever. Nor have I wanted to do so. I got people to adapt to suit me,
regardless of race, religion or social position. I reshaped the environment to the
way I wanted it. I made other people’s colours change.
Recently, a good friend of mine died. Winston Derrick was the former editor
of the Antigua Observer. He was a gregarious man, full of jokes, argument and
wit, and always with a twinkle in his eye. While having dinner with a friend at a
restaurant, he succumbed to a massive pulmonary embolism, a blockage to the
main artery in the lung that caused a near-instant death.
I was not there at the time, but the image of Winston sprawled on a restaurant
floor, amid panic and confusion, has stuck in my mind. He had no time to think
about or plan his departure from this earth. He did not get to say goodbye to
whomever he wished or to deal with his affairs. He believed he was in perfect
health.
I know better. I have terminal lung cancer, and I am fighting to stay alive in an
environment far from ideal for my (or anyone’s) health and well-being. My
entire life has been devoted to climbing, winning and succeeding. But with the
end drawing near, it is inevitable that I, like anyone else, wonder if what I have
accomplished truly matters. I wonder how I will be remembered. Unlike
Winston, I have this moment to consider these questions.
If my situation has a silver lining, I think it is this: my illness has prioritized
what is important. And so I have decided to tell my own story, in my own words,
about how a Sierra Leonean reached the highest offices in Canada and the U.S. I
challenge my critics to keep an open mind. Amid all the controversies and
allegations, there is another side to this story. There is an African boy with a
heart, a mind and a desire to succeed—a human being. Now we can all look
back and see more clearly how Arthur Porter—doctor, businessman, statesman,
spy watchdog, husband and father—went from the halls of power to the hell of
La Joya.
Whether the journey is worthy of remembrance, I leave to you, the reader.
November 8, 2013
La Joya Prison, Panama
1. From a Great Height
I stepped out of the London taxi with my head spinning, my BlackBerry clutched
in my shaky palm. Before me was 20 Moorgate, the Bank of England. I stood
dwarfed by those towering columns, contemplating my next move.
On a typical day, a high-profile luncheon with Mark Carney, then governor of
the Bank of Canada, would have been right up my alley. I relished nothing more
than a networking opportunity. In the course of my life, my God-given
predispositions have made me among the best at what I do. I have a strategic
memory. In a sea full of ties and tuxedos, I always know exactly who is worth
knowing. I am focused and charismatic. I take no prisoners. I have often heard it
said that it is better to know the king than to be the king. Well, in my time I have
known more than a few kings.
On November 8, 2011, I was at the height of my power. I had reached the
pinnacle of my profession as a radiation oncologist. I served on dozens of
prestigious political and scientific boards and committees. When I wasn’t
travelling, I spent my weekdays in Montreal and weekends at my home in the
Bahamas. Heads of state were my colleagues and friends. My international
business dealings stretched across several continents, from North America to
Africa, with interests in mining, real estate, infrastructure and healthcare. I was a
known Republican in the U.S., an avid Conservative in Canada and a man of
influence in my native Sierra Leone. As a diplomat or an ambassador-at-large
for Sierra Leone, I kept a party card in my wallet. I am member number 4,900 of
the All People’s Congress, which I joined in my home country some thirty-five
years ago.
In Canada I was best known as director general and chief executive officer of
the McGill University Health Centre. Under my leadership, we were finally
building what people had dreamt about for nearly two decades—a new $1.3-
billion mega-hospital in Montreal. I was also just months away from finishing
my first term as chairman of the Security Intelligence Review Committee of
Canada (SIRC), the watchdog for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service
(CSIS). That was what had brought me to London: I was leading a Canadian
delegation to meet our counterparts at mi5, the U.K.’s domestic counter-
intelligence and security agency, something we did at least once a year.
In intelligence circles, there is a group known as the “five eyes,” made up of
mostly Commonwealth countries, including Britain, Canada, South Africa and
Australia, as well as the U.S. On this particular day, however, all eyes were
apparently on me, and not in a good way. En route to lunch, I had received an
email from my public relations assistant at the McGill University Health Centre,
alerting me to an article splashed across the front of one of Canada’s daily
newspapers. On any given day, I usually received a minimum of three hundred
emails. I divided this correspondence into three groups. About a hundred of
these emails fell into the CYA (“cover your ass”) category: things subordinates
and colleagues wanted to be sure they told me. Another hundred emails were
useless, and those I ignored. The final hundred tended to be quite important.
The email I had just received was very important. It contained information
that was serious, on the cusp of earth-shattering. I knew that immediately from
the subject line, written entirely in caps so I would not miss it: “ALERT:
ARTICLE THIS MORNING IN NATIONAL POST.” A horrible feeling
festered in the pit of my stomach, hard and big, and I could feel it jamming itself
up my throat. I coughed and shifted uncomfortably in the cab’s black leather seat
as I waited for the article to load.
The yellow banner of the Post flashed up, and I saw my picture and the
headline. In truth, it was an expletive-worthy moment. One of Canada’s largest
newspapers had dredged up a botched deal I had attempted to broker more than a
year earlier. The deal was between a Montreal-based businessman named Ari
Ben-Menashe, the Sierra Leone government and myself.
Ben-Menashe was born in Iran and apparently worked for a time with Israeli
intelligence. He was reported to have been involved in the trafficking of military
equipment. He was also a well-known Russian lobbyist, though he worked with
many other countries as well. A Canadian citizen, he owned a registered
Canadian company, Traeger Resources and Logistics Inc. At the time he first
approached me, I didn’t know him well. I did know that he had sold military
aircraft and other weaponry to various countries. Most people find those kinds of
transactions quite frightful. Contrary to popular belief, however, such deals are
not terribly unusual. The Canadians do it. The Americans do it. While Ben-
Menashe may have had a colourful past, I found it interesting that he was later
portrayed as if he was an Al-Qaeda operative living in a cave on the Pakistani-
Afghani border. In actuality, the man lived in Westmount, one of the most
respectable areas of Montreal.
What Ben-Menashe had proposed to me a year earlier had nothing to do with
weapons, but instead involved bridges, dams, ferries and other infrastructure
projects in Sierra Leone. The Russians wanted to do this type of deal in Sierra
Leone through a development organization. Russia was peddling influence, with
the idea that the investments they made would be leveraged politically down the
road. They were doing this in several parts of the world. In the case of Sierra
Leone, the deal would have provided $150 million for the country. The
arrangement would certainly have made the lives of Sierra Leoneans better.
Of course, others would have benefited as well. I was chairman of Africa
Infrastructure Group, the company set to handle the project in Sierra Leone. The
ruling government there also saw the deal as election fodder. They knew that
dispersing millions of dollars throughout the country would endear them to the
population. I had no idea what Ben-Menashe stood to gain. I did not ask, and he
would not have told me. If you are brokering deals between Russians and West
Africans, you don’t want to ask too many questions about the players. Otherwise
you will find it very difficult doing business in that part of the world.
I don’t think many people understand the dynamics of international business. I
had no illusions. Most business deals, if they are successful, have two sides to