Interviewing a Dictator

Four bruisers, in army fatigues, were spaced around the room, during the interview. Two were at the door, as if Shaun and I planned to escape in the middle of the interview, and one each was stationed near Shaun and me. The dictator was paranoid and not taking any chances.

Shaun was calm as a cucumber. I wasn’t, but I was doing all I could not to show that on the film. I quickly lost touch with my nervousness, though, because almost as soon as the interview started, the dictator was ranting on about the imperialist United States and of what he claimed were secret military pacts he had not only with Cuba and Venezuela but also with Russia and a few Mideast terrorist groups that I was flabbergasted to find he even could pronounce the names of let alone consort with.

He made no bones about being dismissive of his own people, who he planned to break on the wheel of padding the fortunes of the president and laid out specific plans on disrupting the passage of shipping to and from the Panama Canal, unless the United States became very generous with its foreign aid program.

As delighted as I was to hear all of this—with the man coming up with a news blockbuster every thirty seconds—and to know that Shaun was getting it all on film, I increasingly couldn’t understand why he was telling us all of this.

That is until I made the mistake of asking him that specific question.

“Why, because I am enjoying talking about it and because you are never going to put any of that on your television.”