Fact and fiction in one correspondent

Like many of us, I have figured in various factual books, but I once appeared in a work of fiction - The Wire by former ITN diplomatic editor Nik Gowing.

On pages 86-87, a KGB officer in a hotel room in Munich switches on the radio news and listens to a news bulletin which ends, “In his final dispatches before lines were cut by the Polish authorities, Reuter correspondent Brian Mooney reported that strikes had begun in at least four factories in Warsaw ...

“‘Predictable capitalist propaganda!’ snorted the hard-line KGB captain as he turned off the radio and fell back onto the bed.” ■