Prologue

THE letter was short but relatively sweet. ‘Sir James [Goldsmith] regrets that his commitments at present mean that he will not be able to meet you to discuss your forthcoming book,’ it ran. ‘He is appreciative of your approach to him.’ The interesting thing about the missive is that it was not written on Goldsmith’s letterhead but on that of Britain’s leading firm of libel lawyers, Peter Carter-Ruck and Partners. It was vintage Goldsmith: the iron fist in the velvet glove.

In his lifetime he did everything he could to prevent publication of this unauthorised biography. The authors were warned at the outset that one of his first moves would be to assign private detectives to delve into their backgrounds and political affiliations. Members of his family were instructed not to speak, with the perceived threat that to do so would mean being left out of his will. And friends were warned not to cooperate. The pressure eventually told on the publishing house which had commissioned the book in the first place. Citing its fear of a costly libel action that publisher pulled out of the deal, paying the writers their advance in full.

What no one but Goldsmith and a handful of confidants knew at this stage was that he had only a matter of months left to live and he was determined that a work over which he had no control should not turn out to be his epitaph. According to one member of his circle, there was even talk of paying the authors half a million pounds to lay off. In the event, Goldsmith died a month before the book’s planned release date in August 1997, satisfied that he had resolved the matter.

But, by now, the writers had an intriguing book on their hands. They had travelled the world to investigate their subject in his various habitats and, despite pressure from Goldsmith, scores of friends and enemies, associates and rivals, had spoken out about the workings of the Goldsmith empire. Even a handful of independent-minded relatives had broken ranks and told their stories of life within the family. What emerged was an extraordinary portrait of a remarkable man. Suddenly publishers were interested anew. In the wake of Goldsmith’s death, an updated manuscript was completed and this book is the result.

The man who made a fortune from a spate of company takeovers in the US was used to having things his way. His new career in politics may have brought him back into the limelight but it made him, if anything, even more sensitive to unauthorised probing. And with good reason. Few public figures led a more colourful existence than Goldsmith. In Britain, he attracted controversy in the ’70s for a ruthless approach to the companies he acquired in his bid to become the housewives’ favourite in the supermarket sector. At one stage his Cavenham holding company dwarfed Tesco and Sainsbury’s. In the ’80s, he sent tremors through many an American boardroom on his way to becoming one of the most feared corporate raiders in the US. Meanwhile, his high-profile private life was proving equally fascinating. In the years following his first marriage in 1954, he produce