The day I fought for the Chinese army, by John Simpson: Veteran journalist reveals how he stopped students attacking soldiers at Tiananmen Square protests
As the BBC’s veteran world affairs editor, he has witnessed some of the bloodiest conflicts of recent decades.
But when the cameras have stopped rolling, it seems John Simpson is not afraid of dishing out some violence himself.
The foreign correspondent claims he once ‘waded in’ during the Tiananmen Square protests in Peking and ‘whacked’ a mob of angry students to stop them killing Chinese soldiers.
And while reporting on the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he said he attacked a US marine with his walking stick to prevent him from shooting an innocent civilian.
Simpson, 68, said he is ‘not terribly proud’ of his exploits, but insisted journalists have a duty to ‘step in’ to prevent terrible crimes.
He said one such event happened while he was reporting from Tiananmen Square in 1989. He saw protesters dragging soldiers from an armoured personnel carrier and beating them savagely.
He told the Radio Times: ‘The crowd was a very rough lot, not nice students, and they wanted blood.
They smashed the head of one of the soldiers in, and then they started to smash another one in and I thought, ‘I can’t stand by and just let this happen,’ and so I waded in. I used to be a rugby player and a boxer and I’m quite big and so on… and so I whacked them to one side.’
More... Cold War cartography: Mapping where Soviets could - and could not - go in 1950's America Living it up on the brink of war: 1913: THE WORLD BEFORE THE GREAT WAR BY CHARLES EMMERSONIn 2001, Simpson dressed himself as a woman in a burka to smuggle himself into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan before the US invasion, and was mocked for claiming the BBC had ‘liberated’ Kabul as he walked into the city ahead of conquering troops. He later admitted getting ‘a bit carried away’ and said he regretted his choice of words.
Near misses: John Simpson reporting on a 'friendly fire' incident in Iraq when American forces jet bombed a convoy
In 2003, the reporter was injured in Northern Iraq when a US warplane bombed a convoy of American and Kurdish forces. His interpreter was killed in the friendly-fire attack and he was left with a damaged ear and shrapnel in his leg.
Simpson said he intervened again while entering the Iraqi city of Tikrit – Saddam Hussein’s hometown – with US forces.
He said: ‘I had this injury so I had a walking stick. There was a house with a flat roof, just on the other side of the road, and some poor old boy was hanging up a carpet to dry and one of the US marines I was with swung his rifle round and shouted out ‘Sniper! Sniper!’ and I whacked him in the back with my stick.
‘I did enjoy the whacking, yes. They were nervous and were given the impression by their officers that if they did kill somebody and it was done in self-defence, so be it. And that was really why my team and I got bombed and they killed 18 people, including my translators – and how I got my shrapnel.’
He added: ‘I don’t go interfering in things by and large. But I do think if you see somebody doing something really, really awful and you could stop it, you’ve got a duty to step in. I don’t think you can say, “I’m a journalist,” and do nothing.’
Simpson is married to his former producer Dee Kruger, who, at 49, is 19 years younger than him.They have a seven-year-old son, Rafe.
Despite his rugged exterior, Simpson said he cries easily. He said: ‘It does tend to happen to you in old age, it’s a condition called…emotional lability. I read about it somewhere. Winston Churchill had it – he used to get it if people talked about honour or glory or generosity.
‘I had it, of course, when my son was born but it isn’t always about wonderful or, indeed, terrible moments. What sets me off is generosity, too, and people’s kindness.’
The reporter added he wishes he could be more like 65-year-old Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow, saying: ‘He’s so thin and cool and iconic.’
