As explained in Part l of this article on my days working as a journalist with the Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg, South Africa, during that country’s Apartheid years, we discovered two police spies within our ranks.

At the time, we wondered what might face us next as the Mail’s outspoken attacks on the Government’s Apartheid policies were a deep source of contention at Cabinet level.

We did not, however, have to wait long before another mystery arrived within our editorial ranks. This was when the Mail was to publish a special expose on the ill treatment of certain African farm workers.

Our editor had decided that, as the story had great political significance at the time, it should be surrounded by high security measures. His decision was based on the fact that, once the Apartheid Government had the slightest smell of something not in its political interests, it was inclined to immediately take the challenge to court before it could become public knowledge.

As a result of this way of thinking, only three very responsible people were assigned to handle the story and were sworn to utter secrecy. Precautions were even taken to use private phones in connection with the story as the authorities were inclined to tap our office phones with gay abandon.

The article in question was even separated by each paragraph so it could not be accidentally read. Even the printers were kept at bay as the important words were put into type, ready for publication at the normal time of 2.30am. on a certain day.

But to everyone’s horror, the Mail’s principal opposing paper, the heavily pro-Government “Die Transvaler,” always published at midnight, hit the streets on the stroke of 12 with a big story denying the Mail’s to-be-published facts.

Once again, we were in a quandary as to how the Government’s public voice had obtained information so carefully kept by the Mail under such heavy wraps of security.

It was immediately obvious to everyone on our editorial staff that police spies were still living and working among us. And we never found out how our scoop had been beaten by the pro-Government newsmen.

Clashes between news hunting journalists and government officials was not, however, restricted to Apartheid South Africa during my years of experience in the various countries between Cairo and Cape Town.

Shortly after the Mau Mau reigned terror on people of all races in Kenya, certain Indian rural cotton buying outposts in neighbouring Tanganyika were severely attacked by armed men intent on stealing the large sums of money held there by the Indian cotton buyers.

When this was reported to the British Governor of Tanganyika, Sir Edward Twining, he immediately ordered that the matter be shrouded in total secrecy from the eyes of his masters in London and, of course, the Media. His order placed a heavy ban on journalists reporting the incidents. Plans were also laid to hold a behind-doors meeting in faraway nondescript Mwanza Town to placate people affected by the thefts.

I was, however, tipped off by a contact and decided that I should immediately travel to Mwanza to report on what was initially thought to be Mau Mau gangsters stealing money to buy more arms and ammunition for their deadly campaign in Kenya.

As I knew the Government organisers of the meeting would be on the lookout for any enquiring reporters, I managed to attach myself to a well-known personality in the area and slipped into the meeting hall unnoticed.

Sir Edward led the meeting and again requested complete silence over the facts of the cotton post hold-ups. When he had finished, I left to return to the Mwanza Hotel to type an urgent Press telegram and submitted it at the post office for urgent sending.

I was having a quiet beer in the hotel bar when I nonchantly heard the screech of two or three motorised sirens. I did not think much of this until the sirens stopped right outside the hotel and a bevy of Government men and police officers alighted, running straight towards me.

I was summarily arrested after a verbal confrontation and was taken straight to Sir Edward, resplendent in his white British Colonial uniform and feathered helmet. I was told in no mean terms that I had gone against his words, uttered on behalf of the then Queen Elizabeth 11 with whom I was at a dinner in Kenya when her father, the King, died.

On this occasion, I was also threatened with being summarily thrown out of Tanganyika and being literally tarred and feathered for treason against the state.

I had previously secured quite good relations with the very military minded Sir Edward and was often invited to play squash at Government House when in Dar es Salaam but, regretfully, I was never again in the Governor’s good books in spite of the fact that it was he who was in the wrong by hiding vital information from his superiors in Britain.

Initially unknown to me, the post office had refused to send my Press telegram and had tipped off Tanganyikan Government officials in an act of blatant censorship. I did, however, manage to have the story personally smuggled out of Tanganyika to my various newspapers and later received a thank you commendation from London as the news of possible Mau Mau activity in Tanganyika had provided the Colonial Office with a major shift in its initial Kenya terrorist strategies.