The world’s oldest still-active war correspondent shares the real stories behind half a century of headlines from the front lines.

The world’s oldest still-active war correspondent, Al J. Venter, has reported from the front lines for well over half a century, witnessing the horrors humanity visits upon itself in twenty-five conflict zones across Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

In this memoir, Venter masterfully recounts his experiences, sharing the real stories behind the headlines and the sharp lessons he learned that enabled him to survive his countless exploits, ranging from exposing a major KGB operative in Rhodesia entirely by accident, and accompanying an Israeli force led by Ariel Sharon into Beirut, to gun-running into the United States.

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Maps
• Author’s note
• Prologue Not an autobiography
• Chapter 1 Africa, the great continent with an appeal all its own
• Chapter 2 Home by five
• Chapter 3 Heading out into the unknown
• Chapter 4 Africa in the 1960s
• Chapter 5 Matilda and Albert Schweitzer’s jungle hospital
• Chapter 6 Plantain and palm wine in Libreville
• Chapter 7 Nigeria: ‘Crazy, but I love it!’
• Chapter 8 A peripatetic existence
• Chapter 9 Rib-eye and red wine in Abidjan
• Chapter 10 Kids with machine guns and water for fuel
• Chapter 11 Republic of Guinea to London
• Chapter 12 The Londoner: my dream of a ship
• Chapter 13 Looking for wars and learning to write
• Chapter 14 A bloody battle and a narrow escape in Lagos
• Chapter 15 Another close call
• Chapter 16 Getting the job done
• Chapter 17 Independence and revolutions
• Chapter 18 Subterfuge
• Chapter 19 The safari capital of the world
• Chapter 20 Banned from Rhodesia
• Chapter 21 Pen-pushing pals
• Chapter 22 Betrayal!
• Chapter 23 Undersea realm
• Chapter 24 Intelligence work: a quagmire of nuclear intrigue
• Chapter 25 Mayday
• Chapter 26 Lisbon
• Chapter 27 You’d be lucky to be hit
• Chapter 28 South Africa invades Angola
• Chapter 29 Getting to grips with the CIA
• Chapter 30 The Battle for Beirut
• Chapter 31 The murder of a United States Marine Corps colonel
• Chapter 32 The bin Laden syndrome in South Africa
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgements
• About the author
• Books by the same author