International - India & World   

Indiscretion or publicity coup?

Nirupama Subramanian

ISLAMABAD: There is an interesting line in President Pervez Musharraf's book In the Line of Fire, well before it begins.

The book was available in bookstores in Islamabad a few hours before the New York launch. Store owners reported brisk sales, with one saying he had sold 200 copies in under an hour.

On the title page, under the name of the publisher Simon & Schuster, it says A CBS Company.

CBS is the media giant that owns CBS TV, on which President Pervez Musharraf said that the then Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, had threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the Stone Age".

Last week, with just days to go for the book launch, CBS TV put out excerpts from the interview on its programme, 60 Minutes, including the bomb-you-back-to-the-Stone Age line, arousing wide interest in the book.

The Pakistan President's refusal to say anything more on the subject at a joint press conference with U.S. President George Bush at the White House, on the plea that he was "honour-bound" to his publisher, heightened the interest.

Some were willing to believe the "straight-talking" President had unknowingly pre-empted his own book launch, and had been reined back by the publisher. Many smelt a marketing stunt.

Considering the publisher and broadcaster are owned by the same parent company, the question is bound to come up again: did the one not know what the other was up to, or were they both partners in a planned publicity coup?

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

70 Tigers killed in major battle: Navy
Not a banana republic, says Musharraf
CIA paid Pakistan for Al-Qaeda men
Confucius' statue sparks debate
Abe allies in top slots
Woman official killed
No survivor in crash
Indiscretion or publicity coup?
Indian student killed in St. Petersburg

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu