Source : Globe & Mail

I've always been a bit of a sucker for rogues, which probably explains my enduring affection for the late Izzy Asper.

I got to know Mr. Asper a bit while working on the Prairies in the early 1980s. I broke the story of his ugly split with his board at CanWest Capital Corp. and his breakup with partner Gerry Schwartz. I would also talk to Mr. Asper from time to time about politics as he worked to help the new Liberal leader, John Turner, break through in Western Canada.

I became better acquainted with Izzy Asper -- nobody ever referred to him by his proper given name, Israel -- after joining The Globe and Mail in 1986. I covered the media beat for the Report on Business, and Mr. Asper was the subject of a number of articles, and the source, I think it can safely be disclosed, for quite a few as well. He was bright, engaging, witty and, bless his heart, highly quotable. He was vindictive, cantankerous, cocky, and bless his heart, highly litigious. Quotable and litigious. A young reporter couldn't ask for more.

His considerable charm lay in his conflicting characteristics. His aggressive capitalism was tempered by aggressive philanthropy. In going from marginal to mogul in a single lifetime, he never lost sight of the boy who would sweep the sidewalk in front of his immigrant parents' movie theatre in Minnedosa, Man.

My favourite Asper moment -- it actually lasted 10 hours -- occurred in the fall of 1987. I went to Winnipeg to work on a story about the feuding among the owners of Global TV. Mr. Asper was part of a group that rescued the station from collapse shortly after it went on the air on Jan. 6, 1974. For the next dozen years, the partners starred in a real-life version of Shootout at the OK Corral.

Mr. Asper picked me up at my hotel and we headed north to one of the city's traditional delicatessens. After a fat-filled dinner, we returned to his house for a formal interview. Fortunately, I had brought a lot of tape. From about 10 at night till past four in the morning, Mr. Asper recounted his life story, with particular attention to all the people who had screwed him or tried to screw him along the way.

We sat in reclining chairs in his den. At one point in the evening, his younger son, Leonard, came home and chatted with us before going off to bed. The room was fitted out with a bar and fridge. Every 45 minutes, like clockwork, Mr. Asper would stand up, put down his Craven A, and mix himself another martini. With each drink, his powerful desire to spill the beans overcame any resistance to speaking on the record.

He replayed for me a dozen years of boardroom nastiness at Global, including how his partners, in his view, tried to steal the station from him while he was on the operating table undergoing open-heart surgery. (In classic fashion, he blamed his heart problems not on his lifestyle, but on the unwarranted business aggravation.) He poured forth stories about his youth cleaning gum off the floor of his parents' theatre; about his dedication to Winnipeg; about the future of the region and country. It was earthy and indiscreet and intelligent, one of my favourite interviews of all time.

At four in the morning, about eight martinis later, I said I should phone a cab. Mr. Asper was having none of it. A good host drives his guest back to the hotel. I suggested that might not be a good idea. I knew he already had one drinking-under-the-influence charge under his belt. But he insisted, and he was a hard man to knock off course.

Over the next few days, I remember being consumed by two thoughts. First, that Mr. Asper probably was headed for an early grave. I was wrong on that count. Second, I wondered how a man so full of ideas and opinions could fail to take advantage of his journalistic opportunities. He owned Global, but Global didn't matter a whit in the national conversation about which Mr. Asper had such strong views.

When he took over the National Post in 2001, students of the man, like myself, drew the simple conclusion that he would seek to run the paper as a business. While Conrad Black had proved himself committed, above all, to the propagation of his particular point of view, the new owner was wedded to the pursuit of profit.

Mr. Asper proved us wrong. He became quickly entranced by the allure of newspapers -- their ability to shape agendas and public debate. After all those years in the political wilderness, he took like a repressed political junkie to wielding influence through his media holdings. That he proved a disappointment as a proprietor is better left barely spoken. He never understood that journalists, to succeed at their craft, must be given the same licence for independence and individuality that he demanded for himself. Nor did he understand that newspapers prosper when they are seen as fair-minded and not narrow-minded.

I was having lunch with another businessman this week when my cellphone vibrated with news of Mr. Asper's demise. This other gentleman, an acquaintance of Mr. Asper, remarked that he had never met anyone "so defined by his Jewishness as Izzy."

He was still a man of many opinions in his latter years, but one came to overpower all -- his belief in a strong Israel morally justified in going to whatever lengths necessary to safeguard its future. He responded to growing insecurity about Israel with a need to act. The National Post served as his main platform. From the outside, he seemed to treat it more as a cause than a business.

From beginning to end, Mr. Asper was indeed defined by his Jewishness. He was the classic immigrant Jewish son made good -- a lawyer, a talented pianist, a businessman, a giver of charity. Yesterday, I looked back on some of the columns he wrote on tax matters for the Report on Business in the 1960s and 1970s. Interestingly, he used the ambiguous byline I. H. Asper back then. This week, his media properties identified him by his proper first name, Israel.

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