TRICKY DICK'S COFFEE HOUSE: 15)COFFEE & CAKE WITH A SIDE OF POETIC JUSTICE

A Throwback Thursday Memoir of Living in London in the 1970s

Spring 1977

One afternoon I chalked a blackboard to say The Idi Amin Fan Club, and placed it in Tricky Dick's plate glass window.  

This was when Big Dada was slaughtering tens of thousands of Ugandans and eating ministers who disagreed with him.  

I watched one afternoon (we were closed) as a middle-aged woman parked, ambled up to our window, eyes straining to read the sign, then came through the door to inquire about our club.

"It's just a joke," I said.

"Oh, I see," she said, disappointed and annoyed.  She returned to her car in a huff.

A reporter for The Observer newspaper also saw the sign, photographed it, and came in for cake and coffee.  

He later wrote a squib I never saw, only heard about, that likened our establishment's "dinginess" to a jungle, which, he pointed out, was appropriate, and that we were just the kind of place where you'd expect to find such a sick joke. 

He neglected to point out that our exterior was Congo Brown.  A great pity, as it would have been pithy of him.

After closing one night at 2 a.m., Bruce and I hit the road. 

Destination:  Salcombe, on Devon's south coast. 

In addition to visiting this quaint fishing village, I wanted to scout the Imperial Hotel in nearby Torquay where the Bilderbergers were due to meet two weeks hence.

We drove through darkness, carousing the motorway at 80 miles per, arriving in Salcombe just before six a.m. 

It was quiet, of course; the town had not yet awakened, though the sun was up, gulls circling.  We found a small bakery serving tea and danish.  Another golden moment.

With a new day upon us, I wanted to keep moving.  Bruce was easy; he went along with anything, and by seven o'clock we were on the road again, same road, heading back the other way.

We drove into Torquay, found the Imperial Hotel, parked, checked it out, stretched our legs, and got back into the car. 

It was our intention to stop somewhere (Salisbury sounded right) check into a hotel and reconnoiter the pubs looking for pretty girls. 

We had arranged for Diane D and her fiance Ray to run the restaurant in our absence that night. 

I kept on driving, driving, driving, until, by late afternoon, we neared London. 

Bruce truly wanted to stay somewhere new, but he was never vocal about anything, and when I dropped him at his parents' townhouse, he turned and said, "Well, that was fun."  I always appreciated his sarcastic wit.

I drove home, went straight to the Top Floor and, passing a mirror, stopped to look at my reflection. 

My eyes were wired, dilated, zombie-like, I looked like a Picasso, no, a Dali.  I threw cold water on my face and went to bed (it was late afternoon) and never got up.

Next morning, Tricky Dick's was a disaster area. 

Nothing had been cleaned up; chairs tipped over, dishes unwashed.  And someone had broken into my office, busted through a panel, and looted a couple of cases of Bulmer's Apple Cider, the alcoholic sort.

I drove down to Diane's place, a shop-front turned-squat in St. John's Wood.  She was upset.  Ray had gotten drunk while working and she left around midnight, leaving the place in his charge. 

A winning strategy. 

On a binge, Ray broke into my office and he and a few friends consumed fifteen one-liter bottles of cider.  She told me he had crawled into their room about five a.m., sang Call me Irresponsible, then puked all over the bed.

I banned Ray from the place and he, feeling indignant, told others he was going to beat me up. 

But Ray was just a sad young drunk with no job, no prospects and no longer engaged to Diane, who dumped him for Chris K, a Scottish musician who played piano and sang at Tricky Dick's twice a week.

When small amounts of cash began to disappear from the cashbox, we knew Diane was the culprit. 

A Greek named Nick, who owned a BBQ chicken takeout in Hendon and used to shoot pool at TD's, poached Diane, saving me the trouble of firing her.  

Weeks later, Nick pulled me aside and asked, Why didn't you warn me about her?  

We could sometimes serve poetic justice at Tricky Dick's.

Torquay, Devon

Peter Reynolds phoned me from Washington, D.C. with this plan: I would check into the Imperial Hotel on his nickel a few days before Bilderberg was scheduled to begin their pow-wow, he would meet me, and we would cover the conference together for his mysterious client.

I also arranged to report the meeting with Steven Weissman, who had been an editor at Ramparts magazine, for a leftist news magazine in the USA called Seven Days. 

I'd met Weissman at Miles Copeland's house.  Miles was a former CIA operative and extrovert from Alabama who liked to say, "You can trust me with any secret that doesn't have entertainment value." 

I had called Miles while researching Bilderberg to fish for an intelligence angle. 

He told me he knew nothing about Bilderberg, but said, "Hell, c'mon over anyway," to his big house (where his son Stewart practiced drums and Sting hung out looking to start a band) across the street from the American School in London in St. John's Wood.

As I was leaving Miles' house one evening, Steve Weissman arrived to interview Miles, and we were introduced.  Weissman and I stayed in contact (he came to visit my makeshift Tricky Dick's office) and we agreed to cover the Bilderberg meeting together. 

Our plan:  I'd go to Torquay, report the story; he'd stay in London, write it up.

So I trained down to Torquay and checked into the Imperial.  It was my very first stay in a five-star hotel.  I ordered room service (ham and cucumber sandwiches, a pot of tea) very posh, very civilized, very English.

A pack of reporters descended on the Imperial, and I was to blame: Every one of them held a copy of my Verdict story, which revealed that this meeting would take place.

Many of them were surprised it was all true.

Mrs. Hoogendoorn from The Hague appeared.  She supervised the movement of equipment from large trucks to the conference room.  Security was lax. 

I drank bourbon at the bar till closing, waited another hour in my room till two a.m., then descended the stairs four floors to the basement, through two sets of unlocked doors and… I was in the conference room. 

Had I been a terrorist, I could have planted a bomb and blown to smithereens a hundred of the most important people in the western world:  David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Edmund de Rochschild, Giovanni Agnelli, Helmut Schmidt, et al. 

What I did do was have a good look around, and sift through some cartons of files.

Oh, and I purloined a wooden gavel with a brass plaque engraved Bilderberg Meetings, Elsinore 1969.  It's mine now.

(When four years later I ran into dear Mrs. Hoogendoorn outside a Bilderberg steering committee meeting in London, she had obviously read my book on Bilderberg, The Global Manipulators (Pentacle Books, 1980) because she wagged her finger at me, but smiled—and didn’t ask for it back.)

I'd heard nothing from Reynolds since checking in, and I was getting jumpy.  I'd already stayed two nights and the five-star hotel room wasn't cheap.  What if Reynolds didn’t show?  I'd get stuck with the tab, that's what, probably a full week's takings at Tricky Dick's. 

I panicked, went down to check out.

The cashier said, "Oh, a Mr. Reynolds called and said your room is on his bill, he expects to arrive tomorrow."  

I heaved a sigh of relief and remained.

I had to check out the following day anyway.  The Imperial was putting everyone out, including full-time guests, to make room for Bilderberg.  It is typical of Bilderberg to book a whole hotel for a conference to ensure maximum privacy and security.  I found a bed-and-breakfast nearby.

Reynolds had made his booking at the Imperial six months in advance, right through the Bilderberg weekend, and he put up such a stink about having to leave that they let him stay.

Inside his room, Reynolds unpacked a case of fancy camera equipment, including three telescopic lenses.  Also, a black wetsuit, which he would wear, he said, to crawl around the hotel's exterior and spy on Bilderbergers in the middle of the night. 

His tactics seemed rather odd; and liked yakking about his plans.  

We had already been advised that the basement was off-limits, but Peter coerced me into sneaking down there with him and, as I took a photograph of a sign on the door that said “Bilderberg Secretariat.”  

A security guard appeared and marched us to the chief of security, a well-tailored gentleman in a pin-striped suit, who refused to tell us his name or branch of service. 

He was probably MI5. 

Mr. X warned us to stay the hell away from the conference area or next time he'd throw us in jail.  

Reynolds was insolent; I didn't say a word.  And, in fact, by this time I decided, the less I had to do with Reynolds, the better.  But I went out pubbing with him that night.  Reynolds got boozed on beer he told me he was dying of cancer and needed someone courageous to follow his lead, take his files and carry on the crusade.  He was intense, bizarre.

Next morning I bumped into Bill Blakemore, covering the conference for ABC News. 

Steve Weissman and I had consulted for Blakemore two weeks earlier.  Blakemore said there had been a commotion around three a.m. in the Imperial's lobby.  A guest had shown up drunk, incoherent, and then passed out.  He had to be carried to his room.  

Reynolds.

I avoided Reynolds the rest of my stay, another couple days, and didn't even say goodbye when I left.

Trying to doorstep an unamused William Bubdy, Bilderberg’s North American Secretary

Reynolds called me in foul humor when he reached London, a few days behind me.  
He never got any pictures, he said, because his fancy camera equipment didn't work, so he needed the photos from my cheap pocket instamatic.  I agreed to meet him where he was staying at the Holiday Inn in Swiss Cottage.

My brother Mike went down with me, and we met Reynolds in the bar.  He was rubbing the bartender the wrong way, demanding a phone be brought to his table.    "What kind of place is this?" Reynolds snarled.  "Get me a goddam phone and get it now!" 

Then Reynolds started to get borderline nasty with me.    

"You're working for me and I want those photos," he said.

"No problem," I replied.  "They're not very good, just basic shots from a cheap camera, but I'll send them when I get them developed."

"No, I need them to take back with me.  How do I know you'll send them?"

"Why shouldn't I?"

Reynolds, drunk on Jack Daniels, was growing more hostile.  He suggested we go up to his room to "settle it."

Then The Four Tops entered the bar, and Reynolds, impressed, engaged them in conversation.  Mike and I seized the opportunity to slip out a side door, dash to the car and take off.

Reynolds phoned, wanting to meet again.  I told him, I’m busy, I'd send him the photos.  And I did send him about 12 pics.

Reynolds phoned me from Washington at 8 a.m. my time, woke me up, and insisted I had a roll of good photos I was hiding from him.  He demanded them, saying he wasn't going to pay my Imperial Hotel bill, that they'd throw me in jail.

"Gee, I'm really scared, Peter."  

The Imperial called a few days later.  They said Reynolds had called, wasn't paying and that I owed them money. 

I reminded them that they had told me themselves when I attempted to check out early (and pay) that the room was on Reynolds's tab; their problem was with him, not me.  

They called a few more times, finally sent a registered letter, but Tricky Dick's had taught us at least one valuable business lesson:  Never sign for registered mail.  

Years later, I exposed Reynolds's "mysterious" boss, Willis Carto of Liberty Lobby, as a neo-Nazi, and Reynolds called me up and threatened to kill me. 

(I guess that's where the queue begins.  Uh, no:  Second in line to the Ku Klux Klan, which I infiltrated in 1979 and exposed in the (UK) Sunday People in 1980.

And a few years after that, someone in Munich whopped a beer bottle over Reynolds's head and killed him. 

There seems to be a curse on those who wish me harm.