Publish and be damned

Conrad Black has wreaked venomous revenge on his former editor Max Hastings - in the guise of a book review

Any spectators of the relationship between Max Hastings and Conrad Black, proprietor of the Telegraph newspapers, always had it down as one of the great partnerships of newspaper history. Two giant egos, both driven and eccentric, but temperamental opposites, together rescued an ailing paper and turned it into a huge success story.

And, as in all great relationships, the passion is never completely spent, even when it's all over. It has been seven years now since Sir Max outraged Lord Black of Crossharbour by leaving The Daily Telegraph to edit the London Evening Standard, but the two men are still rowing in public for the entertainment of all.

First there was Hastings' book Editor, published in October, which chronicled amusingly the irritations of working for Conrad, such as being woken up in the early hours with petty complaints, being obliged to commission journalism from Conrad's wife, Barbara Amiel, and trying to keep overly right-wing opinion out of the newspaper.

Yesterday, in what must rate as the most vitriolic savaging of a former editor by his own proprietor, Lord Black responded in the characteristically esoteric arena of The Sunday Telegraph's books section.

"Max Hastings' book Editor is a lively read but poor history," Lord Black wrote. "I rarely disputed editorial policy with Max and was as opposed to the death penalty, to apartheid and to mistreatment of Palestinians and Ulster Catholics as he was – but I didn't share his simplistic solutions."

To Hastings' moans of post-midnight phone calls, Conrad retorts: "I only telephoned him after midnight once, when I read that in the opinion of one of his many second-rate op-ed contributors the best antidote to depression was a cup of tea." In response to Hastings' lengthy descriptions of the gut-wrenching dilemma he suffered while deciding to leave his job, Black is brief: "The fact is, Max left because his nerve cracked in the price war. He cloaked his departure in the mythology of Lord Copper's oppressions and left it to the rest of us to fight it out."

But lest anyone think there's animosity between the two men, Black injects what passes for affection. "Max had an attention span of 15 seconds, clung dogmatically to a lot of silly opinions and was constantly manipulated by the Tory wets. He was a better journalist than an editor but he rendered a valuable service to The Daily Telegraph at a critical time."

As a former media correspondent at the Telegraph – a job, given to me by Hastings, that also required occasional discussions with the proprietor – I had a seat in the stalls of the Max-and-Conrad road show and was left in no doubt that their relationship was highly emotionally charged. Hastings' description in his book of the day he jilted Black is the stuff of romantic fiction.

He told Black that if he didn't leave, then "in a few years' time I would be sitting here sobbing, asking what's going to happen to me." Black was "incandescent", and Hastings left him "gazing fiercely out of the window, upon the torrid glories of Canary Wharf". The two men did not speak again for two years.

Sir Max was out shooting yesterday – birds, not proprietors – but said he was flattered that Lord Black had chosen Editor as book of the year. "I don't think one should be surprised by what he said. I'm sure Napoleon would have felt much the same about scribes who had the temerity to refer to him in print." And if Hastings wants to take a shot at Black in book-review form, the latter's next book, a biography of Franklin D Roosevelt, is out soon, and it's said to be very, very long.