It’s a funny old thing, power. If someone has spent any number of years running a country or a giant corporation, coming to the end of your reign inevitably sends you a little bit mad.
To be honest, the madness probably takes root while they are still in power, when they are surrounded by yes-men and flatterers who never point out when they are being delusional, or just plain odd. I’m told by those who know about these things that eight years is probably the longest that you can hold high office before you start to lose touch with reality.
One of the first things they find when they return to the real world is that time hangs pretty heavy once they are out of office. If you’re used to having every moment of your day scheduled and overseen by a crack team of assistants and advisers it must be disorienting to wake up and realise that if you want the day to be interesting you are going to have to make it happen yourself. There must also be a terrible realisation of their own mortality. ‘Is that it?’ the ex-world leaders must think to themselves. ‘Are my best years now behind me?’
Almost certainly the answer to that is ‘yes’. No matter how much money they accrue on the lecture circuit or how many charitable causes they make happen, nothing will ever quite match the moment of being voted President or Prime Minister of any country in the world. No matter how many billions you may find you have control of, nothing will match the excitement of starting your own bank against the odds somewhere dangerous in the developing world, and seeing it rise up the ranks of global institutions.
So in their early days out of power, when they are still trying to work out who they are and what they are going to do with their remaining days on the planet, these people often think that they will write a book. They want to ‘set the record straight’ and they also want to make some money while their names are still recognised by at least a proportion of the paying public.
They are not always the easiest of people to deal with in those early post-power days. They are still used to getting everything they want the moment they want it, summoning people to their presence whatever the time or whatever the day. Some of them go a little wild with the freedom of being out of office – a bit like kids on the first day of the school holidays. In some cases that can mean that the ghostwriter is bombarded with unrealistic deadlines and other demands (I had one such client who required me to read the whole manuscript out loud to him because he was having trouble concentrating on the written words), and it can also mean that the ghost has to compete for the client’s attention with other distractions, such as expensive Russian hookers. I find it is always a good idea to have a book with you if you are going to have to wait for your client to finish off in the bedroom before gracing you with his full(ish) attention.
It is usually a few years before they start to behave anything like normal people with normal expectations, perhaps regaining some of the charm and vision that first catapulted them to success.