Julian Assange’s ‘Ghostwriter’ Eviscerates The WikiLeaks Founder In Crushing Tell-All

REUTERS/Valentin Flauraud

Assange "talked as if the world needed him to talk and never to stop," O'Hagan writes. "Oddly for a dissident, he had no questions."

The project failed spectacularly over the next five months.

O'Hagan, an Editor at Large of Esquire, has now written a 25,000-word lambasting in the London Review of Books, in which he describes the 42-year-old Australian as "thin-skinned, conspiratorial, untruthful, [and] narcissistic."

O'Hagan, who is actually quite sympathetic to Assange, spent months around the publisher and his entourage.

The account, which seems genuine, is devastating to popular notions of Assange as a hero of transparency who has been persecuted by the governments that he holds into account.

Here are some of the most damning parts:

"His paranoia was losing him support and in a normal organization ... he would have been fired."

"The man who put himself in charge of disclosing the worlds secrets simply couldnt bear his own. The story of his life mortified him and sent him scurrying for excuses."

"His pride could engulf the room in flames. ... I was often the only person over 35 near him, apart from himself, of course, and he didnt see the problem. He didnt see the cult-leader aspect."

See the article here:
Julian Assange's 'Ghostwriter' Eviscerates The WikiLeaks Founder In Crushing Tell-All