REUTERS\/Valentin Flauraud <\/p>\n
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.\" <\/p>\n
The project failed spectacularly over the next five months. <\/p>\n
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.\" <\/p>\n
O'Hagan, who is actually quite sympathetic to Assange, spent months around the publisher and his entourage. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
Here are some of the most damning parts: <\/p>\n
\"His paranoia was losing him support and in a normal organization ... he would have been fired.\" <\/p>\n
\"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.\" <\/p>\n
\"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.\" <\/p>\n
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