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Ironically, 10 years ago, when Fayed purchased Harrods, he had the Conservative government in the palm of his hand. Since then, many members of Parliament have come to realize what a dangerous man he is to cross. Behind his bubbly facade, Fayed maintains an elaborate security apparatus and bugging system, wields the considerable advertising budget of Harrods to intimidate the press, hires and fires at will, and is perhaps the most litigious man in England. A decade ago, with the acquiescence of Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives, he pulled off a coup to buy Harrods that was breathtaking in its audacity. Last fall, when he unleashed his "cash for questions" scandal, he aimed at nothing less than attempting to topple Major's government. As he later told me, "I make revolution." Fayed sees himself as the victim of the worst British snobbery. "The devastating thing is the class system, created of people who think they are above the rest of the human race. They think they can shit just on anyone,"
he told me. "They think I'm a wog."
On the Continent, Fayed's long-sought-for status is assured. On display in his office is a citation from the Italian government, and France gave him the Légion d' Honneur after he restored not only the Ritz but also the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's former home in the Bois de Boulogne. On the far wall are four "warrants" to supply boots and saddles, housewares, linens, and other goods to the British royal family. Harrods, after all, is the second-greatest tourist attraction in London after Big Ben, and Fayed has announced that when he dies he wants to be mummified and entombed on the roof.
For two-plus decades, Mohamed Al Fayed, who is 66 but says he's 62, has lived in London as an unabashed Anglophile guided by a simple Middle Eastern motto: To give is to receive-whether it be presents, favors, or influence. Charming in public, he is privately phobic about germs and fanatical about loyalty. Surrounded by bodyguards, he often conducts business on a cellular phone in a tent pitched on the lawn of his country estate in Oxted, Surrey. His fervent love for Britannia goes hand in hand with his strings-attached mode of generosity: large charitable contributions, political payoffs, Parisian junkets for journalists, toys for their children, and Harrods Christmas baskets to half of Debrett's Peerage.
Although Fayed lives luxuriously, he carries a staggering amount of debt and spends prodigiously. The losses on the Ritz through 1993, for example, totalled nearly 1.2 billion francs ($212 million). Nevertheless, Fayed prides himself on owning world-class status symbols and maintaining the highest level of service.
Generations of English schoolboys have gotten their hair cut at Harrods, which will order anything from a castle to a Learjet for grown-ups. But before Fayed bought the vast Knightsbridge store-the largest department store in Europe-it was a fading institution, where toilet paper was sold on the first floor. Fayed has poured many millions into restoration, installing the "Room of Luxury" and the Egyptian Hall, with his own face carved on the sphinxes around the molding. He has upgraded the toy department, opened restaurants, and recently, as the British retail market has sagged, introduced a more affordable line of Harrods private-label apparel.
At the Ritz-which was founded by the master hotel manager Cesar Ritz in 1898, and which has catered to Garbo and Hemingway, Rockefellers and royalty-no expense has been spared; indeed, the red ink has flowed to keep up the 187-room establishment as the finest hotel in the world. Leaky pipes were tom out, the antiquated heating system was replaced, every room was redecorated. Today, guests can luxuriate in theme suites - the Cocteau, the Chopin, the Chanel. The Imperial Suite, overlooking the Place Vendome, costs more than $10,000 a night. Fayed has also added an underground swimming pool, a culinary school, and a nightclub for the Ritz clientele: "people who care for nothing but the best."
And just in case a foreign visitor might not intuit the level of aspiration which seeks to become reality here, Harrods' dashing director of public affairs, Michael Cole-his master's voice-is superb at interpreting. Tall, handsome, silver-haired, and silver-tongued, the one-time BBC-TV royal reporter-who lost his post after leaking the Queen's 1987 Christmas message during a festive holiday lunch-is quite a contrast to the short, balding Fayed, who, for all his ambition, struggles to read and write the language of his adopted land. Theirs is a symbiotic relationship: the one knows how to parse the one who holds the purse.
Cole is a magician of royal spin. The first day I spoke with him, he introduced me to Harrods' most beloved veteran, an elderly green-suited messenger who delivers to all the little royals gifts from "Uncle Mohamed." Cole declared, "If it weren't for Rodney, the princes might not even know there was a Father Christmas!" Another time, Cole called me from his car phone and began speaking as if he were back filing a BBC report: "At a £200,000 [$312,000] party at Spencer House given by Lord Rothschild but paid for by Gulfstream, the Princess of Wales arrived, stunning in a beaded dress. She ignored everyone else and went straight up to Mohamed and said, 'I didn't know you were rich enough to have one of these planes!' Mohamed said, 'At your disposal, whenever you wish.' Diana is so easygoing with Mohamed... Mohamed is not one of those who's overwhelmed by her. They spark off each other very well."
Cole encouraged me to call other friends of Fayed's, naming General Norman Schwarzkopf, New York Times chairman Arthur "Punch" Sulzberger, financier Ted Forstmann, and Estée Lauder, whom Cole claims Mohamed bounces on his knee. Many believe Fayed would like someday to be Lord Al Fayed. "I don't want that," Fayed protested when I spoke with him. "But they didn't also say thank you for everything I have done. It's the opposite. They just could shit on me, everyone."
Fayed was perched restlessly on the edge of his seat, wearing ankle boots with zippers on the sides and a plaid sport coat. "I did it to take my revenge, to show people who really runs this country, what quality they are... These days it's only the trash people." He was referring to his disclosure last October of the names of ministers who he claimed had received favors from him. When Fayed made these charges, British newspapers reported that he might bring down the government. Several weeks before the "sleaze" scandal broke, Major had received a warning-via a newspaper editor-of Fayed's allegations against his government, and was told that Fayed wanted a meeting to discuss withdrawing or revising a report released in 1990 by the Department of Trade and Industry (known as the D.T.I. report) which accused Fayed of lying about his past and making fraudulent claims about his fortune.
When a Member of Parliament asked Major if Fayed was attempting to blackmail the government, Major appeared to give credence to the charge by saying that the matter had been referred to the director of public prosecutions for investigation. Fayed was later cleared of any wrongdoing and demanded an apology, which has not been forthcoming. Today, Fayed continues to insist that the British government was indeed for sale-like selling me ice cream," he told me. Michael Cole quickly rushed in: "Mohamed said, 'I'm a merchant. They came to me. I sell ice cream. I sell sausages. They came selling MPs.' "
"What he is, he's still an Arab street trader," says Alan Frame. "He still believes he can buy anybody. He really does believe that if enough government ministers-indeed, enough journalists-are given enough fine gifts, stay in his hotel enough times, get hampers at Christmas, he'll get what he wants."
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