Thomas Michael Bower (born 28 September 1946)[1] is a British writer and former BBC journalist and television producer.
His books include unauthorised biographies of Robert Maxwell, Mohamed Al-Fayed, Conrad Black, Richard Branson, Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson.
His parents were Jewish refugees who fled Prague after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 and arrived in London later that same year.
[2] Bower's first book was Blind Eye to Murder (1980), the first exposé based on eyewitnesses and newly released archives in London and Washington of the Allied failure after 1945 to hunt down Nazi war criminals and de-Nazify West Germany.
Bower's second book was Klaus Barbie: The Butcher of Lyon (1984) which documented Klaus Barbie's war crimes during World War II as head of the Gestapo in Lyon, France and his postwar work for the American intelligence agency Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) and South American narcotics and arms dealers.
[11] Maxwell also tried to sue Bower in the English courts over an article published in America, by the magazine The New Republic, on the basis that it had 136 British subscribers.
In his testimony to the United States Senate Banking Committee in May 1997, Bower accused the Swiss government of “delay, deception and dishonesty” in the retrieval of Jewish-owned funds and stated that he had “grave doubts” whether the Bergier commission which was being set up, to investigate Switzerland’s WWII conduct, would “provide an acceptable account”.
[17] Branson chose not to sue the paper, but its editor, Max Hastings, agreed the newspaper would fund Bower's defence.
[24] The Daily Express proprietor Richard Desmond brought a libel action against Bower over a passing reference in Dancing on the Edge.
[26][27] An unauthorised biography by Bower of Richard Desmond, titled Rough Trader, was written and printed in 2006, but still awaits publication.
[30] Cowell contacted Bower after the book's publication to say that he had found it "a bit embarrassing", adding "you got things I didn't know you'd got.
The book has been seriously criticised by Peter Oborne, writing in Middle East Eye, for its lack of referencing, alleged factual errors and the systematic omittance of relevant facts.
[35] Stephen Bush, writing in The Guardian, referred to the book as a "hatchet job" littered with "rudimentary errors"[36] and journalist Oscar Rickett called it "garbage".
Along with the publisher HarperCollins he made a full, unqualified withdrawal of the allegations, but neither apologised nor paid any money to the complainant or the lawyers.
[42][43] Bower is married to Veronica Wadley, Baroness Fleet, former editor of the London Evening Standard, and has four children.