After several false starts in his choice of career, Geoffrey Archer moved into journalism. He started with a local television station in Southampton as a trainee researcher, then moved first to Anglia TV in Norwich and then to Tyne-Tees TV in Newcastle as an on-screen journalist. He started as a reporter with ITN in 1969. He covered the troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and the civil war in Beirut in 1976, was allowed to travel with a Polaris nuclear submarine, and eventually became Defence Correspondent for ITN. These experiences prompted him to begin writing stories with military and spy themes.