He sees more than most. As a top-tier international journalist for more than 20 years, Aikman has witnessed a staggering number of global events that the rest of us encounter only in headlines. He's interviewed dozens of world leaders, the famous and the notorious, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltzin, Manuel Noriega, Mother Teresa, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and the man responsible for Tiananmen Square, Deng Xiaoping. A Christian, Aikman finds his involvement in the world and all its gritty mayhem neither ironic nor corrupting. You know the greatness of human beings as well as the abyss of unredeemed sin, so you have no illusions to be shattered.
Reporters start as idealists determined to clean up city hall .
I see these people in their 40s and 50s, and they're deeply cynical. It seriously harms their work. Aikman gets along so well in the world, in part, because he can talk to the majority of people on the planet. He speaks several languages, including Mandarin, and his native speech, that of a London-raised gentleman, is delivered with crisp good humor. Currently a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., Aikman remains an active journalist.