Sir James Mason

Sir James Manson is the primary Villian in the 1974 Fictional novel "The Dogs of War" by Fredrick Forsyth.

In his age he is in his sixties; he had started out as a Miner in South Africa until he made his fortune in post World War II England by speculation in copper futures. With a mixture of savvy business sense and a amoral attitude toward becoming rich [a combination of Daffy Duck Anything for a Buck and a Star Trek Ferengi outlook] he is President of Manson Consolidated Mining Company Ltd. When a company prospector in the new African Republic of Zangaro finds what he thinks is a tin mine, MAnson has the samples analized that the metal is not tin but platitum which with the advent of catalatic convertors in automobiles would become a very valauble asset to the Western World. The normal business routine would be a company repesenative meeting the with countires head of State in which after sizeable donation to the Countires treasury and to the head of State personel bank account, the mining would begin {Mason Ltd furnishing the Equipment and hist country furnishing the manpower] However the President of Znagaro is both insane; homicidal and Pro-USSR (any anocement of the platitum would only benefit the USSR). MAnson with two assoicates his finincial Wizard Martin Thorpe and his right hand assistant Simon Eadean plan to mount a Coup de taut in Zangaro, kill Kimba and install a former Kimba associate Col Boddi as a puppet figurehead. Thorpe sets up a Share stock company that will quietly buy up the shares for the platitum after the coup and by fininical manupuliation all three will benefit from a 60 million pound windfall on the stock market. Eadens job is to recruit an experienced African Mercenary to do a reconieccse of Zangaro; plan and carry out the Coup de taut. Eadean finds just the man for the job an Anglo-Irishman named Carlo Shannon who is back in Europe after conducing a war for his latest client "The General". Shannon accepts the job and bankrolled by Manson assembles his assault team {A belgium bazooka man; A south African Morter expert; a German ex member of the French Foreign Legion; a Corsican exparatrooper and knife man] to buy guns and military supplies. Shannon however is suspeicious of Eadean who claims to be working on a behalf of disgruntled businessmen and quietly finds out both eadean identity and who he's working for; Shannon does not tell Manson that while romancing Manson amoral daugther he tricks her into accidently revealing her father;s interest in Platitum. For his part Manson does not tell Shannon that the USSR is sending its own survey team to Zangaro to investigate the "tin mine" report. Manson tells Shannon that he has 100 days until the Zangaro Independence Day to "Steal a republic". Within 100 days on the eve of Independence Day of the anniversay day for Zangaro, Shannon and his assault team storm the Presidential Palace, kill Kimba and his Personel Guards (Including a KGB agent} while the demoralizaed Zangaro army flees in panic. Only three of Shannons team is killed [Mortar man by accident; and the Bazooka man and one african by the KGB agent]. Eadean arrives with Col Bodi; Shannon kills Bodi and a bodyguard of Eadean who tries to shoot Shannon. Eadean is shocked to hear from Shannon that not only has Shannon knew Eaden was and the motives for the Coup but that the Coup was conducted on behalf of "The General" {Shannon last employer} an exhiled African Leader whos people [a disenfranchised community] whod been brought in by the Old Colonial power to do the manual work of Zangaro since the Native tribes had desinclined to do so. Now the General and his people will make up the New Zangaro Army. By 1974 Shannon and his two survivng associates are dead; the German was killed by an accidental explsion of a mine he was laying on another African job; the Corsicain "Vanishes" while going to train Huttu rebels [possibly either by being killed to prevent himself from being captured and placed in a small cell subject to his only fear (claustrophia fear of small enclosed spaces) or indeed being captured and dying insane]; Shannon commits suicide 3 months after the Coup because he found out that he only had six months to a year to live because of advanced lung cancer. As regarding Manson and Eadean although Forsyth hints that Eadean will lose a chance of a personel fortune because of the Coup and that Neither Manson or Eadean can say anything publicly; the inference however is that as described in the beginning of the book Mabson and associates Thorpe and Eaden will indeed make a fortune off it by conducting business as usual with the new head of Goverment "The General" with the exception that the donation to the head of States will become part of the Countries treasury, since Boddi was only kept in power by Kimba and was not supported by anyone else in Zangaro and would probaly have been overthrown and killed as well and thus ironically Manson would not get to mine the platitum; thus by paradox reasoning Shannon has accomplished two goals: made a stable country not only for the General and his people but also for Manson to expliot the mineral deposit (although not as cheaply as he had planned). One unrealstic part of the novel is that Manson is still alive after the Coup, since logically the KGB would have done everything to find out how their agent would have been killed; they would deduce that the Coup would have been orcastrated by someone with enough money and power to that; their first clue would come from the Corsican who despite his best efforts is captured alive by the Rebel leader who would be curious as to why a non african white man is involved [prehaps as a enemy agent(?)] a session in a small cell would be enough to break him, helped by the leaders non african " advisors"; this plus the fact that they know Manson had prepared a report that the orginal survey only showed tin yet Manson announces  the discovery of the platitum deposit ...Manson would get his wealth  but not live long to enjoy it....as he would meet his demise in a "road accident". His company would probably be led by Eadean  although its a wonder how long it would last as Eadean has a psychotic  personaality...