Two big questions overshadow former publishing tycoon Conrad Black's criminal trial, which began in Chicago on March 14. Why did Black's long-time business partner David Radler, 64, agree to testify for the prosecution? And why did Black, 63, decide in the face of this to plead not guilty?

Black faces 15 charges of fraud, one of obstruction of justice, and one of racketeering. He has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence, including in a March 10 article he wrote in the National Post. "It was always obvious that the lies agreed upon by parties in interest with the complicity of parts of the press, would likely become a criminal prosecution," Black wrote.

Radler, a long-time Vancouver resident and former publisher of the Vancouver Sun and Province, initially denied wrongdoing after a scathing 513-page report was released in 2003 by the board of Hollinger International Inc. A special committee appointed by the board alleged that Radler and Black had treated the company as a "piggybank" to repay debt obligations of a separate company, Hollinger Inc., in which Black and Radler had a 62-percent stake. The special committee also claimed that Black's inner circle collected almost $400 million in various forms of compensation between 1997 and 2003, which included everything from salaries and bonuses to noncompete payments to fees for operating corporate jets, cars, and apartments.

According to British journalist Tom Bower's book Conrad & Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge (Harper­Collins, 2006), Black's representatives claimed that Radler confessed to mail fraud because he was a "germophobe" who was terrified of going to prison. By agreeing to pay a $250,000 fine and to serve a 29-month prison sentence in Canada, Radler avoided doing hard time in a U.S. prison, Brower noted.

In return, Radler must testify fully against Black, his business partner for more than 30 years. When Radler enters a Canadian prison, he could be eligible for day parole after one-sixth of a sentence and full parole after one-third of a sentence. Unfortunately for Radler, the electronic-monitoring program is only available to inmates sentenced to less than two years in jail.

For anyone familiar with a game called the Prisoner's Dilemma, Radler's actions make a lot of sense. According to economist Paul Ormerod's book Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinction and Economics (Faber and Faber Limited, 2005), the game was invented by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher in 1950. It has attracted the interest of scores of mathematicians and economists, including Nobel Prize winner John Nash, whose life story was highlighted in the movie A Beautiful Mind.

In its simplest form, two "prisoners" face a dilemma after being caught by police after robbing a bank. "The action, as in most such cameos, takes place in the US, where the authorities have the power to make bargains with criminals in return for confessions," Ormerod wrote. "You are each held in a separate cell, and a deal is put to you. As far as your partner is concerned, you are completely in the dark. You are wholly uncertain about anything that is being suggested to him or her, but you are compelled, for the purposes of this story, to decide on the spot what you will do."

The choice is to confess or stay silent. If one person rats out the other, the silent one will likely serve a longer sentence. If both criminals cooperate with each other and remain silent, both will end up with the best position because it will become more difficult to prove they committed the crime.

Ormerod, a former head of the economic assessment unit at the Economist magazine, wrote that in the eyes of economists, the "optimal" strategy is for both parties to confess because both are uncertain of what the other party will do. "Whatever the other does, each is better off confessing than remaining silent," Ormerod noted. "But the outcome obtained when both confess is worse for each than the outcome they would have obtained had both remained silent."

Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash (Simon & Schuster, 2001), also devoted part of her book to the Prisoner's Dilemma. "The central feature of the game is that no matter what the other suspect does, each (considered alone) would be better off if he confessed," Nasar wrote. "If the other confesses, the suspect in question ought to do the same and thereby avoid an especially harsh penalty for holding out. If the other remains silent, he can get especially lenient treatment for turning state's witness."

Because each is aware of the other's incentive to confess, she noted, "it is 'rational' for both to confess." Radler, it appears, adopted this rational course of action whereas Black has taken a much greater risk by not cooperating and maintaining his innocence. -