In a sudden twist of fate, Abdullah Ahmad's journalistic career in the Umno-linked New Straits Times Press (NSTP) ended abruptly yesterday when he was sacked as the group's editor-in-chief.

Abdullah, 66, often identifies himself as "Dollah, Kok Lanas" or DKL, a reference to his former parliamentary seat in Kelantan, and his enduring attachment to the memory of the late Abdul Razak Hussein, the country's second prime minister.

He spent 13 years with Abdul Razak and by the time his mentor succumbed to his illness, Abdullah was an Umno supreme council member, MP and deputy minister.

Abdullah's writings over the past few years have often dwelled on this 'glorious' past, and how he misses dearly those days of power and influence.

Born on July 4, 1937 in Machang, Kelantan, Dollah, as he is popularly known, received his early education at the elite Malay College Kuala Kangsar. He later obtained his Masters of Letters from Cambridge University.

Abdullah began his brief career in journalism in 1957 when he joined the English tabloid Malay Mail.

Detained under ISA

However, six years later Abdullah was appointed political advisor to Abdul Razak, a post he held for 13 years.

At the same time, he rose rapidly within the party ranks and was named deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Department in 1974 - his highest political office.

But his political career came to an abrupt halt in 1976 when he was detained under the Internal Security Act following a leadership struggle within Umno.

Then home affairs minister Ghazali Shafie, a leader of a rival faction, claimed that the arrest was necessary to thwart a "communist conspiracy" aimed at influencing senior party leaders.

Ghazali also ordered the arrest of the other two Abduls - senior journalist Abdul Samad Ismail, and deputy minister Abdullah Majid - all reputedly part of an influential group in the late Tun Razak's team.

Abdullah was released in 1981 by Dr Mahathir Mohamad two weeks after he succeeded Hussein Onn - who had ordered the detention - as prime minister.

In 1996, Abdullah retired from politics to become Malaysia's special envoy to the United Nations in New York.

Mahathir brought him back four years later to take up the NSTP executive director post. Abdullah was eventually appointed editor-in-chief to replace Abdul Kadir Jasin who was blamed for the company's poor performance.

Readership plunge

Abdullah's mission was to improve the declining fortunes of the ailing 157-year-old newspaper group.

Its flagship New Straits Times (NST) has over the past decade been nudged out by The Star as the country's leading English-language newspaper.

The NST's fortunes continued to flag with increased competition from another English daily, The Sun, which also took a slice of its market share after it was launched in 1995.

According to the Nielsen Media Research, the circulation of NST dropped from 139,001 in 1999 to 135,695 in 2000 and further decreased to 135,104 in 2002.

Meanwhile, the circulation for the New Sunday Times stood at 161,948 in 1999, and has slightly increased to 163,789 in 2000. However, its circulation has since plunged to 155,563 in 2001 and 153,717 last year.

NSTP also publishes the English tabloid Malay Mail, financial daily Business Times, Malay daily Berita Harian and the Malay tabloid Harian Metro.

However, most of these papers are also not doing well and to cut losses, Abdullah merged Business Times with NST two years ago.

But this has failed to bring any mark increase in the NST circulation, which hit as high as 180,000 during its heyday.