by Hugh Purcell
The Deans insisted on staying put until Sir Patrick’s seventieth birthday, leaving the Freemans kicking their heels in Hamilton Terrace. Freeman was frustrated but for the rest of the family it was a happy time, as Cynthia Gomes remembers:
Mrs Freeman said, ‘Cynthia, I’ve got a surprise for you. John’s been offered the post of ambassador in Washington: would you like to come with us?’ So I said yes please. And so everything was arranged, I had no problem with passport and visa. We stayed at Hamilton Terrace because Mr and Mrs Freeman were interviewing staff, butler and footmen and all that was going on, while the children went to school and I was doing other things. The nice thing about that was when we were together in the evening Mr Freeman used to say to me and Mrs Freeman, ‘go and sit down and watch Z Cars, and I’ll prepare dinner. And I used to stand and say, ‘Oh no, I will do…’ And he would say, ‘It’s alright, go on, sit down, sit down, Cynthia.’ And so Mrs F. and I would sit down. And he used to make simple things, sardines on toast, but very nicely done! No really nicely done! Table all laid out, everything done very nicely. Glasses put out, everything. And we would come and sit down and at the end he would rinse plates, put them in the dishwasher, do all of that. To me, that’s how I saw him, in Hamilton Terrace, before he went to Washington DC.16
One of the vacancies in the embassy household was for a social secretary, whose duties were to help the ambassador’s wife with all that she had to do. A major part of this was the secretarial work involved in the endless entertaining, which is such a feature of the diplomatic life. The social secretary lived in the residence, almost as a member of the family, so the salary was modest and the relationship close. Catherine made enquiries for a possible candidate and these reached as far as The Owl and Pussycat toy shop in Hampstead, much frequented by the Freeman children. Its owner, Betty Mitchell, happened to be the ex-wife of the famous documentary filmmaker Denis Mitchell, whom the Freemans had known at the BBC, and she recommended her 28-year-old stepdaughter Judith. Judith had been brought up in South Africa, had worked as a playgroup leader in London and an au pair in New York. She had also spent time at Big Sur in California at the Esalen Institute, famous for its hippy philosophy and lifestyle. She came for interview and both Freemans found her a breath of fresh air. They decided to employ her.
Catherine and the three children were due to fly out with the ambassador in mid-March but were delayed because they caught flu. ‘It’s all very annoying,’ Freeman said, but went ahead anyway with Judith Mitchell in attendance. When Catherine, Cynthia and the children arrived in Washington three weeks later, he was waiting on the tarmac. She was taken aback to find him looking drawn and stressed. ‘This is a loathsome place,’ he said to her. ‘We’ll just have to make the best of it. I’m not sleeping at all well so I think we should have separate rooms.’ She supposed that he was going through some kind of midlife depression and would need a lot of support.
And so to the ambassador’s residence at No. 3100, Massachusetts Avenue, the most impressive address on Embassy Row. It was so large, said Catherine, that she was not sure how many rooms there were. It is a vast red brick and stone palace, designed by Lutyens in the English country manner, with a dramatic columned portico and terrace overlooking the immaculate rose garden. The drawing room had seats for eighteen, the dining room for thirty-six and the ballroom held ‘unnumbered multitudes’. It was perfect for entertaining, fortunately, for Catherine soon discovered that she was expected to give two lunches, two dinners and a reception each week, and attend on average four receptions or dinners every week as guest – much of it presented in a lavish style and in the glare of publicity. For this entertaining, the Foreign Office provided a budget of $100,000 per year to which the ambassador added his own contribution. There were constant demands for interviews from the press, demands that Ambassador Freeman shunned whenever possible and directed to his wife.
In January 1969, she had given an interview to the fashion queen of the Sunday Times, Ernestine Carter. It was revealing:
‘John,’ says Catherine Freeman, whose husband is the ambassador-designate in Washington, ‘tells me that I expose too much of my surface.’ She didn’t mean skin. She meant herself. For candour is one of her outstanding traits. Those who think of diplomatic wives as carefully conventional, consciously gracious, hyper-discreet, will find that Mrs Freeman won’t fit that mould. In fact, she fits no mould. She is careless of convention, and can afford to be, for she is equally at ease with chars and royalty and has the knack of making immediate contact.17
This candour had annoyed the High Commissioner and would annoy the ambassador. ‘My husband is very critical of what I say,’ she told another reporter. ‘When I tell him I’m giving an interview, he says, “And just what is it you have to tell people? What are you trying to say?”’18
No. 3100 Massachusetts Avenue was by a long way the largest British overseas mission in the world. The total number of diplomatic staff in the United States in 1968 was 182, compared with 214 in the whole of eastern Europe. In Washington, working under John Freeman and his deputy, were twenty-three political staff, plus thirty-four working in commerce, consular and information services. The number of personnel working for the British defence staff was 198. Freeman’s administrative work was limited but he also had to cope with the endless stream of UK ministers, MPs and VIPs who visited Washington. As in India, and despite his non-professional background, his staff thought highly of him. His First Secretary was Andrew Burns:
He was a good man to work for. I asked him on one occasion how he found the job as ambassador, and he said, ‘Really it’s very much like being an editor except that you don’t have to do so much writing. As an ambassador, you have to do more.’ I thought he was quite good.19
Another junior diplomat, Andrew Wood, thought the same: ‘I don’t remember anyone feeling that John Freeman was not one of us. He settled in very quickly.’20
Freeman set about dispelling American fears that he was opposed to the Nixon regime. He did so successfully. In the words of Henry Brandon, who entertained the Freemans and the Kissingers at his summer home in Plymouth, Massachusetts:
Although he arrived with his ‘left-wing’ coat tails still casting their shadow on the red carpet, he soon rose above prejudices, whether those of others or his own.
I realised from our discussions how depoliticised Freeman’s views had become, how scrupulously he adhered to the canons of the Foreign Office. In Washington, British professional diplomats tried hard to cultivate the manners of the amateur; in Freeman’s case it was the amateur (as he was viewed in Washington) who cultivated the traditions of the professionals.21
Egalitarians in Washington should have taken heart from the fact that he was the first ambassador for over fifty years without a title except ‘Mr’. He pronounced himself ‘quite happy as I am’, but did not say that this was of his own choosing.
Before Freeman had left the UK he had been given a ‘Confidential and Guard’ briefing from the Foreign Office. This was just before the victory of Nixon in the presidential election of November 1968, but the relevance to Freeman’s work remained valid:
The United States is our most important friend, ally and trading partner … [Nevertheless] we no longer consider that our relations have a ‘special’ character. In fact there has been a recent tendency in the United States regretfully to write Britain off because we seem to them to be failing to fulfil our part in maintaining world stability in the defence and monetary fields.
The Americans deplore our withdrawals east of Suez and, while HMG’s attitude over Vietnam is understood, many Americans resent our unwillingness to support the war as, for example, Australia does.
The principal objectives of the ambassador’s mission will be: to promote British trade; to maintain cordial relations against the background of our application to join the common market and our lukewarm support of Vietnam; to encourage an outward looking trend in Congress and American public opinion; to keep Her Majesty’s
government informed of United States internal and external policies and plans.22
Looked at from the American point of view, at least according to the influential Henry Brandon: ‘Britain is still the most useful, most reliable ally and the easiest to communicate with. But economic and financial stringencies have left Britain very little elbow room in the big power game.’23
It was Freeman’s great achievement during his two years as ambassador to provide a continuous flow of first-hand information from Washington to Whitehall, from the very highest level and on the most important subjects. In this respect, Britain punched above her weight. Freeman’s personal ‘elbow room’ with the two most important men in the United States government, President Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, was unique. No British ambassador before or since can have been more confided in, more privy to presidential thinking on foreign affairs than he. As Kissinger put it:
I thought so highly of Freeman’s judgement that I frequently consulted him on matters outside his official purview. On one or two occasions, I let him read early drafts of presidential speeches, tapping his talents as an editor. He had every right to report all his conversations to his Prime Minister; he almost certainly did so. But the intimacy and trust of the ‘special relationship’ were meant precisely for such cordial collaboration.
For his part Nixon came first to trust, then to like Freeman. Freeman was the only ambassador invited to the White House for a social occasion during his first term. He also became one of my closest friends; that friendship has survived both our terms of office. I consider it one of the greatest rewards of my public service.24
When Freeman wrote his annual review for 1969, he said it had been ‘a pretty good year of Anglo-American relations’:
President Nixon has repeatedly made clear to me in terms I can no longer doubt that he regards his administration as having more intimate relations with Britain than with any other foreign country. In terms of close and candid consultation … we have been treated exceptionally – probably uniquely – well.25
According to Lord Renwick, who was ambassador to the United States in the 1990s and had visited Washington frequently while Freeman was in post: ‘At first, Henry didn’t know what to make of this left-wing journalist, who’d previously criticised Nixon, but after only two meetings with John he realised that here is someone on the same intellectual level as himself, and Henry hardly regards anybody else on this planet as his intellectual equal.’26 Kissinger told Wes Pruden, a journalist then on the National Observer who became friends with the Freemans, ‘I get along well with John. John doesn’t make friends easily and I don’t make friends at all, so we get along very well!’ He also said of Freeman:
He was one of the most effective ambassadors I ever dealt with. The reason for this was not so simple. His style was unpropitious. Freeman eschewed all flattery; he met socially only those he respected; he made little effort to turn his embassy into a fashionable salon. When he had a message to deliver, he prefaced it with a very formal statement that he was speaking under instructions. But he was prepared to go beyond his instructions to express personal views. Since he was a man of superb intelligence and utter integrity, this soon proved invaluable. He had a shrewd geopolitical mind and, as it turned out, rather shared our philosophy of foreign relations.27
Whatever John Freeman thought of Henry Kissinger, it did not prevent him making a detached judgement of his work as National Security Advisor, as in this account of a meeting about the Middle East he sent to Sir Denis Greenhill, the head of the diplomatic service, on 5 June 1970. Headed ‘Secret, Personal and Guard’ Freeman writes: ‘I consider some of the views he [Kissinger] expounded, though not completely irrational, both naive and romantic. In fairness to Kissinger I must record my view that he is a man of outstanding intellectual honesty who could be easily influenced by the arguments of others.’
He ended, not for the first time: ‘I need hardly point out that the strict protection of Kissinger’s confidence concerning a private and obviously indiscreet conversation of this kind is of the paramount importance to our relations with the White House.’28
The same day Freeman sent a second letter to Greenhill that reveals the extent of Kissinger’s indiscretions and the degree to which he trusted Freeman. It also reveals an odd triangular relationship between the two and President Nixon. It is so extraordinary it deserves to be quoted at length. Freeman begins by recalling a conversation with Kissinger the previous day:
The President, said Kissinger, was not an easy man to read even by those who knew him pretty well. For years he had represented in Kissinger’s eyes all that was most objectionable in political life. But working with him had changed his view. Mr Nixon was a ‘good’ man, generous in his responses and basically warm-hearted.
Kissinger’s main criticism of the President was directed against those who surrounded him. He said: ‘I have never met such a gang of self-seeking bastards in my life.’ When I observed that the same criticism had been levelled at other national leaders and that perhaps this sort of thing was always said, he replied: ‘No, I used to find the Kennedy group unattractively narcissistic, but they were idealists. These people are real heels.’ I find this convincing testimony.
Finally, I hope you will not misunderstand my motives in reporting, as I think I should, a very bizarre incident that took place later the same evening and is clearly related – though I’m not sure how – to the conversation with Kissinger. At about 11.30 p.m. my telephone rang, and the President was on the line. He said he was relaxing with Kissinger. Kissinger had been telling him that we had had a long and intimate talk earlier in the day. He was glad to hear this and hoped we would do so whenever the opportunity offered. He wanted me to know that Kissinger much valued my friendship and was stimulated by our conversations. After some further amiable remarks, the President rang off.
I am completely unable to interpret this incident.
Freeman added in his handwriting:
I think Mr Nixon spoke seriously and appeared completely rational. Thus, while the telephone call was probably made on impulse, I don’t doubt that he was trying to convey something he considered of importance.29
Freeman hated gossip, but this correspondence was political gilt-edge. It rises up the security hierarchy to SECRET, PERSONAL AND GUARD, ADDRESSEES EYES ONLY. Sir Denis adds in his handwriting to his private secretary ‘keep among our private pps’. In 2015 I asked Dr Kissinger if he recalled this incident and, if so, could he tell me what the ‘something of importance’ was that Freeman referred to? He said it was obvious: ‘The President wanted Freeman to know that he knew all about our conversation the previous day.’ I asked how he knew; was Dr Kissinger ‘bugged’? ‘How would I know if I was?’ he replied.
In the same conversation, I asked Dr Kissinger what President Nixon had thought of Ambassador Freeman:
He liked him. He thought he had made an impossible job work because of his intelligence and straightforward manner. He liked his analytical mind. John imposed no strain. He did not flatter the President, he did not want to become close to him. He was reticent; did his business and left.30
What did Freeman think of Nixon? He certainly grew to admire him over the first two years of his first administration, before Watergate. At his farewell audience in January 1971 he thought the time had come for him to apologise for his 1962 article. Nixon brushed him aside but he persisted: ‘I’m apologising not for my manners but for my judgement. I got you so wrong.’
Nixon replied: ‘Ah, I understand. Well, you couldn’t have said that before without browning your nose’ – the language of ‘a ruffian’ is probably how Freeman would have described that, as he did the talk of much of Washington society. Wes Pruden remembers him speaking highly of Nixon and Lord Renwick has no doubts that Freeman got Nixon right:
I honestly think before he went to Washington, JF didn’t understand how intelligent Nixon was. He found, much to his surprise that before Watergate
Nixon actually was a good President. He and Kissinger started winding down the war in Vietnam, preparing for the opening up of China and the détente with Russia. Henry deserves 80 per cent of the credit for this but Nixon instinctively took the right position on these issues; he had a feel for foreign policy. He was quite a brilliant person with a severe character flaw. I know John thought that Watergate was a completely unnecessary tragedy that showed he was right about this flaw [i.e. Nixon’s totally self-serving character].31
Freeman’s admiration for Nixon went further than foreign affairs. He once said that, ‘Nixon remains America’s greatest undiscovered US President.’ This was true in more ways than one, because as the historian Alistair Horne put it:
Nixon wanted to remain undiscovered: he was a paid-up misanthrope [meaning that he disliked the human species and abhorred more contact than necessary]. He shunned Washington society, talked in abstractions about the working class without having any desire to ‘press the flesh’ in public, and preferred the written memo to any kind of discussion.
Peter Rodman, who was Kissinger’s Special Assistant during these years, added, ‘Basically Nixon hated people.’32 Much the same has been said about Freeman; indeed he said it about himself.
Freeman had first-hand experience of how badly Washington society treated the President:
I remember one not uncharacteristic example of this at Mrs Alice Longworth’s house one evening. Over drinks before dinner she asked me what I thought of the new President. I gave some sort of respectful reply. Alice then hushed the whole company, saying in her wickedest voice: ‘How extraordinary! Listen. The ambassador thinks well of Mr Nixon! Such a common little man!’ And her guests all roared with laughter. Nixon was treated abominably by Georgetown society. It was not just a question of political disagreements. Really beastly attitudes were on display towards him, largely to do with class.33