by Roy Jenkins
THURSDAY, 20 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.
An interview with a lady called Miss Keays who has been recommended to us as a replacement for Patricia Smallbone when she gets married at Christmas. I thought she was rather good in spite of having a very Tory background, and pretty well decided to engage her. Celia is a bit worried about her because she thinks she is too strong a personality; she will find it very difficult to be as strong a personality as Celia!
SATURDAY, 22 SEPTEMBER. Brussels and Fontainebleau.
Drove to Fontainebleau, or more precisely the Hôtel Bas Bréau at Barbizon, and on a most beautiful, cool, sunlit day, lunched in the garden of this rather flash establishment. (A ‘baiserdrome’, the Beaumarchais’ described it as when they arrived to lunch next day, though the appearance of most of the other guests didn’t make this terribly plausible.)
At 4.30 on the outskirts of Fontainebleau we had the INSEAD ceremony for the opening of their academic year. There were several preliminary speeches, all quite good, one by Olivier Giscard d’Estaing, one by the President of INSEAD, one by Uwe Kitzinger,30 who gave a striking and dramatic performance, starting in German and switching to English; and then mine.
SUNDAY, 23 SEPTEMBER. Fontainebleau and Brussels.
After running early in the forest, I was driven into Fontainebleau to buy the newspapers and had a cup of coffee in a café opposite the château. I had hardly been in Fontainebleau or at a zinc comptoir since 1938, and was suddenly transported back to Third Republican France. Then we drove to near the obelisk and got a most memorable ‘September morn’ view of the château (west facade). Lunch again in the garden of the hotel, during which Ortoli telephoned to say that they were locked in discussions with the Finance Ministers as there was the first EMS readjustment of currencies (certainly the Danish kroner, maybe the Belgian franc going down, the mark going up) being negotiated.31 Back to Brussels by the early evening train from Paris.
TUESDAY, 25 SEPTEMBER. Brussels and Strasbourg.
8.16 train to Strasbourg (no avion taxis these days) feeling nervous of the new Parliament which we had hardly met in July and which, after two months away, would surely have sharpened its teeth. Even the two relatively easy questions which I had to answer filled me with apprehension. They passed easily, however.
After a late sitting of the Parliament I attended a dinner which Mme Veil was rather ineffectively organizing. First I had invited her to lunch and she had riposted by saying it should be her lunch. Then she changed it to dinner. Then she asked all the other available members of the Commission without telling me. Then she changed the time on no fewer than three occasions during the day: first, it was to be 8.00, in an adjournment of the Parliament, then it was to be 10.30, then it was back to 8.00, then it was back to whenever the Parliament was adjourned. We eventually assembled in a slightly bad temper in the Sofitel at about 10.15. It was a highly francophone dinner, which is quite good for me from time to time, although the main conversation between Mme Veil and Ortoli and Cheysson I found a bit fast, but they are fully entitled occasionally to get their own back on us anglophones.
The main interest of the dinner emerged only in retrospect. Vredeling, the fourth member of the Commission present, was next to me and appeared throughout to be perfectly sober. However, at some stage after 12.15 a.m. he got involved in an affair with ‘Chrystal’. I was not sure, when it was first reported to me, whether this was a form of glass or a German lady. It subsequently became clear that it was a question of glass, for in a fit of anger with some Dutch MEP at some unspecified time later in the night, he had picked up a heavy ashtray, thrown it, missed (I suppose fortunately) the MEP, lightly grazed the chandelier and shattered a plate glass window. The cost was £5000; the cost to Vredeling’s morale was much higher.
THURSDAY, 27 SEPTEMBER. Strasbourg.
To the Parliament at 11.15 to attend the budget debate, begun by Christopher Tugendhat with a very good speech. Afterwards I gave lunch to the British Labour Group. They were all quite agreeable. They nearly all turned up, although, apparently and typically, they had had a great debate (I am not sure they hadn’t even had a vote) as to whether or not they should come. It was almost like the legendary motion of sympathy on an MP’s illness carried by nine votes to seven, with eight abstentions. However, there was no trace of this in their behaviour. Barbara Castle made a nice speech at the end of lunch, to which I responded.
MONDAY, 1 OCTOBER. East Hendred and Vienna.
To Vienna, to be met on the tarmac by Kreisky32 together with a great array of lesser dignitaries. At the Imperial Hotel I was installed in enormous grandeur (thank God there was no question of our having to pay the bill). It was rather a pleasure to be back in Vienna, where I had not been for twenty-three years and which I found surprisingly unchanged.
At 3.00 a meeting with the President of the Republic, Kirch-schläger33 a non-political former diplomat, who has been elected as an Independent (although a Socialist nominee) and who is a tall, distinguished man, who held an entirely appropriate head of state conversation with me. We discussed the evolution of Austria’s foreign policy since 1945 in general but interesting terms and also the internal balance and the problems of one party holding power for a long time. It was a worthwhile talk in the splendid room where Francis II had worked and died at his desk, the ante-room being the bedroom where Maria Theresa had died. The Austrians have official buildings of extraordinary grandeur, greater I think than is so in almost any other country. The Italians are in a high class, the Germans in a low class for obvious reasons, even the French I think not quite as grand as the Austrians, nor the British.
Then across the courtyard for another hour’s meeting in the Chancellor’s office. This was the old Ballhausplatz of pre-1914 diplomatic fame. In the ante-room here is the spot where Dolfuss was shot. (There is no lack of notable death sites in Austria.) I talked with Kreisky about a variety of things, but not least the Labour Party, in which he is extremely interested from the Socialist International point of view, and the leadership of which he was rather naïvely asking me to go back and take over. I explained to him the impossibility of this and disclosed a little of my thought about the re-orientation of British politics, which was somewhat of a shock to him. Although he thinks the Labour Party is appalling, he nonetheless has a typical Germano/Austrian reluctance to comprehend any organizational break.
After that, a meeting with ministers, over which he presided, which was detailed but not difficult. The problem of relations with Austria is that they are at once outside the Community and a crossroads of the Community. Perhaps we could give them some money to build a new autobahn on what is called the Gästenarbeiter route. It is appallingly overcrowded at the moment with traffic from the Community through to Yugoslavia and Greece, and it will become worse as a result of Greek accession.
To the Staatsoper for Il Trovatore, well sung by Ricciarelli and a Slav lady previously unknown to me, but with doubtful Karajan sets. The performance was enjoyable but not memorable.
TUESDAY, 2 OCTOBER. Vienna and Brussels.
At 11.30 I had a meeting with Kreisky and the ministers of the evening before, for which he had asked although it was not on the programme. I decided that it should be turned into a slightly wider ranging discussion than on the previous evening, and he had decided the same, so there was a rather happy coincidence of view.
He opened with quite a long statement saying how he wanted to get Austria much closer to the Community without actual membership, which was not possible, but in effect asking for the substance of membership without the form. I replied only moderately sympathetically, because this is difficult for us, but it was a good, general tour d’horizon. After that there was a press conference and a Ballhausplatz luncheon.
Then a meeting in the Parliament with the President and about a dozen others, including the chairmen of the main committees. Afterwards, with a little time to spare, we walked to the Karls-kirche, a remarkably secular church, certainly more dedicated to the Haps
burg dynasty than to God. When we returned to the hotel, Kreisky was waiting for me in a palm court and we had tea there for twenty minutes before setting off for the airport. Austria is a very odd mixture of grandeur and informality. It would be impossible to imagine Giscard or Mrs Thatcher eating cream cakes in the public lounge of the Crillon or the Savoy Hotel, or even Schmidt in the Kōnigshof. However, it seemed perfectly normal in Vienna and nobody took much notice of Kreisky.
During this final conversation he was very keen to revert to our Labour Party discussion. He said he had thought about what I had told him, and maybe I was right, maybe I was not, but he hoped that I would reflect very carefully on all these things. At any rate, he and Brandt were anxious to promote my position, and whatever I was going to do they greatly hoped that I would come and address a major meeting of the Socialist International which they would organize in the last months of my period of office. At the airport he took me out to the plane.
THURSDAY, 4 OCTOBER. Brussels.
A most formidable session with the Control Committee from 3.00 until 6.00. Entering the room was like going into a Senatorial hearing of the worst sort. The large hémicycle of the Economic and Social Committee building was packed with about three hundred people and masses of television cameras. The disagreeable Aigner was in the chair, but opened not too intolerably. Then a flat report from Johansen, the Dane on the Cour des Comptes. Then a brief statement from me, followed by an endless list of questions from Brian Key (the rapporteur),34 to which I replied perhaps at too great a length—I should think I was about forty minutes. But there was something to be said for saturation treatment. At any rate there followed a series of not altogether unhelpful interventions from the floor, and I had a strong feeling by this time that things were going better. Several more answers from me and a wind-up at the end. There was a general feeling that I had handled it robustly and a hope that the worst was over.
SATURDAY, 6 OCTOBER. Villers-le-Temple.
Commission weekend at Villers-le-Temple. We started just before 10.00, with Spierenburg there to present his report. It was intended that he should only stay for about an hour, but it quickly became inevitable that he should stay the whole morning.
Spierenburg opened hard and responded to any criticisms extremely forthrightly, I thought very sensibly, but perhaps not as persuasively as he might have done. As a result there was a good deal of criticism during the morning, partly from the fringes. Brunner, Cheysson, perhaps Natali, Tugendhat were all slightly hostile, even Ortoli on one or two points, and I began to feel doubtful as to whether the report would not be eaten up when we came to discuss it substantially on the following day.
In the afternoon (switching from Spierenburg) we had quite a good discussion, mainly on agriculture, balance of the budget points, etc. The British issue we got through without too much discussion, which I was anxious to do, merely turning the corner that we would put forward a paper with a whole variety of options, including issues on the payments as well as on the receipts side.
SUNDAY, 7 OCTOBER. Villers-le-Temple and Brussels.
We came back to Spierenburg. Things went much better than I feared they would. One or two people were still being tiresome, Brunner notably, but increasingly isolated, but Ortoli, Gundelach, Davignon and, notably, Giolitti, who made one of his best interventions, all came out firmly in favour, and therefore the feeling, quite satisfactorily, was that broadly Spierenburg was right. Jennifer and I lunched fairly quickly, and drove ourselves back to Brussels via Huy.
MONDAY, 15 OCTOBER. Brussels.
Peter Parker came with one or two other people from British Rail, plus some SNCF (French Railways) representatives, about the Channel Tunnel. Quite a good, sensible project put forward jointly by them and it was rather a good meeting. Then a lunch rue de Praetère for Parker and the SNCF Managing Director, Monsieur Gentil.
Mirzoeff, the BBC man in charge of my Dimbleby Lecture, came for a drink, supposed to be for half an hour, but in fact he stayed from 6.30 until 8.00. He obviously doesn’t think a great deal of the incomplete draft, and is probably quite right too, though it mildly depresses me.
FRIDAY, 19 OCTOBER. Dublin.
To Dublin for a long early evening meeting with Jack Lynch, the Taoiseach. I am not sure that he is very sharply focused on how he is going to conduct the Dublin European Council, but he still has nearly six weeks to go and is very open to suggestions. I had an agreeable talk with him as usual.
Then to the Shelbourne Hotel where I had Garret Fitzgerald to dine. An immensely slow dinner, served by a very incompetent waiter, who was incapable of opening a wine bottle, an unusual Irish deficiency. Crispin was also there, and Garret as usual was on very good and worthwhile form. The conversation was wide-ranging and not particularly on political matters. He is obviously pretty confident of being able to win the next election, and his thoughts therefore (European orientated though he is) are naturally rather on Irish than on wider politics, but there was a lot of interesting talk about Irish life, modern Catholicism, the Pope, a whole range of issues.
SATURDAY, 20 OCTOBER. Dublin and Ashford Castle.
To the appropriately named Casement military airfield, from where we took off at about 10.30, accompanied by van der Klaauw, in an extremely small plane which chugged along on a rather beautiful clear morning over the midlands of Ireland, which I had never seen before. We landed near Ashford Castle, rather a magnificent hotel on the second biggest lough in Ireland, partly old, partly eighteenth-century, with a lot of nineteenth-century additions. It had belonged to various people at various stages, but most recently, like so many houses in Ireland to the branch of the Guinness family with the Browne and Oranmore title. Foreign Ministers trickled in by various routes, but there was I think a complete attendance, plus, for the first time at one of these gatherings, wives. This is so unusual in Europe that I had omitted to note that they were invited and therefore had not passed the suggestion on to Jennifer, who might have come.
A rather heavy lunch and then a session from 3.45 until 7.15, which was too long because we missed being able to go out on the most magical evening. Fortunately I was sitting facing the sunset, which was of outstanding quality, and was therefore able to take it in from the conference room. No real discussion about British budgetary questions and a fairly rambling discussion on a range of issues, Peter Carrington doing quite well, François-Poncet playing a curious hand about the report of the trois sages, which the French have been pressing for so urgently but the publication of which they now wished to postpone, and various other matters of this sort.
At dinner I had Mrs O’Kennedy and Mrs Genscher—a nice, jolly woman—on either side of me. Then a rather good, brief Irish folk performance, almost entirely by one family.
SUNDAY, 21 OCTOBER. Ashford Castle and East Hendred.
No morning session. Indeed, the whole Ashford Castle event, although thoroughly agreeable (perhaps the best place we have been to, with great lavish Irish presents and even wives) was more of a jaunt than any of the previous occasions, with remarkably little serious business transacted. We left by helicopter for Shannon, from where Peter Carrington gave me a lift to Northolt. It was a morning of wonderful clarity, and flying between Bristol and Chippenham one could see the whole of southern England, with the Isle of Wight standing out, outlined as on a map, as well as previously having had a magnificent view of the South Wales coastline and the valleys and mountains. East Hendred by just after 1 o’clock, where it was warm enough to have drinks in the garden.
MONDAY, 22 OCTOBER. East Hendred and London.
To 10 Downing Street at 11.30, for a rather wild and whirling interview with Mrs Thatcher, lasting no less than an hour and fifty minutes. She wasn’t, to be honest, making a great deal of sense, jumping all over the place, so that I came to the conclusion that her reputation for a well-ordered mind is ill-founded. On the other hand, she remains quite a nice person, without pomposity. For example, when, after a series of particularly extreme denunciatory r
emarks about Giscard, but a great deal about other people too (‘They are all a rotten lot,’ she kept saying, ‘Schmidt and the Americans and we are the only people who would do any standing up and fighting if necessary’) she suddenly announced, after making some very extreme remark about Giscard, ‘I don’t think this had better be recorded. Indeed, I think the whole interview shouldn’t be recorded.’ I said, ‘Oh, didn’t you know, it is an absolute rule in the Community that when the President has meetings of this sort a verbatim account has to be on the desks of all other heads of government the next morning.’ It’s not really so, is it?’ she said, at least half-believing. ‘No,’ I assured her, which she thought not exactly funny, but took perfectly well, whereas Callaghan would have got very huffy about a tease of that sort.
I came out, having maybe put a little sense into her head on one or two other points, but slightly reeling after this long tirade, not particularly against me but at various things she didn’t like. I was left with no feeling that she had any clear strategy for Dublin, except for determination, which is a certain quality I suppose.
TUESDAY, 23 OCTOBER. London and Strasbourg.
Plane from London Airport to Strasbourg, where I arrived on a most beautiful day. Scott-Hopkins,35 the Tory leader, to lunch. He is a curious man, quite an able leader, perfectly agreeable to talk to, although giving little sense of rapport or response. In the evening I gave Stevy Davignon dinner. He announced to my surprise how much he would like me to stay on as President of the Commission, saying that if I did he would stay on, but he thought if not, not. How much this means I don’t know, and still less do I know whether I want to stay on, but it is nice that he should say so.