by Roy Jenkins
The British said they could not possibly accept this. If it was explicit they could not defend it in the House of Commons. I tried hard to get them to do so, and indeed Ian Gilmour was in favour of taking the risk. Peter Carrington was not. We then had a series of agitated comings and goings, in the course of which Ortoli and I had our second row of the Council. The first had been after my statement in the pre-dinner session when he said I had presented the issue in an unbalanced way—he was in a very agitated state all the time—no doubt under great Paris pressure. But as is mostly the case with Francis, as soon as we had had that row he apologized and more or less made it up. But on this early morning occasion he was huffing and puffing and walking around looking even more like Brezhnev than usual, and was clearly very tense. So was I, for that matter. This row remained unresolved.
FRIDAY, 30 MAY. Brussels and East Hendred.
There was great pressure from the Benelux ministers in particular to get back to a plenary session, so we resumed at 7.15 a.m. and went on until 10.10, though we were suspended from 8.00 to 9.45. First, we had the problem of getting round the linkage problem. We set up a drafting committee of officials under Stevy (Davignon) in the chair (the British complaining he would be a very partial chairman). This committee curiously and surprisingly produced a satisfactory formula: it was extremely, almost excessively, simple, but ingenious. Emile Noël, typically and with a sudden shaft of subtle brilliance, was the author. It seemed to say nothing and might, I suppose, mean different things to different people. However, it had been accepted by Michael Butler and Hannay who had been in the committee for the British.
The French were a little reluctant to accept it, but there was then a considerable effort to persuade them on Davignon’s part, who seemed to have swung round, and on Emile’s, who naturally had the pride of authorship. They both argued with the French in a huddle behind their places at the table for some time, after which the French asked for a suspension for a quarter of an hour. This lasted not fifteen but ninety-five minutes.
When the French eventually trooped back into the room, my heart was almost literally in my mouth because I thought that after all this interminable work, and being so near to a result, it was going to be a repetition of Luxembourg, with the whole thing coming apart at the end. But miraculously and mysteriously the French announced quite simply that they would accept, but that they wanted a bit of the original British draft put in as well! Then I thought for a moment that the British were going to be sticky, but no, they accepted too, and the whole thing was over by just after 10 o’clock, eighteen and a half hours after we had begun. It was a prodigious achievement, leaving me exhausted but with a sense that something I did not believe could have come off had really been achieved and achieved very effectively. For the moment I even forgot the bitter thought that all the effort on the part of Colombo, Carrington, Gilmour and others, and all the strain on my relations with my Commission colleagues, was made necessary only by a foolish woman’s stubborn whim a month before. The new settlement was only cosmetically different from that which Mrs Thatcher had turned down at Luxembourg.
We got back into my Berlaymont room at 10.20, had a glass or two of champagne to celebrate and then after an hour or so I went home to rue de Praetère, had a large breakfast there at noon, caught the 12.45 and got to East Hendred by 2 o’clock. I slept fairly contentedly all the afternoon. Still good weather.
SATURDAY, 31 MAY. East Hendred.
Up at 9.15, did a certain amount of telephoning in the morning to try to find out what was happening within the British Government, and then went to meet Marie-Alice (de Beaumarchais) at Didcot. Brought her back for lunch, to which the Gilmours also came. I had discovered on the telephone beforehand that the picture was that Ian and Peter Carrington had an extremely frosty reception from Mrs Thatcher at Chequers where they had gone straight from the airport and had had altogether three and a half hours with her, not apparently being offered even a drink, let alone lunch, until 2.30 Brussels time. Then a drink, produced rather reluctantly on a direct request from Peter Carrington, followed by a late and apparently not very adequate lunch. But it was not so much the refreshment as the atmosphere which depressed them, for there was no sense of welcoming them back as heroes from the battlefront, but of being extremely reluctant to accept what they had so unexpectedly and successfully negotiated. They left her feeling that she was going to see how things developed over the weekend and by no means necessarily going to recommend the settlement to the Cabinet. However, the press on Saturday morning had been quite satisfactory.41
SUNDAY, 1 JUNE. East Hendred.
Lunch at home for Marie-Alice, Ann Fleming, Wyatts and Charles. Croquet in the afternoon. Gordon Richardsons to a drink at 6.30. Drove to the Monument after dinner for the view in the twilight. An agreeable weekend, a sense of achievement, and a major weight lifted.
TUESDAY, 3 JUNE. East Hendred and Brussels.
9.45 plane to Brussels. Relatively calm morning except for the Daily Mail having a front-page story announcing that I was resigning from Brussels immediately to launch a new party. I did not take it too seriously, but it obviously caused a certain amount of agitation and excitement. We issued a firm denial during the morning saying that I was definitely staying until the end of the year. Nevertheless, with the BBQ temporarily out of the way, British politics were beginning to loom. My speech at the Press Gallery on the following Monday and the form it should take was already weighing on my mind.
FRIDAY, 6 JUNE. Brussels and East Hendred.
East Hendred by 8.00, where Bonham Carters and Hayden and Laura had all arrived to stay just before me (Jennifer in Edinburgh). After dinner gave them an outline for my speech for Monday. Mark rather sensibly was inclined to take the view that if he were me he would say as little as possible, but this was not the view of the others nor at that stage mine.
SUNDAY, 8 JUNE. East Hendred.
Half-way through lunch Shirley Williams rang up to ask if I had heard her on The World at One and I said alas, not. She said she hoped I would agree with what she had said and was very friendly. As in fact what she had said, which was much quoted subsequently, was that a centre party was out because it would have no roots, no conscience, no principles, no God knows what else, this was rather a curious telephone call, particularly as I, not knowing what she had said, nonetheless thought it a good idea to run through my speech with her, which I did, and she said it was more or less all right. (It did not of course actually mention a centre party as such.) She merely asked for a change at the end where I referred to a possible revival of Liberal and Social Democratic Britain. She said, ‘Couldn’t you use small letters and leave out the “and” - “liberal social democratic Britain”?’ Thinking that if Paris was worth a Mass, Shirley was certainly worth an ‘and’ (and a lower case) I decided to do so, after which we rang off on terms of great amity. She said she was sure we would all be together in six months or so.
MONDAY, 9 JUNE. East Hendred and London.
Motored to London. Poisoned finger (which had developed on Saturday) worse. To Kensington Park Gardens for a short time, where there were a lot of photographers. Then to the House of Commons for the Parliamentary Press Gallery speech. Large, packed audience. The speech took just under half an hour, and I answered, not particularly well or particularly badly, three or four questions afterwards. Reception more or less all right, but not wildly enthusiastic. You could hardly expect that with an audience of hard-boiled journalists seasoned by a few parliamentary guests like Neil Kinnock.42 However, Tom Bradley and one or two other friends who were there seemed quite tolerably pleased. I went off feeling rather like Guy Fawkes having set fire to a fuse and wondering what on earth was going to happen.
A meeting with Lindley, Phipps etc., from 7.00 to 8.30, by which time the speech was all over the evening papers and dominating the news bulletins. They were obviously pleased with the impact and so was I, at the time at any rate.
John Harris came to dine and we watche
d the various news bulletins, including hearing Denis Healey describe it as ‘all bunkum’. This was done aggressively rather than skilfully by Denis, though he was able to use Shirley’s words of Sunday with considerable effect.
TUESDAY, 10 JUNE. London and Brussels.
The speech was dominant in the newspapers, with a good deal of fairly adverse comment. The Guardian had a definitely unfriendly leader. So did one or two other papers, but the Financial Times was much more friendly than it had been after the Dimbleby Lecture. The Times was not bad, the populars mixed, but all giving it a great deal of space. Had barely time to take them in before leaving for the 9.45 plane to Brussels.
The President of Costa Rica for a brief meeting at 7.30, followed by a Berlaymont dinner for him. An agreeable and interesting Central American, but my mind somewhat on other things.
WEDNESDAY, 11 JUNE. Brussels.
Home at 4.15 p.m. and tried to sleep off exhaustion for a bit but in fact by this time I had got into a thorough gloom about the speech, which I was beginning increasingly to think had been a major tactical error. It took me to a ledge on the cliff-face from which it was going to be very difficult to get up or down. Had a mildly reassuring telephone conversation with David Steel.
THURSDAY, 12 JUNE. Brussels and Venice.
Venice by avion taxi just before 11 o’clock. In by motor launch through vast security precautions with frogmen all over the place and soldiers standing with their rifles at the ready on the banks of the canal along from the airport, and then lots of security boats and security helicopters around and above us as we crossed the back part of the lagoon and then past the Arsenale and into the Danieli. The Danieli was like an armed camp with the bit of the Riva outside it for 100 yards or more cordoned off. Installed there, in what was no doubt a grand but rather a disagreeable suite. It had two large sitting rooms and a moderate-sized bedroom. It was nominally on the first floor, but when I opened the window of the bedroom I looked straight out at soldiers with machine guns standing about ten feet from me on the top of the little bridge.
Lunched on the Danieli roof garden with a splendid view and splendid weather. Half enjoyed lunch. Then the opening session of the European Council in the old monastery on the Isolo San Giorgio, which ran for four hours from 3.50 and was, as one might have expected, not particularly notable. The mood was one of post-BBQ exhaustion. There were a number of routine items which I introduced, but there was no issue we particularly came to grips with. We signally failed to do so with energy.
Then back to the hotel and on for the heads of government dinner at the Ca’ Orsini on the Grand Canal between the Accademia and the Rialto, where I stayed from 9.15 till about 11.15, and then tactfully left as they had to get down to the question of appointing my successor, which is purely inter-government business.
FRIDAY, 13 JUNE. Venice and Brussels.
Over to the Isolo San Giorgio for the session which was due to start at 10.30. However, owing to the fact that they had completely failed to reach agreement on a new President the night before, it did not begin until 12.30. There were hurried consultations and comings and goings about this. Thorn was pressing himself very hard, and had the support of Genscher but not of Schmidt, who kept on confusing issues by throwing in the names of one or two Dutchmen - ‘that Dutch ex-Finance Minister whose name I cannot remember’, he had suggested at one stage. In fact it was Duisenberg. Zijlstra I think he also had in mind. The French were at this stage adamantly opposed to Thorn. The British were willing to go for Thorn, but Carrington much preferred Davignon, who had in fact been offered the job by Barre about two weeks before, and believed he had it sewn up, and would have made a very good President. Mrs Thatcher felt committed to Thorn. Benelux was split all over the place and as a result the scene was generally disorderly. Little Thorn was pacing up and down and looking gloomy and agitated. When I asked him how he was feeling, he said awful. Very disagreeable for him. I think he ought to have removed himself from the scene, which would have been more sensible, but maybe he found it difficult. I returned to Brussels between 5.00 and 7.00.
TUESDAY, 17 JUNE. Strasbourg.
At 11.30 saw Glinne and Caborn of the Socialist Group about the case of Adams, whom it was alleged had been victimized in connection with the Hoffmann-La Roche exposure many years before, and to whom we had made an ex gratia payment, which alas did not entirely satisfy him or them. But we had gone as far as we could without trouble with the Cour des Comptes. Jennifer and I took Harry Walston and his new wife (ex Mrs Nicholas Scott) to lunch at La Wantzenau. Some discussion about my speech without a great deal of support from Harry. ‘I agree with your objectives but not with your tactics’ was the best I could get from him.
At 3.30 I had a meeting with Madame Chou En-lai and her delegation, very friendly and courteous, but without a great deal of interest to say.
SATURDAY, 21 JUNE. Brussels and Venice.
I left after lunch to proceed once more by avion taxi to Venice, this time for the Western Economic Summit. Arrived in horrible weather: cloudy, windy, with a tendency to rain. Moreover, it got steadily worse. Installed again in the Danieli, this time on the third floor as I had complained about the noise in the previous room. A great storm then came on.
I had a drink with Trudeau and found him much as when I had last seen him nearly two years before. Agreeable, not much idea as to what was going on, pleased to have won, sharp but not very constructive comments. Then in pouring rain went by motor launch to the Gritti, picked up the Carringtons and took them out to an enjoyable dinner, and my spirits temporarily rose.
SUNDAY, 22 JUNE. Venice.
Across to the San Giorgio, with the lagoon pretty rough, for photographs and a session from 10.30 till 1.00. Tour de table, nobody making any particularly bad or particularly impressive statements. I spoke for ten minutes at the end. Schmidt was probably the best, but too long as usual. Carter looked on better form than at Tokyo and spoke as he generally does on these occasions in a controlled but hardly inspired way. Mrs Thatcher was slightly peripheral, as indeed were Trudeau and the Japanese (owing to Ohira’s death, the Japanese were represented at Foreign Minister not Prime Minister level). Cossiga was a fairly good but somewhat long-winded chairman.
Lunched with the Foreign Ministers from 1.30 to 3.00, during which we were trying to draft an Afghanistan and Middle East communiqué. Then, there being a purely political meeting of heads of government in the afternoon, I met with the Finance and Energy Ministers from 3.30 to 6.10. Then a general reception in the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale, followed by a dinner upstairs with the Finance Ministers. I think we were the first people to dine in that room, or indeed in the building, for three hundred years and everything was visually spectacular, but not conversationally memorable.
MONDAY, 23 JUNE. Venice.
Three-hour session in the morning, which was almost entirely on the communiqué. Then I had a quite good bilateral meeting with Carter, who was accompanied by the Secretary of the Treasury, Miller, and three or four others, on the anti-dumping suit brought by US Steel which was liable to wreck about 2 billion dollars’ worth of our trade unless something could be done. Carter sounded reasonably forthcoming.43
Everything was over by 5.00. It was a filthy evening. Warmish, low mist, driving wind, the lagoon the colour of milky coffee. I went for an hour’s walk with Crispin: into the Piazza, indeed into St Mark’s, through the doors of which the lagoon also was lapping strongly, on to the Rialto, then got rather lost on the other side of the bridge and eventually returned by vaporetto. The walk was not all that agreeable, partly because of the weather and partly because the intensive security–the Venetians by this stage must have been demented–meant that our own security men walked behind us, but the Italian security men, of whom we had about six, insisted on clearing a path in advance and jostling people out of the way. The Italian police, mostly from Naples, were fairly shocked by our idea of returning by vaporetto, but as they were even more lost than we were, there was no
thing they could do about it.
FRIDAY, 27 JUNE. East Hendred.
Ted Heath to lunch on his way to a sailing expedition in the Solent. He talked without ceasing: sailing for the first course; music for the second; and the Brandt Report44 for the third. But, particularly on the last, he talked very well. He showed a certain but not a vast interest in what I might or might not be doing in British politics. We agreed to keep in touch.
SATURDAY, 28 JUNE. East Hendred.
A filthy day which became worse. The weather recently has been indescribably awful, a real monsoon season having set in. The Arthur Schlesingers and the Rodgers’ came to lunch. Then had a long talk with Bill from 6.00 to 8.30. Friendly, inconclusive. But he seemed to take no objection to my Press Gallery speech.
MONDAY, 30 JUNE. East Hendred.
Weather a bit better, but I felt more exhausted than ever. Dick Taverne to lunch and found him satisfactorily self-confident and inspiriting and also more or less willing to go along with what I wanted, which was not to rush things too much. I slept most of the afternoon and early evening, a dismal end to a dismal month, most other things as bad as the weather. Let us hope July will be better.
THURSDAY, 3 JULY. Brussels and Oslo.
Drove to Amsterdam with Jennifer for a plane to Oslo. A dismal drive through a dank countryside. Arrived in Oslo in the wake of a great thunderstorm but with the temperature quite a bit over 70°F, far higher than anything we had known in Brussels or London during the preceding month. Drove to the rather attractive guest house where the Norwegians were putting us up and were given lunch there by Frydenlund,45 the Foreign Minister. I liked both him and his wife very much.