European Diary, 1977-1981
Page 79
36 Anwar Sadat, 1918–81, was President of Egypt from 1970 until his assassination.
37 Sir Michael Weir, b. 1925, was Ambassador to Cairo 1979–85.
38 Pierre Bernard-Reymond, b. 1944, was a State Secretary at the Quaid’Orsay 1978–81. An MEP since 1981.
39 The Brussels habit was for All Saints Day on 1 November to form the core of a long holiday weekend.
40 The subject, of course, as was becoming perennially the case, was the British budgetary contribution.
41 (Sir) Michael Butler, b. 1927, replaced Sir Donald Maitland as British Permanent Representative to the European Community in October 1979 and served there until 1985.
42 President Bokassa of the Central African Republic proclaimed himself Emperor and reigned for a fairly brief spell before being toppled from power with some French assistance. During his imperial period he was alleged to have given some unaccounted-for diamonds to President Giscard d’Estaing.
43 Which indeed led to van Agt being one of the most constructive people at Dublin.
44 John Horam, b. 1939, Labour and then SDP MP for Gateshead 1970–83. Bill Rodgers’s, junior minister at the Department of Transport 1976–9.
45 Phillip Whitehead, b. 1937, was Labour MP for Derby 1970–83. He did not join the SDP. A television producer, he is Chairman of the New Statesman and of New Society since 1986.
46 Sir Geoffrey Chandler, b. 1922, came from Shell to be Director-General of the National Economic Development Organization 1976–82.
47 Colin Phipps, b. 1934, an oil exploration executive, was Labour MP for Dudley 1974–9.
48 Charles Haughey, b. 1925, having previously been successively Minister of Justice, Agriculture, Finance, and Health and Social Welfare between 1961 and 1979 then became Irish Prime Minister until 1981, from March to December 1982, and since February 1987.
49 Brian Lenihan, b. 1930, has been Irish Foreign Minister 1972–3, 1979–81 and since 1987.
50 Henry Grunwald, b. 1922 in Vienna, to which he has now returned as US Ambassador.
51 Nigel Lawson, b. 1932, has been Chancellor of the Exchequer since 1983, but was then only Financial Secretary to the Treasury.
52 Sir Fred Warner, b. 1918, had been Ambassador to Japan 1972–5, before being elected a Conservative MEP 1979–84.
53 This timetable subsequently slipped by three years.
54 The reluctance sprang from breakfast as a working meal, not from Dohnanyi.
55 I.e. whether the catchment area of any new party was to be Labour members and supporters or more widely drawn to embrace those of other parties or of no party. I favoured the latter approach.
1 Then Chancellor of the Exchequer, not Foreign Secretary. The subject requiring a compromise agreement was of course the British budgetary dispute which, post-Dublin, was all-dominating.
2 He turned out not to be at all like Colin Phipps.
3 A small book had been compiled out of the letters of tribute which a remarkable variety of (mainly) American and British figures had written after his death. Evangeline Bruce asked me to write a summing-up, with which flattering but testing request I gladly complied.
4 In fact he went for Ruffini, who lasted only three months.
5 See entry for 12 May 1978. On this occasion they were staying with us after an official Lord Mayoral visit to the Commission.
6 Frank Giles, b. 1919, was deputy editor of the Sunday Times 1967–81, and editor 1981–3. Married to Lady Katherine (Kitty) Giles, née Sackville.
7 Pieter Dankert, b. 1934, an MEP from the Netherlands since 1977, succeeded Simone Veil as President of the Parliament, 1982–4.
8 Jacob Javits, 1904–86, was Senator from New York 1957–86.
9 John J. McCloy, b. 1895, former High Commissioner in Germany, Chairman of the Ford Foundation 1953–65, Hon. Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations.
10 Sam Spiegel, formerly S. P. Eagle, 1904–85, was a film mogul who moved much in liberal political circles.
11 Lloyd Cutler, b. 1917, Washington Democrat and lawyer, was Counsel to the President 1979–81.
12 Alas, it turned out to be much worse. Sixteen months later she shot him and then killed herself.
13 Johannes Rau, b. 1931, was subsequently the unsuccessful SPD candidate for the Federal Chancellorship in 1986.
14 Erich Honecker, b. 1912, has been head of state of the German Democratic Republic since 1976.
15 Edward Gierek, b. 1913, lived for almost twenty-five years in France and Belgium before returning to Poland in 1948 and becoming First Secretary of the Communist Party and leader of the régime in 1970. In 1980 he fell from power and was interned for a year from the end of 1981.
16 On which my position, a little harder than when I had talked to van der Klaauw and van Agt on 19 November 1979, just before the Dimbleby Lecture (see page 522 supra). was that I had no intention of staying beyond the four years but that I did not wish, in the interests of my own authority for the first part of the last year, to discourage too brutally the attempts to promote a further term which some governments, notably the Belgian, Dutch and Italian, were kindly making.
17 General Bernard Rogers, b. 1921, was Chief of Staff of the US Army 1976–9, and Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, 1979–87.
18 (Prince) Michel Poniatowski, b. 1922, MEP since 1979, was French Minister of the Interior 1974–7, and a roving ambassador for President Giscard 1977–81.
19Lord Killanin, b. 1914, was President of the International Olympic Committee 1972–80.
20 Prince Paul, 1893–1976, son of Prince Arsen Karageorgevich, was Regent of Yugoslavia 1934–41.
21 We had both been at a large Briggs luncheon party in Worcester College, Oxford, the day before.
22 This joke became macabre in my memory when she and Sá Carneiro were killed in an air crash outside Lisbon nine months later.
23 John Wilson, b. 1924, succeeded his father, Churchill’s doctor, as 2nd Lord Moran in 1977. Ambassador to Hungary 1973–6, and Portugal 1976–81, High Commissioner in Canada 1981–4. His life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had been published in 1973.
24 Tom Ellis, b. 1924, was Labour and then SDP MP for Wrexham 1970–83, MEP 1975–9.
25 George Foulkes, b. 1942, worked for the European Movement in Scotland before he became a Labour MP for Ayrshire in 1979.
26 I did not, but he did.
27 Nigel Ryan, b. 1929, was editor of Independent Television News 1969–77, Vice-President of NBC News (New York) 1977–80, and Director of Programmes Thames Television 1980–2.
28 John Gross, b. 1935, was then the editor of the Times Literary Supplement and is now the book critic of the New York Times. Miriam Gross was then the assistant literary editor of the Observer and is now the arts editor of the Daily Telegraph.
29 Garrison Runciman, b. 1934, sociologist and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, has also been chairman of his family shipping business since 1972.
30 Clive Wilkinson, b. 1935, was Labour leader on the Birmingham City Council 1973–84.
31 Matthew Oakeshott, b. 1947, had worked for me in opposition and at the Home Office, 1972–6. SDP candidate for Cambridge 1983.
32 This was one of my better prophecies. Hugh Dalton by Ben Pimlott (1985) was a great biography.
33 Ernst Albrecht, b. 1930, European Commission official 1958–70, Minister-President of Lower Saxony since 1976.
34 lan Chapman, b. 1925, has been Chairman of Collins since 1979, having been Managing Director since 1968. He was President of the Publishers Association 1979–81.
35 In the outcome the British turned round like squirrels in a cage and became even more addicted to existing contracts than the Italians, who had many more of them with Iran.
36 Michael Young, b. 1915, cr. Lord Young of Dartington 1978. Director of the Institute of Community Studies since 1953 from where he has started many organizations including the Consumers’ Association. Joined the SDP in 1981.
37 Sir John Thomson, b. 1927, was High Commissioner to
India 1977–86, and Permanent Representative to the United Nations 1982–7.
38 Bahadur Singh, 1915–87, was Indian Ambassador to Egypt and then to Italy.
39 For the thirtieth anniversary of the unveiling of the Schuman Plan, which led to the setting up of the Coal and Steel Community and the beginning of modern European unity.
40 Michel Rocard, b. 1930, Prime Minister of France since May 1988, became French Minister of Planning and Regional Development 1981–3, and of Agriculture 1983–5. In 1980, as more recently, he was the man wanting to be presidential candidate if Mitterrand was not.
41 And indeed proved to be more so on the Sunday and Monday, so that the Cabinet, even in the absence of a lead from the top, apparently accepted the settlement without dissent.
42 Neil Kinnock, b. 1942, who was to be elected leader of the Labour Party three years later, was then Opposition spokesman on education.
43 Temporarily at least this meeting worked brilliantly; Carter consequently decided the issue in our favour.
44 The Brandt Committee, of which Edward Heath was a prominent member, had proceeded fairly quickly from taking shape in Brandt’s mind in 1977 (see p. 103 supra) to the publication of its first report {North-South: A Programme for Survival) in 1980.
45 Knut Frydenlund, 1927–87, was Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs 1973–81 and 1986–7.
46 Odvar Nordli, b. 1927, was Prime Minister of Norway 1976–87.
47 But, until 1988, my last!
48 Professor Dorothy Hodgkin, OM, b. 1910, crystallographer, Chancellor of Bristol University since 1970, one of my Oxford honorands in 1987.
49 Stephen Haseler, b. 1942, former Labour Chairman of the General Purposes Committee of the Greater London Council, is Professor of Government at the City of London Polytechnic. Douglas Eden is an associate of his of similar views and background. They had jointly set up the small, hardline anti-left Social Democratic Association in the late 1970s.
50 He had eventually secured his appointment as my successor in early July.
51 Lord Nicholas Gordon Lennox, b. 1931, has been Ambassador to Spain since 1984.
52 Neville Sandelson, b. 1923, Labour and then SDP MP for Hayes and Harlington 1971–83.
53 Eldest and second Bonham Carter daughters, then aged c. twenty-one.
54 David Foster, b. 1946, now Vice-President of Columbia Artist’s Management, New York.
55 A term which came into brief currency that summer (it was soon to be superseded by a more famous number) following the publication in the Guardian of 1 August of a manifesto of warning to the Labour Party from Bill Rodgers, Shirley Williams and David Owen. The separation between them and me at this stage was that they were still operating within the Labour Party (indeed within the Shadow Cabinet), whereas I was not.
56 Greville Janner, QC, b. 1928, succeeded his father who had also presided over the Jewish Board of Deputies as Labour MP for Leicester in 1970.
57 Louis Heren, b. 1919, was deputy editor of The Times 1978–81.
58Eduardo Punset Casals, b. 1936, has been an MEP since 1987.
59The day on which I would finally return from Brussels.
60 Frank Chapple, b. 1921, cr. Lord Chapple 1985, was a former Communist who became the outspoken and moderate General Secretary of the electricians’ union, EETPU, 1966–84.
61 Foreign honours are much complicated by British Government rules; see entry for 15 December 1980 infra.
62 (Sir) Ian MacGregor, b. 1912, was Chairman of the British Steel Corporation 1980–3 and of the National Coal Board 1983–7.
63 It went through, by a rather narrow majority, and became the so-called Vredeling Directive.
64 (Sir) William Heseltine, b. 1930 in Fremantle, Western Australia. Now (since 1986) Private Secretary to the Queen and Keeper of the Queen’s Archives.
65 Yitzhak Shamir, b. 1915, was Foreign Minister of Israel 1980–3 and 1984–6, and Prime Minister 1983–4 and from October 1986.
66 Humphrey Atkins, b. 1922, cr. Lord Colnbrook 1987, was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland 1979–81.
67 Sir Fred Dainton, b. 1914, cr. Lord Dainton 1986, was Vice-Chancellor of Nottingham 1965–70, and has been Chancellor of Sheffield since 1978.
68 Alan Bullock, b. 1914, cr. Lord Bullock 1976, was Master of St Catherine’s College, Oxford, 1960–80, and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford 1969–73.
69 As Director of the Labour Committee for Europe.
70 He became Sir Crispin Tickell only when he was invested as a KCVO by the Queen (i.e. a specifically royal honour) on the occasion of her visit to Mexico in 1983. He was dubbed at Acapulco in a beach shirt.
71 What a stuffy out-of-date 1960s and 1970s ministerial view this proved. Everyone (except perhaps for the actual Prime Minister), and certainly including me, is now very glad to appear on Question Time.
72 James Meade, b. 1907, Nobel Prizewinner, was Professor of Political Economy in the University of Cambridge 1957–69.
73 Ivor Richard, b. 1932, a Labour MP 1964–74, was British Permanent Representative at the UN 1974–9, and a European Commissioner 1981–5.
74 Jeremy Thomas, b. 1931, Britain’s Ambassador to Luxembourg 1979–82, has been Ambassador to Greece since 1985.
1 He never did.
2 Periodic meetings of Commission, management and unions to discuss Community economic strategy.
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