European Diary, 1977-1981

by Roy Jenkins

  Arrived late with Jennifer to dine with the Australian Ambassador for the Whitlams, who were visiting. A curiously mixed party, with the Papal Nuncio apparently substituting for the Ambassador’s non-existent wife. The Whitlams in buoyant form as usual. I enjoyed talking to Mrs Whitlam, who really is a rather splendid figure. He is going to give up politics and become a professor at the National University at Canberra. Also present were Roy Denmans and Marquands. David Marquand is now finally going, having got his chair at Salford. He has written two or three extremely good speeches for me, but I do not think that he has found quite enough worthwhile to do.

  THURSDAY, 18 MAY. Brussels.

  I gave a lunch for the Daily Telegraph - William Deedes (the editor) plus the foreign editor, plus a leader writer. I enjoyed the occasion. Deedes is not a scintillating man (although he has other virtues), nor were the other two, but they seemed favourable and friendly and therefore it was worthwhile. Then a two-hour session with the Political Affairs Committee of the Parliament about enlargement.

  At 6 o’clock I saw John Palmer of the Guardian, who asked curiously desultory questions, but we got on in a reasonably friendly way, which is at least an improvement on a year ago. I had in fact been extremely nice about him (although I have no idea whether he knew that) to Peter Preston ten days before, saying, which is indeed the truth, that he was much the best informed of the British correspondents in Brussels.

  Wayland Kennet73 and Jacques Tiné and three or four others to dine. Jacques Tiné on very good and funny form, apparently delighted to get away from his NATO society, which I think bores him considerably. Wayland is keen to stand for the European Parliament, but he is not at all clear where he is going to find a seat he can win. Nor am I.

  SATURDAY, 20 MAY. Brussels and Nybørg.

  Avion taxi to Odense and then helicopted to Hesselet, near Nybørg, for the Danish ‘Schloss Gymnich’ meeting, which was held in a very smart, curiously Japanese-style hotel on the edge of the sea. When I got into the helicopter at Odense, David Owen and van der Klaauw, the nice Dutch Foreign Minister, were already sitting in it. Van der Klaauw was as agreeable as ever, but David was apparently in a very bad temper and scowled most ferociously at everybody in sight. Ostensibly that was because Simonet was not coming. However, David’s temper, performance and general agreeableness improved substantially as the weekend went on. Simonet’s absence persisted.

  There was a considerable general to-do over lunch about this. Guiringaud had not arrived, but was definitely coming during the evening, and it was thought very desirable to have them both together to hear what each had to say about Zaïre and to try and patch up the difficulty which had arisen between them. I spoke to Simonet on the telephone during lunch and got a promise out of him that he would come at 7 o’clock, but he then went back on that, claiming that there was a special Belgian Cabinet meeting (there was one floating around, but it never took place). What is more likely is that Henri, finding himself in a rather impossible situation, decided to go to ground.

  In the afternoon we had a discussion on enlargement, which was an agreeable seminar but not much more. Then I had a walk and long talk with Genscher. We had two further sessions, one from 5.15 to 7.00, and another from dinner until midnight. In the latter we listened to a long and extremely impressive exposé by Guiringaud of the French position in Zaïre. It was much the best thing that I have heard Guiringaud do. He spoke for about forty minutes, quietly, slowly, very clearly, with great knowledge and therefore great conviction; great knowledge of exactly what had happened from hour to hour, and of the position on the ground, although I think he had never been to Kolwezi.

  SUNDAY, 21 MAY. Nybørg, Hamburg and Copenhagen.

  I flew to Hamburg in the early afternoon for the DGB (German trade unions) Conference. An audience of about two thousand, speeches by Vetter and then by Scheel, the Federal President. Scheel’s was very long, almost exactly an hour, and certainly not a conventional speech from a head of state. I would guess he had written it all himself. He tried to deal with the balance between growth and ecological and environmental considerations, and did so interestingly if in some ways naively. I spoke for twelve minutes, the first two paragraphs in German. When at the end of them I announced, ‘I am now going to turn to English, which will perhaps be as big a relief to you as it is to me.’ there was tumultuous applause, but it was a little ambiguous whether this was a tribute to my German, or an expression of deep relief.

  The Conference had a remarkable turn-up of German politicians (and of some others, including Jack Jones). Apart from Scheel, there was also Carstens, the Christian Democrat President of the Bundestag, Kohl, leader of the CDU, as well as most of the SPD ministers, Apel, Matthöfer, etc. Then back to Denmark by avion taxi, arriving at the Hôtel d’Angleterre in Copenhagen just after 7 o’clock.

  MONDAY, 22 MAY. Copenhagen and Greenland.

  Airport at 10.30 to be informed that the plane was at least an hour and a half late. I therefore insisted on doing some sight-seeing and went first to Koger, a former Dutch settlement on the sea looking across to Sweden, next to the Francis Church, with the winding exterior staircase going up to the copper spire, to the bottom of which Laura and I climbed, and then back briefly to the Angleterre for a drink, until we were summoned to the airport and arrived exactly seven minutes before take-off at 1 o’clock: a satisfactory defeat of airport time-wasting.

  Then a flight of just over four hours to Søndre Strømfjord, across Iceland, then over the very high mountains of western Greenland, then across the endless waste of the Ice Cap and into Søndre Strømfjord, in quite good weather, at 1.10 Greenland time. A quick turn-round and off in a helicopter for nearly two hundred miles to Sukkertoppen (Sugarloaf). Remarkable scenery, all off the Ice Cap, but flying over a sunny, snowbound landscape (ground temperature probably about 38°F) down fjords of quite remarkable length, steepness and complication, mainly frozen up but a little less so as we got to the sea.

  At Sukkertoppen we were greeted by a demonstration, though it didn’t seem a very serious one, being mainly composed of schoolchildren out for the afternoon, organized indeed by the bearded deputy headmaster, but with lots of slogans like ‘No Rome rule’, ‘Go home Father Christmas Jenkins’, ‘Greenland out of the EEC’. The deputy headmaster made a speech, I made a speech in response, it was all quite good-tempered, although by walking slowly in front of us they blocked our way down from the landing pad to the public hall, where we had a meeting with the town council, who were all rather friendly and constructive. I think the Green-landers could be persuaded to stay in the Community, but whether that is good for them or for us is another matter.

  We then helicopted on to Atangmik, a settlement of about 180 people on the sea, a bleak place, where we wandered around in slushy snow and saw a rather pathetic fishing hut where they produced cod’s roe and also dried cod carcases which hang up and are then exported to—of all places—Nigeria. Then we had a sort of village meeting, rather reminiscent of some election meetings, in which about sixty people shuffled in rather reluctantly and stood at the back. The mayor, if that is the right word, made quite a good, sensible speech, which he had typed out, and I responded. What they made of my speech I cannot think, particularly as it had to be translated via Danish into Greenlandic.

  Then on into Godtháb and to the Hotel Grønland for a brief pause before going to dine with the Governor in a party of about twenty, with good food round a crowded dining table in a clapboard house built about 1800. I was getting a bit tired by the end of dinner (11 p.m. local time, 3 a.m. Copenhagen time) although it was still broad daylight.

  TUESDAY, 23 MAY. Greenland.

  A morning tour of the projects mainly paid for by the Community: a new airstrip, a fish packing factory and a technical college. Then an early lunch in the hotel given by the municipality of Godthäb (or Nuuk as it is called in Greenlandic). This was rather like a Chinese meal, with a splendid series of optional dishes. The first course was composed of herri
ngs, eels, plaice, shrimps, ham and a variety of other things. Then there was a whole range of hot courses: a duck, liver and bacon, slices of pork, lamb chops, with nearly everything in sight imported from 2000 miles away. With the subsidy they get (partly from us, but mainly from Denmark) no doubt they can afford it.

  There was a nice speech from the deputy mayor (the mayor was in Canada) and a substantial response from me. Then a 2.15 meeting with various politicians, officials, etc., during which the Governor told us that bad weather was moving in fast from the south, and that we might be stuck for days if we did not get away quick. Accordingly, after a press conference, we took off for Søndre Strømfjord at 4.30. We dined at the fairly basic hotel there with the large contingent from the Danish Ministry of Greenland which was accompanying us, the only slightly smaller one from the Danish Foreign Ministry, the Governor, who had flown out and was indeed coming back to Copenhagen with us for no very good reason, and a few politicians, including Motzfeldt, who was the leader of the left-wing opposition to the EEC and the most intelligent politician I met in Greenland.

  WEDNESDAY, 24 MAY. Greenland and Brussels.

  An expedition down to the port which was about 14 kms away, and which was still frozen up but which will become ice-free within three or four weeks and remain so until mid-November. Then up to a high point above the airfield with a magnificent view looking up to the remarkable phenomenon of the Ice Cap, which begins about twenty miles away. It extends over 90 per cent of the country, is about 1700 miles long and 900 miles wide, has a depth in places of 10, 11 or even 12,000 feet, and nobody is certain what exactly is underneath it. It contains such a volume of frozen water that, were it to melt, the level of the sea all over the world would go up about 17 metres, which would obliterate a good number of major cities.

  One o’clock plane to Copenhagen, where we arrived just after 9 p.m., and Brussels by avion taxi an hour and a half later. Fernand Spaak, our Washington representative, called for a late-night talk.

  THURSDAY, 25 MAY. Brussels.

  An hour’s meeting with Ecevit,74 Turkish Prime Minister. He presented a series of detailed demands, which I think I turned reasonably, while stressing that we wanted very much to put things on a better basis and that we had no intention of allowing the Greeks to import the Aegean quarrel into the Community. A lunch of twenty people for him, with speeches afterwards, in the Berlaymont.

  FRIDAY, 26 MAY. Brussels and Lucca.

  Plane to Milan for my Whitsun holiday. It took off late but then, almost unbelievably, I got from Brussels to Pisa, including a change, in two hours. Jennifer and the Gilmours were still at the airport, having been much more delayed, so we drove out together and arrived at La Pianella at 2.30. As we mounted the drive it typically began to rain and poured for the rest of the day.

  FRIDAY, 2 JUNE. Lucca and Paris.

  Uncertainly better weather. 5.15 plane from Pisa to Paris via Milan. Over an hour late at Orly. Drove to the Embassy where, with the Hendersons out to dinner, I worked until midnight on boxes of papers which had arrived from Brussels. A perfect evening in Paris, the continuation of the spectacular period of weather which had been going on all over Northern Europe while we had been rained upon in Italy.

  SATURDAY, 3 JUNE. Paris.

  Worked in my room all the morning and then lunched with Nicko, Mary and Jennifer on the terrace. Dined at the Brasserie Lipp with the Hendersons, Alex Grall, the head of the publishers Fayard, and Françoise Giroud.75 I liked him very much indeed. (I had met her before.) We drove back round the Île St Louis and the Île de la Cité on a very warm summer evening with Paris looking splendid, the streets full of people and a greater sense of animation than I had felt there since the thirties.

  MONDAY, 5 JUNE. Brussels.

  A quite interesting 10.30 meeting with the Yugoslav Ambassador. The Yugoslavs present a problem no less than the Turks at the moment, and there is therefore a need to treat them with considerable sensitivity in view of their hinge position and the possible complications of Tito’s death, whenever that comes.

  Downstairs to receive Morarji Desai,76 Prime Minister of India, first for a private talk and then for a lunch with about half the Commissioners. I had not seen him since the Commonwealth Finance Ministers’ Conference in 1968. I remembered particularly his very graceful reply to my toast in the Painted Hall at Greenwich. In spite of a lot of fuss beforehand about what he could or could not eat, with his own chef being sent in and some worry on our part as to whether we ought to have alcohol, it was a particularly agreeable lunch, Desai making a striking impression. Whether he is a great man or not, I don’t know. What he is, more surprisingly, is an extremely agreeable man, who talks very freely about Indian and world politics, perhaps slightly self-righteous, but with enough sense of humour to make it tolerable. We had a normal meal, with wine, about which he seemed totally unconcerned. The Indians with him mostly had normal meals but without alcohol. He had his own meal, composed of bits of garlic, bits of milk, bits of curd, bits of God knows what else, but with no sign of his special recycled drink. Towards the end of the meal one of our more sodden and less bright elderly waiters swayed towards him trying to pour out a large glass of Rémy Martin. ‘No, no,’ I said hurriedly, ‘I don’t think that would be quite right for the Indian Prime Minister.’ Desai thought it rather funny. He made an agreeable speech afterwards, and it was generally a good occasion.

  An afternoon’s work, a 6 o’clock meeting with Ortoli, and then to a dinner with the Confederation of European Socialist Parties, to which most other Socialist Commissioners came. Robert Pontillon, the International Secretary of the French Socialist Party since Guy Mollet’s day, was in the chair. It was just a worthwhile occasion, with a tolerable but not very exciting discussion afterwards.

  TUESDAY, 6 JUNE. Brussels, Luxembourg and Brussels.

  Avion taxi to Luxembourg at 8.15. A quick meeting on the agenda with K. B. Andersen and into the Foreign Affairs Council. No hiccups in the morning, and then a Council lunch largely taken up by my giving them an account of my meeting with Ecevit, in which they were unusually interested. Council again from 2.45. Desultory at times, blockage on the Regional Fund between the Italians and the Germans, which I almost, but not quite, alas, managed to solve. I was tired of the Council by 7.45 and went back to Brussels (even though it went on until 9.30) by avion taxi.

  WEDNESDAY, 7 JUNE. Brussels.

  Commission for seven and a half hours. Lunch with Henri Simonet who was just a little battered I thought about Zaïre, but not more than that.

  I had Francis Ortoli to dine alone, rue de Praetère. Rather good conversation, probably more French than English, but a lot of it about linguistics. He claimed, surprisingly and I think hyperbolically, though no doubt flattering in intention, that he could always understand my English very well, much more so, he claimed, than either Tugendhat’s or Burke’s,77 mainly, he said, because our minds operated so similarly that he could always tell the direction of my thought even though my language was complicated!

  THURSDAY, 8 JUNE. Brussels and London.

  An 11 o’clock meeting with the Austrian Foreign Minister (Pahr), who was a very sensible and worthwhile man with whom I had an hour’s conversation. Then I saw Ronald Butt of The Times/Sunday Times. I have never been a fan of his, but he was friendly and sensible on this occasion. Then, suddenly, a request from Sigrist, the German Permanent Representative, to pay an urgent call. He arrived to explain that Genscher had made a diary cock-up for the following week and could not fulfil his luncheon engagement with me for the following Tuesday in Strasbourg. Would I accept Dohnanyi in his place and have Genscher to lunch a few weeks later? It hardly seemed to warrant a special ambassadorial visit, but this was I suppose courteous.

  A COREPER lunch which was much as usual. At 3.15 I saw Garland, the Australian Minister for Special Trade Negotiations, an agreeable, youngish man whom I had met before. We had decided beforehand to give him slightly rough treatment in view of the way Fraser behaves and
to tell him that there was no future in this. We wanted to improve relations with Australia but we would be damned if we would be bullied into doing so, and if they went on making disobliging statements after every meeting it would make it very difficult to achieve anything. I was not sure how taken aback he was. I think his Ambassador may have warned him, but at any rate he was uneasy and never recovered the initiative. I was able to end the interview more graciously by taking him to the lift and talking about one or two mutual acquaintances.

  6.25 plane (semi-punctual) to London, and to the Harlechs78 by 8.15 for the dinner preceding their ball. The dinner was for thirty-two or thirty-six, with a curious mixture of strands: Mrs Onassis, Sam Spiegel, Droghedas, David Cecils, Lee Remick, Peter Hall, for example. I sat between Pamela Harlech and Jackie, about which I could not complain. Jackie was at her best, I have never had a better conversation with her, not only very friendly but also interesting, with a lot of talk about White House life, mostly when Jack was President, but also her return visits there and her relations with LBJ, towards whom she was surprisingly friendly and favourable, and with Nixon, to whom she was much less so.

  Jack, she said, except occasionally, did not much like formally arranged dinner parties, because he could not decide in advance whom he wanted to see. But he would often ring up at 5 or 6 o’clock and say, ‘Get somebody for dinner.’ He did not greatly like having Ethel and Bobby, not because he didn’t like Ethel, he did rather, and certainly not because he didn’t like Bobby, but because Bobby was too much his conscience and kept demanding to know what he had done, what he had decided about this or that, telling him what he ought to do in the future. Bradlees (Washington Post), who turned out to be snakes-in-the-grass, were there a lot. But David and Sissie Gore came more than anybody else, she said, so much so that it became difficult because David would always chuck everything else, which in my view was probably his duty (the main duty of ambassadors is to have close contact with the heads of the government to which they are accredited) but which led to his breaking long-arranged dinner engagements at which he was to be the guest of honour and created some Washington ill-feeling.