European Diary, 1977-1981 (49 page)

At 7.00, we had Bob Strauss, accompanied by four other Americans, including Ambassadors Alonzo McDonald and Hinton, in for a talk about the waiver dispute.
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A rather successful hour's talk. We didn't quarrel but were very firm and kept them on the defensive throughout. Jennifer arrived in Brussels for the first time for a month.

FRIDAY, 10 NOVEMBER.
Brussels.

The weather still being spectacular, I went for a walk with Jennifer at Groenendaal, and then lunched with her and Crispin at the Chalet de la Forêt.

Shortly before leaving the office at 7.00, I got ensnarled with Tugendhat who rang up making, as I thought, the most ridiculous fuss about his not being treated properly for the Prince of Wales's visit. The point was that the subjects which the Prince had asked to be discussed in his meeting with the Commission did not include one which Christopher could naturally introduce. I got rather impatient with him, I think rightly so. It is extraordinary the unbalancing effect which royalty has even on the most normally sensible people. Unfortunately during my testiness I rather forgot that we were dining with the Tugendhats that evening. However, Christopher rose splendidly above the issue at dinner and both he and Julia were totally agreeable and had other interesting people there as they mostly do.

SATURDAY, 11 NOVEMBER.
Brussels.

My fifty-eighth birthday. Drove to Auvillers-les-Forges just over the French frontier to meet the Beaumarchais' at the good restaurant there. Unfortunately the weather had changed into cold, freezing mist and the Beaumarchais' had a dreadful fog-bound drive from Paris. They came back to Brussels with us and the four of us dined alone, rue de Praetère.

SUNDAY, 12 NOVEMBER.
Brussels.

Took the Beaumarchais' to Groenendaal for a pre-lunch walk, again in spectacular weather, very cold now, but with perfect sunshine again and the leaves at their very best. This first fortnight in November the leaves have been better than I ever remember them on this side of the Atlantic.

MONDAY, 13 NOVEMBER.
Brussels, Basle and Berne.

Early train to Basle for lunch with the Central Bank governors and then my Swiss official visit. The train collapsed between Luxembourg
and Metz, and we had to get into another extremely cold one before chugging into Basle at 2.35 instead of 1.00. The governors were just finishing lunch but they waited while I ate hurriedly and I had a good discussion with them until about 4.20. Zijlstra,
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the Dutchman in the chair, was very good I thought. Gordon Richardson helpful, as one would expect him to be. Clappier said not a word, a rather useless and ineffective performance for Giscard's vicar at a rather crucial EMS discussion. The sceptics (predictably) were Baffi
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and Emminger. The Americans, Volcker
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and one other, were quite helpful. It was worthwhile and not as technically formidable as I feared it might be.

In the afternoon, a beautiful day again in Basle, I went to the Drei Könige Hotel before my lecture at the university at 6.15. This went surprisingly well, although it was not a brilliant lecture, but the large audience received it friendlily. Then a long reception, and then dinner at the Schützenhaus which was where we had lunched. There were brief speeches after dinner, mine willingly given as it was in response to the presentation to me of a spectacular little book—a 1520 edition of the Latin epigrams of Sir Thomas More with a Victorian binding.

We then drove to Berne, where we were installed in the excellent Bellevue Palais Hotel. Grand Swiss hotels of the first third of this century have a remarkable quality. They are built with the solidity of the Drake in Chicago and furnished with the elegance of the Paris Ritz.

TUESDAY, 14 NOVEMBER.
Berne and Strasbourg.

An early meeting with Fritz Honegger (effectively Economic Minister) and various members of his staff, including Central Bank people. A quite intense discussion, they showing considerable interest in the EMS and a desire to enter in the future,
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though not to rush it, partly because they suspected, probably rightly, that the
French might veto them as they had once vetoed their entry into the Snake.

Then a joint meeting with the President, Ritschard, and the Foreign Minister. The presidency rotates on I think a two-year basis amongst the Federal Councillors, and Ritschard continues to discharge his normal responsibilities, which in his case are fairly mundane ones, public works, etc. However, he is a rather impressive man. I had quite an interesting discussion with them both. It is extraordinary how they manage linguistically: the President talked in German and was interpreted, the Foreign Minister talked in French and was not. I talked in a mixture of English and French, which the President understood, and indeed he understood some English too, but not completely. Most of the other meetings, however, were satisfactorily conducted in English.

Two other less pointful meetings and then a lunch given by the President in a seventeenth-century house with a good view. We had drinks on the terrace–it would indeed have been warm enough to have lunched outside in full sunshine; quite extraordinary for 14 November. I much liked all those I spoke to and indeed found Switzerland surprisingly agreeable, and Berne a particularly attractive town. I had never been there before. Then a press conference, a drive to Basle and a train to Strasbourg.

THURSDAY, 16 NOVEMBER.
Strasbourg and Brussels.

The weather seems to have broken at last (after six weeks) and I sat and worked in the hotel on a rainy morning until 12.30. Then I took Donald Bruce to lunch. He has a staccato mind, works hard, but there is some curious deficiency. However, he is an effective member of the European Parliament, and having been anti-European says he is now anxious to cooperate. I did an hour's quite enjoyable question session in the Parliament, and then took an avion taxi back to Brussels, where I arrived in time (i) to go home, (ii) to see the Lancashire Mayors who had come over about textile problems and who were extremely protectionist (but who would not be in their position?), and (iii) to have a 7 o'clock meeting with the new President of Kenya, arap Moi, and then give him dinner. He was more agreeable than interesting. The more memorable man in his team was the very flashily dressed Attorney-General, Njonja,
whom I remembered from my visit to Nairobi five years before, who tries to be a sort of black Elwyn-Jones–indeed he had been a pupil of his–though a good deal more flashy.

FRIDAY, 17 NOVEMBER.
Brussels and East Hendred.

An hour with Dirk Spierenburg, former Dutch diplomat, ex-member of the Coal and Steel Commission, an experienced, urbane, firm figure, whom I have got to be chairman of the external review body for the Commission. 12.30 plane to London. East Hendred at 5.30, where we had the Simonets coming for the weekend. Despite the great efforts of Peter Halsey (my driver) to show them how VIP treatment should really be done at airports, with the hope this might encourage Henri to make Zaventem better, they did not arrive until 9 o'clock.

SATURDAY, 18 NOVEMBER.
East Hendred.

Took the Simonets into Oxford for a brief tour, including a visit to the lantern at the top of the Sheldonian. Henri bought a lot of books at Blackwell's, which made us late for lunch at Sevenhampton with Ann (Fleming) who had the Bonham Carters, Derek Hill, whom Ann wants to paint my portrait but who is very expensive, and Stuart Hampshire who arrived even later than we did. We returned on a dismal afternoon by way of Buscot. I had to work before dinner and could not get Henri to settle. As he is Foreign Minister, why does he not have a lot of despatch boxes from the Belgian Foreign Office? Perhaps they don't have them. Enjoyable dinner with them alone.

SUNDAY, 19 NOVEMBER.
East Hendred and Brussels.

Saw the Simonets off at 11.15. The weather had been awful but the brief weekend was otherwise very successful. Gilmours, Wyatts, plus John Harris to a rather hilarious lunch. Woodrow, John Harris and I played croquet in the twilight until Jennifer and I left for the 7 o'clock plane to Brussels.

MONDAY, 20 NOVEMBER.
Brussels.

To the Ecofin Council, mainly listening to Ortoli doing well in a general EMS discussion, which however failed in its main purpose of eliciting what the British were going to do. In the afternoon to the Palais d'Egmont for the great conference with the ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) Foreign Ministers which Genscher has been so keen to organize. I made an opening speech, as did he, and then went back to the Ecofin Council. Val Duchesse dinner for the ASEAN ministers. I sat next to General Carlos Pena Romulo, the Philippine Foreign Minister, aged nearly eighty, one of the San Francisco signatories of the UN Charter, President of the General Assembly in the early 1950s, and the longest serving Foreign Minister in the world after Gromyko. He made a rather good speech after dinner. His oratorical style might be described as early Stevenson, though with a much harder line and without the jokes.

After dinner Genscher insisted on organizing a discussion which I thought was going to be a disaster, but wasn't, mainly because two or three of the ASEAN ministers spoke extremely well. All of them were notably more anti-Russian (though rather pro-Chinese) than were the European Foreign Ministers. So the discussion turned into Genscher and others excusing themselves to these Third World gentlemen for being relatively soft with the Russians because of the problems over Berlin, etc. A curious evening.

TUESDAY, 21 NOVEMBER.
Brussels.

A meeting with Abela, Secretary-General of the Maltese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who is said to be the most sensible of the Maltese. However, he was by normal standards quite remarkably foolish (and tiresome), complaining about everything, at once aggressive and boring, so that eventually I said to him, ‘Do you think that Malta gets a worse deal from the Community than do other countries?' He predictably answered, ‘Yes.' So I then said, ‘Well, why don't you change your tactics, which are well known to be the most objectionable in Europe, since you think they do you so little good?' No coherent reply emerged.

FRIDAY, 24 NOVEMBER.
Brussels.

Spierenburg for another talk about the various members for his review body. I sold him Victor Rothschild and accepted one or two of his. Then, I had a meeting with the Gambian President followed by a Berlaymont lunch for him. It was not a particularly interesting or purposeful occasion, but no doubt necessary.

SUNDAY, 26 NOVEMBER.
Brussels and Paris.

Drove on a cold misty day, it having quickly reverted to the high pressure freezing weather, to a village about twenty miles beyond Huy in the near Ardennes where the Jonquières have Fernand Spaak's country house temporarily at their disposal. They had a large luncheon party for Roderic Braithwaite, a departing British diplomat.

5.17 TEE with Crispin to Paris, and installed ourselves in the Embassy. It was a beautiful clear cold night.

MONDAY, 27 NOVEMBER.
Paris and Brussels.

A talk with van Lennep
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at OECD, and then to the Elysée for a meeting with Giscard. This followed the normal pattern: a guard of honour in the courtyard, a fairly punctual ushering in, though not as absolutely so as usual, and an hour's discussion. François-Poncet, whom everybody knew was about to be appointed Foreign Minister, was still present and still ‘avec la tête dans ses blocnotes', but was supplemented on this occasion by Wahl, the new Secretary-General of the Elysée, so that we were five altogether, with Crispin on my side.

The conversation was perfectly friendly, though, as is always the case with Giscard, without warmth. Not a great deal about the EMS. He said it was all satisfactorily fixed: he didn't think the British would come in, but maybe from their point of view they were wise. This was done rather dismissively (indeed he was rather lofty throughout) and was in contrast with the Embassy impression that the Callaghan visit had been a great success. So in a sense it had
been, but mainly because Giscard didn't want to argue with Callaghan and was perfectly willing for him to stay out. Giscard's clear assumption that the System would come into operation on 1 January. He assumed too that the Italians would come in, although the wider margins for them were a mistake, but if they wanted it, so be it. And so far as assistance to them and the Irish was concerned, he thought that subsidized loans through the European Investment Bank should be the main mechanism. I ought probably to have contested this elliptical dismissal of the Regional Fund, but I wasn't too anxious to get into a detailed argument with him about this and other budgetary questions, and, perhaps mistakenly, I rather let that go.

We had a certain amount of conversation, but obviously not very deep, about agriculture, about fisheries, and about MTNs, on which he appeared to be taking a rather milder line than Deniau and not objecting to any particular timetable, but merely saying the quality of the package was what mattered. Then we talked about his ‘Three Wise Men', in which he was forthcoming about names, saying that for a Frenchman he had in mind Marjolin, about which I knew, of course, or, as a second choice, Soutou, retiring General Secretary of the Quai d'Orsay, which I did not know. He also mentioned Brinkhorst
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(he wasn't quite sure of his name but we got to him by a roundabout route) as a possible Dutchman, leaving the third slot probably for an Englishman, as to whose identity he expressed no particular preferences.

We also discussed my ‘Five Wise Men' for the external inquiry, in which he showed some interest, but was firmly against Spieren-burg's first choice (and therefore at that stage mine also), of Fontanet, French ex-minister, on the ground that he had received so many recent setbacks, electoral and otherwise, that he was a used-up man. On the other hand he was firmly for Delouvrier,
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the second man on Spierenburg's and my list, currently head of Electricité de France. So, having put the issue to him, whether wisely or not, I clearly have to go for Delouvrier.