The Downing Street Years (10 page)

Words are always inadequate to condemn this kind of outrage: I decided immediately that I must go to Northern Ireland to show the army, police and civilians that I understood the scale of the tragedy and to demonstrate our determination to resist terrorism. Having returned to London from Chequers, I stayed there on Tuesday to allow those involved to deal with the immediate aftermath while I held two meetings with colleagues to discuss the security requirements
of the province. That evening I wrote personally to the families of the soldiers who had died; such letters are not easy to write. There were, alas, to be many more of them during my time in office.

I flew to Ulster on Wednesday morning. For security reasons, the visit was given no prior publicity. I went first to the Musgrave Park Hospital in Belfast and talked to the injured soldiers, then visited the Lord Mayor of Belfast at City Hall. I had insisted that I must meet the ordinary citizens of the city, and since the best way to do so was to walk through Belfast’s shopping centre, that is where I went next. I shall never forget the reception I received. It is peculiarly moving to receive good wishes from people who are suffering. One never knows quite how to respond. But I formed then an impression I have never had reason to revise, that the people of Ulster will never bow to violence.

After a buffet lunch with soldiers of all ranks from 3 Brigade, I received a briefing from the army and then departed by helicopter to what is rightly referred to as the ‘bandit country’ of South Armagh. Dressed in a camouflage jacket worn by a female soldier of the Ulster Defence Regiment (a ‘Greenfinch’), I saw the bomb-battered Crossmaglen RUC station — the most attacked RUC-Army post in the Province — before running back to the helicopter. It is too dangerous for either security force personnel or helicopters to remain stationary in these parts.

My final visit was to Gough barracks, the RUC base in Armagh, followed by a return flight to the mainland at six that evening. It is difficult to convey the courage of the security forces whose job it is to protect the lives of us all from terrorism. In particular, members of the UDR, who do their military duty living in the community where they and their families are always vulnerable, show a quiet, matter-of-fact heroism which I have never ceased to admire.

Back in London, we continued our urgent discussions on security. There were two major questions. How were we to improve the direction and co-ordination of our security operations in the province? And how were we to get more co-operation in security matters from the Irish Republic? On the first, we decided that the difficulties of coordinating intelligence gathered by the RUC and the army would be best overcome by instituting a new high-level security directorate. On the second, we agreed that I would tackle the Irish Prime Minister, Jack Lynch, when he arrived shortly for Lord Mountbatten’s funeral.

Accordingly, we arranged a day’s talks with Mr Lynch and his ministerial colleagues at No. 10 on the afternoon of Wednesday 5 September. The first session was a tête-à-tête between the two prime
ministers; then at 4 p.m. we were joined by our respective ministers and officials.

Mr Lynch had no positive suggestions of his own to make at all. When I stressed the importance of extradition of terrorists from the Republic, he said that the Irish constitution made it very difficult. Mr Lynch pointed out that under Irish law terrorists could be tried in the Republic for offences committed in the UK. So I asked that RUC officers — who would have to amass the evidence for such prosecutions — be able to attend interrogations of terrorist suspects in the south. He said they would ‘study’ it. I knew what that meant: nothing doing. I asked that we extend the existing arrangements by which our helicopters could overfly the border across which terrorists seemed able to come and go almost at will. He said they would study that as well. I sought more effective liaison both between the RUC and the Garda, and between the British and Irish armies. Same response. At one point I got so exasperated that I asked whether the Irish Government was willing to do anything at all. They agreed to a further meeting between ministers and officials, but there was a fatal absence of the political will to take tough measures. I was disappointed, though not altogether surprised. However, I was determined to keep up the pressure on the Republic. I could not forget that by the time of my visit to Northern Ireland 1,152 civilians and 543 members of the security forces had been killed as a result of terrorist action.

We also lost no opportunity to use the revulsion the killings provoked in the US to inform public opinion there about the realities of life in Ulster. The emotions and loyalties of millions of decent Irish-Americans are manipulated by Irish Republican extremists, who have been able to give a romantic respectability to terrorism that its sordid reality belies. As a result, there has been a continuing flow of funds and arms which helps the IRA to continue its campaign, whereas in 1979 we were faced with the absurd situation that the purchase of 3,000 revolvers for the RUC was held up by a state department review under pressure from the Irish Republican lobby in Congress.

I visited the province again on Christmas Eve. This time I met members of the Northern Ireland prison service as well as the security forces. For the prison officers, too, faced grave danger and worked often in appalling conditions. From March 1978 they had been dealing with the consequences of the so-called ‘dirty protest’
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by over 350 terrorist prisoners, seeking ‘special category status’ and privileges.
Seventeen prison officers had been murdered in the past four years, seven of them in the previous three months. It made the troubles of a political life seem very trivial.

CHAPTER III

I had made a number of political visits abroad before I became Prime Minister, travelling on various occasions to the Soviet Union, the United States, Germany, Israel and Australia. I enjoyed these tours — as long as there was plenty to read, interesting people to meet and we were doing useful work. But it is certainly a very different experience going abroad as Prime Minister, accompanied everywhere by a highly professional team of advisers, on what is usually a hectic schedule, and meeting heads of government on equal terms.

Familiarizing myself with this new role was not made easier by the fact that within weeks of coming into office I had to face the problem of Britain’s excessive contribution to the European Community (EC) budget — something which required tough bargaining from a difficult position, and the use of diplomatic tactics which many people thought less than diplomatic. Nor was our budget contribution the only source of contention within the EC, even in those early days. It became increasingly clear to me that there were real differences of vision about Europe’s future.

Shortly after I took office the first direct elections to the European Parliament were held. (In those days the Parliament was formally known as ‘the European Assembly’, which perhaps gives a more accurate impression of its limited role.) In the course of the campaign I made a speech in which I emphasized my vision of the Community as a force for freedom:

There has, however, always been a contrary tendency in the Community — interventionist, protectionist, and ultimately federalist. The sharpness of the contrast between these two views of Europe would only become fully apparent as the years went by. But it was never far beneath the surface of events and I was always aware of it.

I was also very much aware of another feature of the EC, which had been apparent from its earliest days, continued to shape its development and diminished Britain’s capacity to influence events — namely, the close relationship between France and Germany. Although this relationship may have seemed to depend on personal rapport — between President Giscard and Chancellor Schmidt or President Mitterrand and Chancellor Kohl — the truth is that it was explicable more in terms of history and perceptions of long-term interest. France has long feared the power of Germany and has hoped that by superior Gallic intelligence power can be directed in ways favourable to French interests. Germany, for her part, knows that although she has contributed considerably more to the EC financially and economically than any other state, she has received an enormous return in the form of international respectability and influence. The Franco-German axis would remain a factor to be reckoned with, and I shall have more to say about it later.

My first European Council took place in Strasbourg on 21 and 22 June 1979. France hosted the talks. Strasbourg had been chosen as the venue in acknowledgement of the new importance of the European Parliament (which holds two-thirds of its sessions there) following the elections, in which Conservatives had won 60 of the 78 British seats.

I was confident that Chancellor Schmidt had taken away from our earlier discussions a clear impression of my determination to fight for
large reductions in Britain’s net budget contribution. I was hoping he would pass the message on to President Giscard, who was to chair the summit; both men were former Finance ministers and should be well able to understand Britain’s point of view. (I could not help noticing too that they spoke to one another in English: but I was too tactful to remark on it.)