Part 20 (1/2)

TUESDAY, 24 APRIL Brussels, Frankfurt and Strasbourg

I flew to Frankfurt to speak at a European Election demonstration in the Rathaus there There were about five speeches, including a good one from the Minister President of Hessen We then ot into Strasbourg at 530 I had Fellermaier, the leader of the Socialist Group, and Manfred Michel, the secretary, to dinner Fellermaier, absolutely typically, turned up an hour late, with some less than adequate excuse However, I had a useful period of preliminary conversation with Michel about Socialist Group affairs and likely figures in the new Parlia

Saw Cheysson at 1130, partly to rebuke hiraularly ill-judged

John Ardwick43 to lunch He is a nice and intelligent man who has been very helpful in the European Parliament and it was intended as a thanks on departure Quite what he will do in the future I don't know Interesting gossip about King, Cudlipp, Wilson, Gaitskell, etc He remains a very firm old Gaitskellite in spite of the curiously close personal relationshi+p which he had with Wilson over a large nuendhat to talk about soetary probleetary dispute between Parliament and Council has resolved itself well, the only disadvantage being that our additional applications for staff have got lost down an oubliette, though I don't think there is e

THURSDAY, 26 APRIL Strasbourg, Luxe, the ex-Prime Minister of New Zealand and currently leader of the Opposition, for a slightly inconsequential chat, and then nificent Curiously I had never been there before, though often through it by train The Place Stanislas is one of the suprehts of Europe

After lunch we drove on to Luxe, where I delivered a direct elections speech, with questions, in the television headquarters building before a smallish, but quite notable, audience Acco ood Commissioner, I dined a trois with the Grand Duke in his Palace Very good dinner and engaging tour d'horizon conversation The Grand Duke I found agreeable, relaxed and intelligent Avion taxi back to Brussels at ht

FRIDAY, 27 APRIL Brussels and East Hendred

A long ladesh He was a reasonably aentleman who said that he was very inexperienced in politics, and as also slightly slow and inarticulate, but sensible and seems resolved (ill have to see what exactly happens) on returning the country to de to make a little economic sense

Rue de Praetere luncheon for Calvo Sotelo, with his Ambassador and one other Spaniard, for a discussion of the Spanish position, the forotiations, etc Calvo Sotelo, as always, i plane to London for an unexpected weekend at East Hendred This was because we had decided, four or five days before, to postpone an Egyptian visit as there wasn'twas rather badly set up (thanks largely to their incompetent ambassador in Brussels whose only possible qualification is that he is the brother of the Priyptians, no doubt because they had a lot of other things on their reanize things there

MONDAY, 30 APRIL East Hendred and London

Lunch with the Gilht the Conservatives were probably winning the election, though wasn't overwhelly than when I had seen him before Easter that he was pretty con Office, under Carrington The night they had won the no-confidence vote in the House of Coht drink with Carrington that he would do this, which greatly strengthened Carrington's clain Office, which now seem fairly clearly established The difficulty is that whoever is nun Secretary ought essentially to do that hie of not being head of a departht to have

Sir Michael Palliser for a serious talk at Brooks's froovernht certain, we then discussed how things should be played He thought that Carrington was likely to be Foreign Secretary and would be inally better, because ood and sensible talk with hie about Crispin's future I said very firiven a substantial embassy as soon as he caht have the opportunity to move up fairly quickly to one of the three top jobs by the end of his career, which he was certainly good enough to deserve Palliser has Mexico City in mind for him

TUESDAY, 1 MAY London and Brussels

To the Maudling aret's It was absolutely packed, and a good, rather enerous address, done re by Sandy Glen44 I walked out with David Steel and told hione and that he really had done the best of the three, though I had no idea howhim I had a brief ith Harold Macmillan and with Ted afterwards

Plane to Brussels with Jennifer where we had a rue de Praetere dinner for Senator Ed Muskie,45 wholass Cater's house in Washi+ngton seven and a half years ago when he had been so completely carved up by Dean Acheson, the last occasion on which I saw Acheson We also had Hinton, the Aht with hies, plus his assistant, a very bright Foreign Office lady called Alison Bailes, who had been sitting in the car with Sykes when he had been assassinated in The Hague It was altogether an interesting dinner Muskie was very agreeable and more impressive than when I had seen hi very close to the President Dell seemed friendly and reasonably sensible on his affairs

WEDNESDAY, 2 MAY Brussels

Pressing ently on soht it was to do with Jean-Pierre de Beauht I should see him, and persuaded Jennifer a little reluctantly to have hiJoan Littlewood46 with hiht she ; she turned out to be et me to sponsor some wine (ie Mouton) art exhibition in London

In quick succession at about 730 I had frantic telephone calls froers and shi+rley Willia there was a tre in the City that I was about to come out with a pro-Tory state out with no state the election They seemed relieved (Nor did I vote Jennifer voted Liberal) Dinner, rue de Praetere, with John Harris as staying, Jennifer and Laura John pretty convinced, but by no means absolutely so, that the Tories would win He and I stayed up talking about the future and what I ht not conceivably do in politics

THURSDAY, 3 MAY Brussels

A rue de Praetere luncheon party for the Chinese Ambassador and his wife We also had Thea Elliott as staying with us and was an old China hand, having had one child born in Peking in the late 1950s, plus Denmans, Tickells, and Plaja, the Italian Permanent Representative I was surprised and pleased that the Chinese had come to lunch on their oithout any 'interpreter' The Ans of resentoing terribly well,up a very restrictive view on the textile agree difficult on GSP

A visit from Lathiere, the French head of the Airbus consortiu man, Enarque, Inspecteur de Finance, had been Chef de Cabinet to Jacquet when I was dealing with him on Concorde in 19645, looked like a butcher, talked a lish fluently, and was obviously an extremely effective head of Airbus Then just after 7 o'clock I went to the Brussels Hotel de Ville and made a brief direct elections speech and then wandered around the stalls which had been laid out in the Grand'Place, one for each of the nu in the election But htlyto the results with Jennifer, Laura, Thea and Celia, which began to come in seriously about 1240 Brussels ti waited to hear the Stechford result, but, Bir as incompetently late as ever, had failed to do so It was clear that the Tories were set for a substantial majority which would last a full Parliah on the whole I think a change of government is better for Britain's relations with Europe, but I cannot find pleasure in it Thea I think was the h ere all somewhat torn

FRIDAY, 4 MAY Brussels

In the afternoon I heard the totally unexpected and dreadful news of shi+rley Williams's defeat, and then went home for a sleep before the Beauht telephone conversations with shi+rley and Bill Rodgers

SUNDAY, 6 MAY Brussels

Did soton, one or two other people, including David Oho had got a good result personally, rather surprisingly so To bed very early The post-election weekend definitely exhausting, draining and not very satisfactory

TUESDAY, 8 MAY Brussels and Luxen Affairs Council I had a substantial talk with Francois-Poncet, enda for Mercues, the French 'Schloss Gymnich', and also on so decided to take the nuclear question off the Mercues agenda thinking it was too sensitive in advance of direct elections I agreed to this but said we couldn't leave it for too long Francois-Poncet was reasonable and quick and I was definitely pro him on this occasion

At the end we disposed of Cheysson's telegrans of escalating into a h they knew perfectly well that I had not approved of it However, Poncet agreed that we could now leave it where it was But in the typical French way of getting in a parting shot, he said as alking out that there was great sensitivity about Commission political activity Soed, the French as ree of political content in n Minister)paper on relations with japan, which had contained the famous phrases about 'workaholics', 'rabbit hutches', etc I replied robustly, saying it was a pity it had leaked, but I was far from sure that it had done any harm, I had since received several friendly communications from the japanese Prime Minister, and in any case it was much better that people should write in vivid phrases than in the usual awful Europe bureaucratese I was strongly supported in this line by Dohnanyi and Simonet, both of ere excellent, but nonetheless it took a very long time to persuade the stubborn Christophersen not to raise thethe afternoon

The Council spent all day grinding its boring way through the negotiating brief for the final stages of the Coht to have been done by COREPER, was a clear example, as I told Francois-Poncet, of the way in which the Council downgraded itself and becalorified COREPER, with a consequent bad effect upon the attendance of Foreign Ministers who just sent their undersecretaries who could not take decisions: a classic vicious circle

I then drove to Luxe overdue improvement in the weather, tono afternoon

THURSDAY, 10 MAY Brussels, London and Edinburgh

London for man Brewster, the American Ambassador in London, and I were jointly honoured, and Asa Briggs was installed as the new Chancellor I saw the Wilsons going into the lunch, and Mary, aly, more or less confirmed the story in Harold's notorious interview that she had intended to vote for Mrs Thatcher

Then to Edinburgh in filthy weather for a dinner with the Consultative Committee of the Coal and Steel Community, presided over by Derek Ezra48 and attended by a fair collection of Scottish notabilities, including the new Secretary of State, George Younger49 I spoke without a text for about twenty reat number of centre party noises

SAturdAY, 12 MAY East Hendred and Cahors

To Northolt to get a lift in Peter Carrington's plane to the French 'Schloss Gyave Peter a rundown on the various other Foreign Ministers and encouraged hieneral statement of European commitment The weather improved spectacularly just south of Paris and we landed at Toulouse on theThere was a reception there by prefect, ly) etc, and then into a helicopter accon Ministers for a rather long journey to the Chateau de Mercues When we got there we found a h grade hotel on a cliff overlooking the Lot about seven miles out of Cahors

Three-and-a-half-hour session, mostly outside Peter made his statement of intent or commitment, and made it very well He then went on and more or less told us that they were very loath to keep on Rhodesian sanctions beyond the autumn This was received in a rather reserved way by Genscher, Simonet, van der Klaauw, and to some extent by Forlani But Francois-Poncet, Christophersen and Ha for Thorn, were ot aith it better than he would otherwise have done because everyone was so pleased with his preliminary statement

At dinner there was the usual tour of the world, no ot to ht, fullfor two hours

SUNDAY, 13 MAY Cahors and Brussels

A spectacular earlyincredibly beautiful The south-western French countryside can have a peculiarly benign and s quality

Another alfresco session for two hours Frangois-Poncet raised his coot virtually no support, and in the course of it, rather surprisingly, paid an enormous tribute to the Coiven in solving the (Coet problem

Maurice Faure, Mayor of Cahors and forois-Poncet whom he had introduced into the area, plus the prefect, ca conversation with Faure, Frangois-Poncet and the Simonets about the Kennedys, on which subject they were all curiously ill-informed, and I held forth for sohimself very fast with his chauffeur in the back He drove rather as I do, I suppose, except that he went over all the red traffic lights, vaguely waving to the local population Very long flight back in Siian jet couldn't get in to Cahors, as the British had also been told, but found that his Dutch colleague had a perfectly good jet on the tarois-Poncet This produced a spark of Benelux jealousy

MONDAY, 14 MAY Brussels and Copenhagen

OnI read the Guardian lead story which stated that there were no Coetary cost to Britain in 1980 would be up from 1000m to 1500m, but that I, after consultation with the Co that I had had with Mrs Thatcher the previous week The story was a total fabrication because apart fro else I hadn't seen Mrs Thatcher, it was probably hly defamatory I therefore decided to act extremely heavily, partly to try and stop any repetition froan by saying fir' He sounded absolutely terrified, as though he had been shellshocked, and we then dictated to hie the following

I then left for Copenhagen, first for an hour's ensen, the Prime Minister and a niceand address to the Danish Foreign Policy Society They produced a reood audience, absolutely packed, I should think about 250 people in the Hotel d'Angleterre The audience seelish, and there were soood questions afterwards Dinner in the Parliament with ? B Andersen (now the Speaker)

TUESDAY, 15 MAY Copenhagen, Munich and Brussels

1045 plane to Munich to address the ETUC conference The audience was a great contrast with Copenhagen It was a er room, probably ratherat desks shuffling papers around, the acoustics were rather bad, and I got the i audience However, rather to my surprise, they applauded quite well at the end, and they listened to me at least as well as they listened to any of their own leaders