European Diary, 1977-1981 Part 5

To the house of the American Amba.s.sador to the Community, Deane Hinton, deep set in rhododendrons, for lunch with General Haig,149 Nixon's old White House aide and now Supreme Allied Commander. He turned up in full uniform. He was, however, an agreeable and interesting man, maybe, as some people say, rather a politicians' general, but so for that matter was Eisenhower.

Then in the evening I addressed a dinner for the Advisory Council of the Ford Motor Company-a rather grand body presided over by Henry Ford himself and containing about ten of their world managers but also a lot of notable outside figures, like Edwin Plowden,150 Karl Schiller151 of Germany, whom I had hardly seen since the Bonn monetary conference of 1968, and Guido Carli152 of Italy. I rather liked Henry Ford, and did not find the whole dinner nearly as much of a ch.o.r.e as I had expected.

WEDNESDAY, 22 JUNE. Brussels.

Our dinner for Sir Seretse and indeed Lady Khama at Val d.u.c.h.esse, with a more or less adequate complement of about 25 per cent women. I found Ruth Khama thoroughly agreeable, although a curiously uncoordinated mixture of south London secretary and Botswana d.u.c.h.ess, rather reminiscent of old Mrs Philips Price,153 who was a still more uncoordinated mixture of Berlin proletarian (Philips Price did indeed literally pick her up in the gutter after she had been clubbed in a 1919 Rosa Luxemburg/Spartacist riot) and Gloucesters.h.i.+re chatelaine. I made a brief speech, Seretse a rather longer one. He is a man of interest and distinction, though seems fairly ill.

THURSDAY, 23 JUNE. Brussels.

Our six-monthly dinner for COREPER to mark the change of presidency, which I had decided against all precedent to give, not at Val d.u.c.h.esse because we were so fed up with it, but in a restaurant, the Barbizon, in the splendidly named suburb of Jezus-Eik. By some miraculous chance the weather changed and the sun came out for the first time for weeks in Brussels. Speeches from me, Donald Maitland as the retiring President of COREPER, and Van der Meulen,154 the incoming President, the last partly in English, partly in French, partly in Dutch, and embellished by two Latin quotations.

TUESDAY, 28 JUNE. Brussels, Keele and London.

Breakfast with Tindemans in the rue Ducale, finding him rather depressed about the collapse of his efforts to solve the JET problem. He had telephoned Schmidt and found him in a very disagreeable, hard, anti-British mood, saying that it was no good at all Tindemans coming to see him. However, it was quite useful intelligence before the London European Council to know Schmidt's state of mind.

Short Commission meeting at 9.45, then by plane to Birmingham and through pouring rain to lunch at Keele University with Princess Margaret before the degree ceremony. She was in quite a good temper considering she had just got her feet wet planting a tree. Professor Paul Rollo delivered a very warm encomium of me in his honorary degree presentation speech.

WEDNESDAY, 29 JUNE. London.

The first day of the two-day London European Council meeting. Downing Street luncheon. Most people had arrived when I got there and were a.s.sembled in the garden, Schmidt looking in a heavily black and gloomy mood. The luncheon conversation was fairly desultory to begin with; I sat between Cosgrave and Andreotti. Cosgrave was particularly agreeable and I am sorry that he is going. Towards the end of lunch when we began to get on to some more general discussion, Giscard, supported by several others, said that he thought it would be useful to go on in this way for some time, and we therefore decided to put back the formal meeting in Lancaster House for two hours and adjourned to one of the drawing rooms in Downing Street. During this move I talked to Schmidt for about five minutes, trying to see if there was any 'give' from him so far as JET was concerned, but found him very complaining about the British att.i.tude, particularly in relation to the budgetary contribution, and disinclined to move except as part of some broad overall settlement.

In the general discussion Giscard opened with an account of his talks with Brezhnev, saying broadly that Brezhnev found Carter very difficult to deal with, alleging that his amateurish foreign policy was endangering detente; French sympathy, Giscard said, was much on the Russian side. Schmidt supported this strongly, making it clear that his relations with Carter had gone back to their pre-Summit nadir. Indeed, Schmidt and Giscard supported each other on every point which came up during this European Council. This axis is always very powerful when working smoothly, and can sometimes be advantageous, but on this occasion was the reverse as they were both in a negative mood.

Schmidt and Giscard also worked themselves into a fine old anti-American mood, which Callaghan, supported by me, tried to resist. We then had some discussion about JET without getting anywhere much, though with various people, notably den Uyl, suggesting that the Commission ought to produce a solution for the next meeting and Schmidt suggesting openly the possibility of a package arrangement. Callaghan was definitely in a corner, both on this and on direct elections, but handling himself well, as he often does in such circ.u.mstances.

At 5.00 we moved to Lancaster House and a more formal meeting. There we began with our Commission loans proposal,155 which I introduced briefly and not very well and then handed over to Ortoli. The discussion on this and some other matters went on until about 7 o'clock with a general tour de table, most people speaking and supporting us, including, surprisingly strongly, Callaghan, as did Jorgensen, Cosgrave and den Uyl. But Schmidt and Giscard were both depressingly negative. Schmidt's view was to be expected but we were not quite prepared for Giscard's wet blanket, particularly as he argued rather more powerfully than did Schmidt.

Another Buckingham Palace dinner at 8.15. The Queen, to whom as usual these days I found myself speaking French, this time because of the presence of Guiringaud, was in a much better mood than Schmidt or Giscard. After dinner we went on to the balcony to watch Beating the Retreat, which seemed rather an appropriate ceremony in view of the general mood in the Council, but was very well done and worth watching. Afterwards I raised with Martin Charteris the possibility of the Queen paying a visit to the Commission in Brussels, to which he was very favourable but said it would have to depend upon advice from the British Government. We agreed that I should say to the Government that I had discussed it informally with the Palace who were sympathetically inclined.

THURSDAY, 30 JUNE. London.

A morning session for two and a half hours which was not much better than the day before, except that, after Andreotti and Tindemans had spoken favourably on the loans proposals, I made a reply which was more effective than my opening the previous evening and ended the discussion in a reasonably up-beat way. However this relative optimism did not allow for the impact of what would emerge from Schmidt's press conference afterwards. There was then a long discussion about the communique, with Giscard making a strong attempt, surprisingly not opposed by Schmidt, to get in a protectionist note. Callaghan and I then did a press conference, which he handled much better than I did.

FRIDAY, 1 JULY. London, Glasgow and East Hendred.

10.10 shuttle to Glasgow for the Collins factory opening at Bis...o...b..iggs and for my long-prepared anti-Benn156 speech. I was feeling rather gloomy on the way up to Glasgow, mainly as a result of the generally depressing atmosphere of the European Council, but rather improved on arriving there. It was a grey day but the views, as is often the case in the Clyde valley, were nonetheless quite wide under a sort of tent of cloud. The factory was impressive both in lay-out and its atmosphere of apparent efficiency. The lunch was in a marquee for about four hundred people, including staff, Collins authors, local notabilities, etc., and the speech, which had been widely put out beforehand and was as a result well-publicized, was well received by at least 90 per cent of the audience. After lunch I went into Glasgow and did a Scottish Television interview and showed the city to two members of my cabinet. East Hendred for dinner.

MONDAY, 4 JULY. East Hendred and Brussels.

Plane to Brussels. With Crispin to lunch with the Rumanian Amba.s.sador who, without notice, produced his Minister of Foreign Trade, who wished to turn things into a very serious discussion about our trade negotiations with them which are due at the end of the month, and said what great importance he and President Ceausescu attached to these as a test of our relations. I decided to play it rather hard and said that we had indeed recognized for a long time that the Rumanians had a rather special pro-Community position amongst the East European countries, and were therefore the more amazed to know that they had been in the lead at Belgrade in trying to exclude Community representation (from the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) and that whereas we would of course conduct commercial negotiations on a commercial basis at the end of July in any event, if they wanted any oil of goodwill they had better have another look at this policy. They seemed rather taken aback by this but I hope and believe it did no harm.

A very late dinner in the garden of the Chalet de la Foret. The disadvantage of these immensely light (double summer-time) Brussels evenings, with almost full sunlight at 10.00, is that it is easy to slip into Spanish hours, as indeed we did on this occasion, dining from about 10.15 until 12.45.

TUESDAY, 5 JULY. Brussels and Luxembourg.

Avion taxi to Luxembourg at 11.00. Meeting of four Commissioners on MTNs. This was the first meeting at which Roy Den-man,157 as the new British Director-General of DG1, had appeared, and a very good performance he put up. Lunch with Colombo, the President of the Parliament. Dinner for the Christian Democratic Group, a very agreeable lot of people, apart from Scelba, who must have been better in 1947.158 WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY. Luxembourg and Brussels.

The fifth day of cloudless skies, good for the wide Luxembourg views. Into the Chamber to listen to Simonet's report on the London European Council, and then made my own; it went better than I had feared. In the early evening Simonet and I each wound up for about ten minutes. Simonet, who had been answering Council questions in the morning, and doing it extremely well, is not quite as good as a speaker. However, he is a most agreeable man to get on with and it is a pleasure, so far at any rate, to have the Belgians in the presidency of the Council.

MONDAY, 11 JULY. Brussels.

A noon meeting with Bob Strauss, the American Special Trade Representative. Since I had seen him in Was.h.i.+ngton he did not seem to have learnt a great deal more about the details of MTNs, but this did not impair his strategic determination. He wanted to push ahead and, indeed, laid down a timetable for work in the autumn which seemed to us reasonable and to which we wanted to give a positive response.

In the afternoon I saw Peter Jay who was on a Brussels briefing visit. He was anxious to be friendly, and made rather a good impression on me, but we soon got locked into a reasonably good-tempered argument about economic and monetary union.

TUESDAY, 12 JULY. Brussels, Luxembourg and Brussels.

Plane to Luxembourg, accompanied by Davignon, for my address to the Coal and Steel Community Consultative Council under the chairmans.h.i.+p of Joe Gormley.159 A beautiful morning (although nonetheless the usual b.u.mping over Bastogne) with Luxembourg under baking heat which rather suited it. Back to Brussels for the lunch for the Political Cooperation meeting of Foreign Ministers in the Palais d'Egmont. The protocol arrangements are notably better with the Belgian than the British presidency; no question of being anywhere but firmly on Simonet's right. In the afternoon a long and extremely hot meeting of the Political Affairs Committee of the European Parliament. Dinner early with Hayden and Ann Phillips at the Chalet de la Foret, where we sat outside until 10.15 when the great heat came to an end in a most violent storm.

WEDNESDAY, 13 JULY. Brussels.

Historic Houses luncheon rue de Praetere with Edward Montagu,160 George Howard,161 the Prince de Ligne and Lord O'Hagan,162 but ironically without Jennifer. Caroline and her daughter Jane Gilmour to stay. Took them for a drive round Waterloo and part of the centre of Brussels.

SAt.u.r.dAY, 16 JULY. Brussels.

Nicko and Mary Henderson arrived from Paris, complete with Rolls-Royce, at about 5.00.1 drove them (plus Gilmours) on a great Brussels tour and then back for a somewhat ingrowing dinner party, in other words no non-English. Nicko was seized by a great desire about 11.30 to go on some huge fairground wheel which he had seen on our expedition during the afternoon. However, he retracted from this as he became sleepier.

SUNDAY, 17 JULY. Brussels.

The others went off to Ghent at about 11.00 in the Rolls, leaving Nicko and me to follow. Nicko said he had some work to do, but in fact spent the morning reading H. Nicolson's Some People, for about the seventh time I would guess. He and I left at noon and, partly because we were deep in conversation, got lost and went round and round Brussels. We had planned to have a picnic but Jennifer and I both became rather despairing about a site. The essential difficulty with Belgium is that either you go south for countryside or you go north for towns, and if you go north for towns there is no countryside except cabbage patches between bungalows, gasometers and chemical works in which to picnic. So we had a drink in a cafe on the Quai des Herbes with a pretty view and then decided the only thing to do was to stay and picnic there, even though it did not look at all the sort of cafe which would welcome one's own food. However, by sending Nicko to negotiate with the management and getting the Rolls-Royce to bring up the picnic basket we managed to achieve our objective, and had a very satisfactory lunch there until the Hendersons left for Paris.

THURSDAY, 21 JULY. Brussels, Birmingham and London.

To Birmingham for an Aston University honorary degree ceremony. Then train to Euston and to Downing Street under motorcycle escort by precisely 7.30 for my talk with Callaghan at the beginning of my official visit to London.

He greeted me at the front door and throughout the meeting, which lasted until nearly 9.00, was remarkably agreeable and forthcoming. He even sounded rather pro-Europe. David Owen was unexpectedly present but this on the whole helped. We discussed JET for a long time, in which he was encouraged, perhaps overencouraged, by what I had to say; and Article 131163 for a considerable time too, on which he was not totally rigid; and a range of other issues. It was certainly by far the most agreeable talk I had had with him, not merely since I had left the Government, but since he had become Prime Minister. At some stages he was sufficiently forthcoming that I began to think he must have had some news which I had not heard, saying that all North Sea oil was turning out to be salt water, and that they needed the Community more than I thought!

FRIDAY, 22 JULY. London and East Hendred.

To see Mrs Thatcher in her new and rather lavish accommodation in the House of Commons, which was the Serjeant at Arms's old suite and which is incomparably better than anything any leader of the Opposition has had before. It was the first time I had been in the Palace of Westminster since leaving, but the return occasioned little in the way of upsetting twitches upon the thread. Mrs Thatcher I found agreeable, and more pro-European than when I last talked to her, although she reverted a bit towards the end of the conversation to a few routine and tedious complaints. But the success of her recent European speech in Rome had obviously, as I had rather expected, helped to commit her to the cause and she was definitely forthcoming. However, the conversation with her about the legislation for direct elections, as with everybody else, was like ten angels dancing on a pin, or whatever the phrase is. The more people you talk to, the more you go round and round as to how the guillotine will or will not work, will it come after Clause 1 or after Clause 3. It was all rather reminiscent of Chesterton's 'Chuck it, Smith': Where the Breton boat-fleet tosses,

Do they, fasting, trembling, bleeding,

Wait the news from this our city?

Groaning, 'That's the Second Reading!',

Hissing, 'There is still Committee!'

John Davies164 joined us about half-way through and was surprisingly good and robust. I think I have undoubtedly underjudged him. He seems a very effective man at the present time. This does not mean that I wish he had come to Brussels as a Commissioner, because I do not think he is quite right for that, but by any standard he is a first-cla.s.s man with a good, wide-ranging mind, and treats Mrs Thatcher very firmly.

Then to the Secretary of State's room in the Foreign Office. Again, it was the first time I had been in that room for some time, almost since I frequently called on George Brown there nearly ten years ago. The room despite the splendour of its outlook is in a curious way slightly tatty and there is a good deal of rather second-rate c. 1910 furniture. Curzon ought to have complained about more than his ink-stand.

It was not a good meeting, not disagreeable but desultory, partly due to the fact that David Owen began by asking me to read the overnight telegrams from Bonn, which showed that JET, to which I am getting rather emotionally attached, has taken a considerable setback, but also because he conducted it in a rather desultory way, and Michael Palliser,165 in contrast with what I think would have been the position a year ago, was less firm or able to pull the meeting together. I wasn't on particularly striking form either.

I left the Foreign Office at about 12 o'clock and drove to Buckingham Palace to see the Queen alone for half an hour. She was friendly and forthcoming in spite of the protocol which makes it a much more formal occasion than in any other royal house in Europe. Her Europeanism did not extend to an uncritical acceptance of the major European leaders. She got Giscard right, but underestimated Schmidt, perhaps too influenced by his having stubbed out his cigarettes all over the Buckingham Palace plates. Nonetheless her European commitment seemed very strong and when I broached the question of her paying a visit to the Commission she was positively enthusiastic, and said that something in the New Year ought to be possible.

Then a Carlton Gardens lunch for about thirty people which David Owen gave for me. I sat between him and Geoffrey Rippon166 and had rather a good talk with David, although he was extremely unconvincing on why he had removed Peter Ramsbotham167 from Was.h.i.+ngton. He had previously implied that there was something terrible which Ramsbotham had done, which he would tell me about some day, but all this appeared to amount to was that he had discovered that Ramsbotham was not taken tremendously seriously by Callaghan, which left me with a slight sense of bathos. Otherwise, he was very agreeable and forthcoming and made a nice attractive speech-saying with remarkable frankness that he had been much in favour of my going to Europe, which, as he was clearly the greatest beneficiary from it, he might have been slightly reticent about at this stage. I made an unprepared reply.

After lunch to the Board of Trade for a slightly heavy conversation with Edmund Dell,168 a good, worthy but not sparkling man, who was flanked by my old friend Leo Pliatzky.169 It was mainly about Multinational Trade Negotiations, not perhaps a very sparkling subject. Then on to the Department of Energy on Millbank to find Master Benn waiting alone, unattended, upon the pavement for me, a very typical and courteous Benn gesture. We then went up to his room. Because I had Crispin with me, he introduced a pudding of a woman whom I had met before, called Ms Frances Morrell,170 who sat morosely throughout the interview, saying nothing and rather weighing upon everybody. However, Benn talked very well, did not spend much time on energy, although we discussed one or two subjects in this field, one of which, a relatively minor one, I gather he has since cleared in response to my request. But his main interest was in trying to raise some general hares and ask my views about the future of the Community (probably to take it down in evidence against me), which I gave him along economic and monetary union lines.

From there-with Benn, again with his great energy, coming down on his own and seeing me off from the pavement into my car (perfectly agreeable yet a constant sense that everything is calculated, no effort is too much, but the eye is never taken away from the ball of the main political purpose)-to the Charing Cross Hotel for a press conference. From there to East Hendred. It is an unusual experience to be able to pay an official visit to one's own country and to look at familiar scenes, persons and inst.i.tutions from outside.

TUESDAY, 26 JULY. Brussels.

Foreign Affairs Council all day. At the lunch JET was discussed, the vote not having come out very well: Culham had received four votes, Britain, Denmark, Ireland and Belgium; Garching had received two, Germany and Luxembourg. Three had abstained, including two big countries, France, who were abstaining because they had gone slightly cool on the whole project, and Italy and Holland, who were both more capable, if only the British would play their hand well, of being swung pro-Culham. I tried hard and successfully to get Genscher to accept a moral commitment to take a firm positive decision at the next Council.

David Owen, I thought, was being rather obtuse about this and making things more difficult for himself, but then everybody can be obtuse from time to time. Back for a rather desultory early afternoon in the Council. Both Brunner and I, I thought, dealt rather badly with Commission representation at INFCEP (International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation Programme), when we should have roughed up Guiringaud, who was talking absolute nonsense, much more than we did. Maybe it is not a good idea to have great rows at the end of the summer when everyone is tired. However, I went home slightly discontented and displeased with myself, as is so often the case after the Council of Ministers.

WEDNESDAY, 27 JULY. Brussels and London.

Awoke on a dark July morning typical of nearly the whole of this summer: at 8 o'clock I had to have the light on. The last Commission meeting before the holidays. Oreja,171 the Spanish Foreign Minister, to lunch, preparatory to the official presentation of their application the following day. A small, bright, highly intelligent youngish career diplomat. I very much enjoyed seeing him and, indeed, the whole of his party, who struck me as very good indeed.

At 4.45 I adjourned the Commission with a few brief words, wis.h.i.+ng people good holidays, to which Ortoli responded with particular warmth (he is a very nice man) saying how well I had run the Commission. There was then, to my surprise, a round of applause around the table, so perhaps the six months haven't been as bad as they have sometimes seemed. Rather encouraged by this, I had the cabinet for a gla.s.s of champagne at 5.30 and caught the 6.25 plane to London.

Ann Fleming gave a restaurant dinner party with Bonham Carters, Jo Grimond,172 David Carritt,173 Garrett Drogheda,174 Evangeline Bruce and Diana Phipps.175 And then on to the Beaumarchais' for a remarkable farewell party of nearly three hundred. It was very carefully chosen, and there is I think no English couple who could have brought together such a collection of people from so many strands of English life. At about 12.30, Jennifer and I walked home. Rather the end of an epoch, having known that emba.s.sy so well for so long, to some extent under the Chauvels, then very well under the Courcels, and even better under the Beaumarchais'. I doubt if we will ever go there much in the future, and the sense of the end of an epoch was greatly accentuated by walking back to Ladbroke Square to spend almost our last night there.

THURSDAY, 28 JULY. London.

Threw away a lot of old clothes. I dislike both the decision of throwing things away and the sense of dismantling one's past life. Lunch in Albany with the Walston group.176 About a dozen people turned up, including to my surprise David Owen. Having been told the night before by Bill Rodgers that David had circulated a Cabinet paper arguing in favour of an extremely loose, confederal, nondynamic, semi-free trade area EEC, I had decided rather deliberately to refute this, but was not expecting to do it in his presence. However, it was better that he was there, and we had a perfectly good-tempered argument. Bill strongly joined in on my side. Some of the others were rather mixed in their views. John Harris,177 coming in late, was struck by the extent to which, on arrival, David looked defensive, with his eyes on the ground. I was not aware of this. However, it was good of him to have come.

Back to Ladbroke Square and saw Edward off in his one smart suit and bands, carrying his gown, about to pick up his wig, to be called to the Bar. Edward going off in this way heightened the sense of the end of a long chapter, as the first time I remember being in Ladbroke Square, particularly alone in the afternoon, was when he was being born twenty-three years ago and we had just moved in and Jennifer was in hospital.

FRIDAY, 29 JULY. London and East Hendred.

Finally left Ladbroke Square at 10.00, and drove to East Hendred. To Crowmarsh Gifford to a seventy-third birthday party of dear old Selwyn Lloyd's.178 He told me on the way out that he was going to write about Suez, to which I said that my Secretary-General, Emile Noel, probably knew as much about it as anyone else, having been Mollet's Chef de Cabinet, to which Selwyn agreed that Noel probably knew more than he did as there were certain things about collusion which were known, he thought, to Mollet and Eden but were kept from him.

SUNDAY, 31 JULY. East Hendred.

Wrigglesworths to lunch. Ian Wrigglesworth179 is a remarkable young man, with great sense and energy and buoyancy. I was extremely lucky to have him as my PPS.

TUESDAY, 2 AUGUST. East Hendred.

The cabinet plus one or two others arrived at about 11.00 for a day's strategy meeting. We were in the garden, and after three-quarters of an hour Renato Ruggiero began to complain about the heat. He was sitting in full sunlight which Italians quite rightly cannot stand. So we had to have a short adjournment to move up into the shade. Otherwise I feared that Renato's Neapolitan blood would soon liquefy. Apart from or perhaps in addition to this, Renato put up a very impressive performance, indeed nearly everybody did rather well and we had a very useful morning's discussion on relations with the different member governments and how this affected our att.i.tude to monetary union and enlargement in particular. In the afternoon we talked mainly about agricultural policy, the Mediterranean, and monetary union again. Graham Avery was extremely good on agriculture. Michael Emerson opened crucially on monetary union.

I did a general summing-up, of which the main import was that as the harsh reality was that none of the three main governments, France, Germany or Britain, was prepared to support a major Commission initiative, we, combined with trying to get certain urgent, practical things through, had to be prepared to go against them and to blaze a trail to a greater extent than we had done previously, however much this offended people, and that the obvious direction for this was towards monetary union.

THURSDAY, 4 AUGUST. East Hendred.

Another perfect day; up early and had an eight-mile walk from 7.30. Too long. Exhaustion set in during the morning. Beaumarchais' to stay for the final visit of their London life. They were in a good and easy mood despite their extreme irritation of the early summer at the abruptness of their removal.180 Their final period had been such a success that this had put them back in a fairly sunny condition.

SUNDAY, 7 AUGUST. East Hendred and Ripe.

Took the Beaumarchais' to near Basingstoke to lunch with Christopher Soames,181 who had two of his children there, Nicholas, a nice, intelligent boy in spite of his size, and Emma; but not Mary. A very good lunch, as one would expect at the Soames', a fine gigot, good wine. There was a mild political row between Jacques and Christopher after lunch, and then Christopher and I went off and talked for a bit in his new library, during which he was remarkably friendly and uncritical about my Brussels regime, considering how tempting it would be for him to take a different att.i.tude. I am not sure that he had much positive advice, except that I ought to go and visit the Berlaymont telephone exchange. Then motored on through Surrey and Suss.e.x to Ripe (Bonham Carters') for the last time, as that house too is being abandoned.

WEDNESDAY, 10 AUGUST. Ripe.

In the afternoon we drove via Cuckmere Haven and Birling Gap to Beachy Head, where we walked to the edge and lay looking out over the cliffs. There was a perfectly calm sea and the towering chalk cliffs made it, although there were too many people about, a rather memorable day. It was the first time that I had spent a summer afternoon looking out from those cliffs towards France since July 1943 when I lay there all day on an army exercise and the French sh.o.r.e seemed more forbidding.

THURSDAY, 11 AUGUST. Ripe, London and East Hendred.

Left just before 3 o'clock, feeling sentimental about leaving Ripe for the last time. However the best corrective for feeling sentimental about Ripe is to drive from it to London, as it is the most appalling route with the most appalling traffic. Went to the new flat for the first time. It is rather splendid and removes part of my regrets about Ladbroke Square. The Rodgers' came to dinner. They were particularly nice; an immense pleasure seeing them. East Hendred at 11.30.

FRIDAY, 19 AUGUST. East Hendred.

Eric and Frieda Roll brought Robert Marjolin182 to lunch. Marjolin sympathetic and interesting as always, depressing about the future of Europe, thought the essential task was to hold what we had achieved. When I pointed out that this was hardly inspiring, he agreed and said, 'Yes, maybe we have to move forward,' but he was sceptical about my ideas on monetary union. Said that he could not vote for Mitterrand, which was rather surprising for a Socialist candidate of the 1960s. He would vote for Mitterrand on his own but not for Mitterrand plus Marchais.183 Therefore he would vote for the 'majority' whether the candidate was Giscard or even Chirac. He might vote for a Lecanuet-like figure. We had quite a good talk after lunch, which was rather mind-clearing from my point of view, about the general European position and Schmidt/Giscard relations. When I said that Schmidt insisted that he had to work closely with Giscard because 'Valery is my only friend', Marjolin said, 'Well, he must be a very lonely man indeed if Valery is his only friend, because Valery is n.o.body's friend but his own.' It was a day of indescribable awfulness: almost continuous rain, low cloud, very dark, very cold.

MONDAY, 22 AUGUST. East Hendred and Lucca.

Flew to Pisa at 8.00, arriving, as quite often, in extremely disagreeable weather. Drove to the Gilmours' house, La Pianella, up its dreadful drive from Torcigliano, eight miles north-west of Lucca. The weather had apparently been pretty filthy for at least five days past though having, as is so often the case, been good during the first part of August. The Italian weather always breaks at Feragosto: sometimes it comes back quickly and sometimes it doesn't, but this is such a reliable rule that one is lunatic not to take notice of it.

TUESDAY, 30 AUGUST. Lucca and Portofino.

To the Berlins' near Portofino. Despite the rain, the Gilmour visit was enjoyable, and we had at least had three (out of eight) good days of weather, which was a higher proportion than most people in England or Italy had had during the previous fortnight. I had written the introduction to the English edition of Monnet's memoirs, read in proof Ian's new book, as well as the new volume of Virginia Woolf's diaries, a life of E. M. Forster, and finished a Simenon.

Arrived at Parragi, a mile or so short of Portofino, where we met the Berlins and the Donaldsons at the bottom of their great hill. During lunch, to our amazement, there came a real clearance, blue sky and full suns.h.i.+ne. A beautiful evening and this bit of coast, with the Berlins' villa perched 500 steps above the little bay, still more attractive than I had remembered it six years before. There is one great advantage to the old Riviera, whether French or Italian, but particularly Italian: if one has to be in a fairly built-up area, as is now almost inevitable in the western Mediterranean, it is much better that it should have been built up sixty, seventy or a hundred years ago, because it was then done with much less violence to the landscape, much more s.p.a.ciously, much better set in the trees, much better building indeed, than where the development has just been done.

MONDAY, 5 SEPTEMBER. East Hendred and Brussels.

To Brussels via Antwerp, as the interminable semi-strike seemed to have disorganized the direct service. It was by no means wholly disagreeable being back, particularly as the weather in Belgium, in contrast with that on most of our holiday, seemed rather good. The holiday has been too long; forty days in a row, although in itself agreeable, is not the right balance. It is so long away that after the half-way mark there is a greater feeling of apprehension about the return than of enjoyment of the actuality. It would be better to have only four weeks without Commission meetings, as indeed I told them at the first meeting, with two other weeks of break.

TUESDAY, 6 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

During the morning I saw Signora Allende, widow of the a.s.sa.s.sinated Chilean leader, of whom I did not think much. She had actually played no part in politics while her husband was alive and is a rather stupid and slightly hysterical woman, who has become very much a professional political widow. There was a faint touch of Jennie Lee,184 but I don't think she has ever done anything nearly as effective as Jennie Lee did for the arts.

THURSDAY, 8 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

Simonet to lunch. He, as usual, was on good and buoyant form though, less usually, was neither eating nor drinking much. He was gloomy about being able to settle JET because of the obsession of the German Government with its kidnapping problems and his consequent inability to see Schmidt, as well as the failure of the bilateral visit of Callaghan to Schmidt to take place. Full of some good plans for the autumn including, which is of interest and value to us, a seriously focused discussion about the longer-term economic position, which would give me a chance to try and deploy my monetary union ideas at the European Council on 5/6 December.

I asked Simonet why the so-called 'Rubens Summit', which had been proposed by Giscard in London and set up for Wednesday, 21 September, in Antwerp, had been unexpectedly cancelled. He said because Giscard had gone completely cold on it and when he had gone to see him in Paris had claimed not to be able to remember having heard of it, still less having suggested it. 'Ah, yes,' he said, 'an interesting idea, but what purpose would it serve?' Giscard had obviously been very much on this lofty form throughout Simonet's visit. On Giscard's general att.i.tude to him and Belgium, he said: 'He treated me like a farmer, a quite substantial farmer, who had come to pay the rent and should be allowed to have a sort of annual visit with some conversation, and even refreshment, but not lunch, in the course of doing so.'

FRIDAY, 9 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

A serious meeting at 11.45 with Gundelach with whom for more than an hour I went through all our commitments and his agricultural plans for the autumn and winter. He looked greatly revived by the holiday, and the meeting was both useful and agreeable. He I think was a little oppressed at the fact that I had learnt a good deal about the CAP and the details of his portfolio during the summer. Stevy Davignon to lunch, and I expounded to him my plans for the autumn.

George Thomson came to dine and stay the night. He is sensible and wise about nearly all the issues and had obviously found, mutatis mutandis, much the same difficulties in Brussels that I have. In particular he said that, having always previously had very good and easy press relations, he found the Brussels press corps an absolute nightmare. Our only disagreement was that he was cautious and sceptical about the wisdom of my determination to relaunch monetary union.

TUESDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER. Brussels and Luxembourg.