European Diary, 1977-1981 Read Free

on behalf of Helmut Schmidt, the German Chancellor, as well as of himself, to become President of the Commission. I tried to preserve my room for manoeuvre by saying elliptically that there was an election I had to get out of the way first. At first he thought I was telling him of an imminent British general election, but when I steered him away from this he did not press either for clarity or for an immediate decision. One advantage of Harold Wilson’s apparent but deceptive dedication to office was that, even with a hint, no one could conceive of his resigning.
    The next day I lunched with Jean Monnet, the founding father of the Community, at Montfort L’Amoury, thirty miles from Paris. He also strongly pressed me to accept the Commission position. Insofar as I was still doubtful, the net could be perceived as closing in oppressively. Insofar as I was increasingly tempted, I was exhilarated by being blessed by the spiritual as well as the temporal authorities of Europe.
    Three weeks after that Harold Wilson resigned and the contest began. Nine days later the result of the first ballot was announced. It was broadly as I had expected, although the gap between James Callaghan and me - 84 to 56 - was worse than I had hoped for. Michael Foot led with 90 votes, but this was not of the first relevance because he could manifestly be overhauled by whoever qualified for a run-off against him. The determining factor was therefore the relative positions of Callaghan and myself. The otherthree candidates–Healey, Benn and Crosland–were all well behind. The last two were compulsorily eliminated, but Healey with 37 votes fought on with characteristic pugnacity for another round, though without improving his position. I could see no point in prolonging the contest into a third (maybe a fourth) slow round. The country needed a new Prime Minister, and from 56 votes it was clearly not going to be me. The barrier between failure and success was not vast. A direct swing of 15 votes from Callaghan to me would have given me the premiership. But it was nevertheless decisive. I withdrew and turned my thoughts, which was not difficult -perhaps too many of them had been there already—to Europe.
    There were two hiccups. I had decided following the Giscard meeting that my order of preference was clear. First was to be Prime Minister, provided I did not have to do too much stooping to conquer. Second was to become President of the Commission. Third, but not all that far behind, was to become Foreign Secretary. And a bad fourth was to remain where I was. In drawing up this list I think that I had rather complacently assumed that James Callaghan, both on grounds of seniority and out of gratitude for the early release to him of my 56 votes, would be happy to offer me the Foreign Office.
    I was wrong, as clearly emerged when I saw him on 6 April. He was evasive at the time, but his memoirs 1 put his position with convincing frankness: ‘The post of Foreign Secretary had to be filled and in other times Roy Jenkins would have been a natural successor.... But the wounds had not healed since his resignation as deputy leader during the European Community battles, and as he had been the leading protagonist on one side, every action he would have taken as Foreign Secretary would have been regarded with deep suspicion by the anti-Marketeers on our benches.... In any case there was another suitable candidate, in the person of Tony Crosland.’
    This had the perverse effect of temporarily upsetting my preference between courses two and three. That however was both short-lived and irrelevant, as the new Prime Minister knew his mind on this issue. His alternative offer of a reversion to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer after ‘six months or so’ did nottempt me. It was, to mix the metaphor, the offer of another
réchauffé
helping which remained very much in the bush.
    In late April the bird in the hand also showed some faint