European Diary, 1977-1981 - Part 38
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Part 38

12 Alas, it turned out to be much worse. Sixteen months later she shot him and then killed herself.

13 Johannes Rau, b. 1931, was subsequently the unsuccessful SPD candidate for the Federal Chancellorship in 1986.

14 Erich Honecker, b. 1912, has been head of state of the German Democratic Republic since 1976.

15 Edward Gierek, b. 1913, lived for almost twenty-five years in France and Belgium before returning to Poland in 1948 and becoming First Secretary of the Communist Party and leader of the regime in 1970. In 1980 he fell from power and was interned for a year from the end of 1981.

16 On which my position, a little harder than when I had talked to van der Klaauw and van Agt on 19 November 1979, just before the Dimbleby Lecture (see page 522 supra). was that I had no intention of staying beyond the four years but that I did not wish, in the interests of my own authority for the first part of the last year, to discourage too brutally the attempts to promote a further term which some governments, notably the Belgian, Dutch and Italian, were kindly making.

17 General Bernard Rogers, b. 1921, was Chief of Staff of the US Army 19769, and Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, 197987.

18 (Prince) Michel Poniatowski, b. 1922, MEP since 1979, was French Minister of the Interior 19747, and a roving amba.s.sador for President Giscard 197781.

19Lord Killanin, b. 1914, was President of the International Olympic Committee 197280.

20 Prince Paul, 18931976, son of Prince a.r.s.en Karageorgevich, was Regent of Yugoslavia 193441.

21 We had both been at a large Briggs luncheon party in Worcester College, Oxford, the day before.

22 This joke became macabre in my memory when she and Sa Carneiro were killed in an air crash outside Lisbon nine months later.

23 John Wilson, b. 1924, succeeded his father, Churchill's doctor, as 2nd Lord Moran in 1977. Amba.s.sador to Hungary 19736, and Portugal 197681, High Commissioner in Canada 19814. His life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had been published in 1973.

24 Tom Ellis, b. 1924, was Labour and then SDP MP for Wrexham 197083, MEP 19759.

25 George Foulkes, b. 1942, worked for the European Movement in Scotland before he became a Labour MP for Ayrshire in 1979.

26 I did not, but he did.

27 Nigel Ryan, b. 1929, was editor of Independent Television News 196977, Vice-President of NBC News (New York) 197780, and Director of Programmes Thames Television 19802.

28 John Gross, b. 1935, was then the editor of the Times Literary Supplement and is now the book critic of the New York Times. Miriam Gross was then the a.s.sistant literary editor of the Observer and is now the arts editor of the Daily Telegraph.

29 Garrison Runciman, b. 1934, sociologist and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, has also been chairman of his family shipping business since 1972.

30 Clive Wilkinson, b. 1935, was Labour leader on the Birmingham City Council 197384.

31 Matthew Oakeshott, b. 1947, had worked for me in opposition and at the Home Office, 19726. SDP candidate for Cambridge 1983.

32 This was one of my better prophecies. Hugh Dalton by Ben Pimlott (1985) was a great biography.

33 Ernst Albrecht, b. 1930, European Commission official 195870, Minister-President of Lower Saxony since 1976.

34 lan Chapman, b. 1925, has been Chairman of Collins since 1979, having been Managing Director since 1968. He was President of the Publishers a.s.sociation 197981.

35 In the outcome the British turned round like squirrels in a cage and became even more addicted to existing contracts than the Italians, who had many more of them with Iran.

36 Michael Young, b. 1915, cr. Lord Young of Dartington 1978. Director of the Inst.i.tute of Community Studies since 1953 from where he has started many organizations including the Consumers' a.s.sociation. Joined the SDP in 1981.

37 Sir John Thomson, b. 1927, was High Commissioner to India 197786, and Permanent Representative to the United Nations 19827.

38 Bahadur Singh, 191587, was Indian Amba.s.sador to Egypt and then to Italy.

39 For the thirtieth anniversary of the unveiling of the Schuman Plan, which led to the setting up of the Coal and Steel Community and the beginning of modern European unity.

40 Michel Rocard, b. 1930, Prime Minister of France since May 1988, became French Minister of Planning and Regional Development 19813, and of Agriculture 19835. In 1980, as more recently, he was the man wanting to be presidential candidate if Mitterrand was not.

41 And indeed proved to be more so on the Sunday and Monday, so that the Cabinet, even in the absence of a lead from the top, apparently accepted the settlement without dissent.

42 Neil Kinnock, b. 1942, who was to be elected leader of the Labour Party three years later, was then Opposition spokesman on education.

43 Temporarily at least this meeting worked brilliantly; Carter consequently decided the issue in our favour.

44 The Brandt Committee, of which Edward Heath was a prominent member, had proceeded fairly quickly from taking shape in Brandt's mind in 1977 (see p. 103 supra) to the publication of its first report {North-South: A Programme for Survival) in 1980.

45 Knut Frydenlund, 192787, was Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs 197381 and 19867.

46 Odvar Nordli, b. 1927, was Prime Minister of Norway 197687.

47 But, until 1988, my last!

48 Professor Dorothy Hodgkin, OM, b. 1910, crystallographer, Chancellor of Bristol University since 1970, one of my Oxford honorands in 1987.

49 Stephen Haseler, b. 1942, former Labour Chairman of the General Purposes Committee of the Greater London Council, is Professor of Government at the City of London Polytechnic. Douglas Eden is an a.s.sociate of his of similar views and background. They had jointly set up the small, hardline anti-left Social Democratic a.s.sociation in the late 1970s.

50 He had eventually secured his appointment as my successor in early July.

51 Lord Nicholas Gordon Lennox, b. 1931, has been Amba.s.sador to Spain since 1984.

52 Neville Sandelson, b. 1923, Labour and then SDP MP for Hayes and Harlington 197183.

53 Eldest and second Bonham Carter daughters, then aged c. twenty-one.

54 David Foster, b. 1946, now Vice-President of Columbia Artist's Management, New York.

55 A term which came into brief currency that summer (it was soon to be superseded by a more famous number) following the publication in the Guardian of 1 August of a manifesto of warning to the Labour Party from Bill Rodgers, Shirley Williams and David Owen. The separation between them and me at this stage was that they were still operating within the Labour Party (indeed within the Shadow Cabinet), whereas I was not.

56 Greville Janner, QC, b. 1928, succeeded his father who had also presided over the Jewish Board of Deputies as Labour MP for Leicester in 1970.

57 Louis Heren, b. 1919, was deputy editor of The Times 197881.

58Eduardo Punset Casals, b. 1936, has been an MEP since 1987.

59The day on which I would finally return from Brussels.

60 Frank Chapple, b. 1921, cr. Lord Chapple 1985, was a former Communist who became the outspoken and moderate General Secretary of the electricians' union, EETPU, 196684.

61 Foreign honours are much complicated by British Government rules; see entry for 15 December 1980 infra.

62 (Sir) Ian MacGregor, b. 1912, was Chairman of the British Steel Corporation 19803 and of the National Coal Board 19837.

63 It went through, by a rather narrow majority, and became the so-called Vredeling Directive.

64 (Sir) William Heseltine, b. 1930 in Fremantle, Western Australia. Now (since 1986) Private Secretary to the Queen and Keeper of the Queen's Archives.

65 Yitzhak Shamir, b. 1915, was Foreign Minister of Israel 19803 and 19846, and Prime Minister 19834 and from October 1986.

66 Humphrey Atkins, b. 1922, cr. Lord Colnbrook 1987, was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland 197981.

67 Sir Fred Dainton, b. 1914, cr. Lord Dainton 1986, was Vice-Chancellor of Nottingham 196570, and has been Chancellor of Sheffield since 1978.

68 Alan Bullock, b. 1914, cr. Lord Bullock 1976, was Master of St Catherine's College, Oxford, 196080, and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford 196973.

69 As Director of the Labour Committee for Europe.

70 He became Sir Crispin Tickell only when he was invested as a KCVO by the Queen (i.e. a specifically royal honour) on the occasion of her visit to Mexico in 1983. He was dubbed at Acapulco in a beach shirt.

71 What a stuffy out-of-date 1960s and 1970s ministerial view this proved. Everyone (except perhaps for the actual Prime Minister), and certainly including me, is now very glad to appear on Question Time.

72 James Meade, b. 1907, n.o.bel Prizewinner, was Professor of Political Economy in the University of Cambridge 195769.

73 Ivor Richard, b. 1932, a Labour MP 196474, was British Permanent Representative at the UN 19749, and a European Commissioner 19815.

74 Jeremy Thomas, b. 1931, Britain's Amba.s.sador to Luxembourg 197982, has been Amba.s.sador to Greece since 1985.

1 He never did.

2 Periodic meetings of Commission, management and unions to discuss Community economic strategy.