Two for the doghouse

THE SOAMES AFFAIR-2 JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE, MP

For those of us who believe that an enduring European union can only be built around the affiance of France and Britain the past week has marked the climax of despair after twelve years of missed opportunities. Time could heal the wounds which have been inflicted: but only provided we destroy the urge to widen and deepen them which at present exists.

Much of the blame for the current crisis rests with our political masters. But it could not have occurred in the way it did had there not been a long, long background of carefully- nurtured mistrust and hostility. And for that condition responsibility lies heavily on the shoulders of our diplomats.

It is, of course, an illuSion to think—though it is sometimes said—that the francophobia of the British Foreign Office only dates from de Gaulle's return to power in 1958. On the con- trary there has only been one period in the past century—the period from the signing of the entente cordiale in 1904 until the end of the First World War—when Anglo-French diplo- matic relations could be described as reasonably smooth. The leaders of the Fourth Republic were treated by our diplomacy with a mixture of patronage and contempt—they were either 'good little men' if, like Georges Bidault, they did what the Anglo-Saxons wanted them to, or 'bad little men' if, like Mendes, they didn't.

Unquestionably, however, the relationship took on a new bitterness after the inauguration of the Fifth Republic. This was doubly a tragedy, for General de Gaulle's return to power coincided with the belated (and partial) accep- tance of Britain's European destiny, and it made it possible for France to take her place beside Britain in the leadership of Europe, a possi- bility which clearly had not existed until he had rebuilt his country's solvency, prestige and self- respect. But General de Gaulle would never fit into the pattern of 'little men' who, in the eyes of the Foreign 01lice, represented France's natural inheritance, and our diplomats in turn could not adapt themselves to any other pat- tern. Stresses and strains were no doubt inevit- able, once de Gaulle had emerged as the one insurmountable obstacle to the course on which the Foreign Office had set its heart. Yet while General de Gaulle has never suffered from the cold,. determined anglophobia of Chancellor Adenauer, diplomatic cordiality and a good working relationship between Britain and Ger- many were preserved throughout that old man's reign, whereas at the height of the original Brus- sels negotiations in 1961-2 business contacts between the British and French delegations simply did not exist.

As British prestige slumped, and French pres- tige-soared, the bitterness between the two coun- tries became tinged with envy on our side, and arrogance on theirs. British diplomacy lurched from disaster to disaster, most of them of its own making, but many of them inflicted at the hands• of the French. The British Embassy in Paris has for years been little more than a sort- ing-house for anti-Gaullist gossip, and it has come to be accepted as axiomatic that any sug- gestion which comes from the French govern- ment can only have one purpose—to do us a mischief. If General de Gaulle were to offer us unconditional entry to the Common Market, and to give us a blank cheque on which we could write our own terms of acceptance, the Foreign Office would treat the offer with all the enthu- siasm of a maiden aunt presented with a toad.

This is the background which has to be un- derstood if the tragi-comedy of the past week is to be seen in perspective. The agreement of France's partners in Luxembourg on 7 February to hold a series of regular foreign policy con- sultations with Britain in the context of the Western European Union was the first success for British diplomacy for a very long time—a puny and misshapen thing, but its own, and it rejoiced accordingly. Anybody with even a nod- dineacquaintance (the only form of acquain- tance appropriate to have) with weu could not take seriously for a moment the proposition that this comatose committee was to be used for pur- poses other than baiting the French. But in this, at least, Mr Stewart's ploy seemed to have en- joyed a success beyond all reasonable expecta- tions. The General was furious.

At the time it was hard to see why. Now, of course, we know. And here we come to what has, in Paris, quite unfairly, been christened 'l'affaire Soames' (if there is one British official who has emerged with credit from the whole business, it is Mr Soames). On 4 February General de Gaulle philosophised at length about the shape of a Europe in which Britain might have taken her place. None of it was new : most of his propositions—the preference for a free trade area over the Common Market, the dis- mantling of NATO (but not, incidentally, the Atlantic Affiance), the demand for the coordina- tion of monetary and defence as well as com- mercial policies with a view to full independence of the United States—have been themes in the General's thinking, regularly exposed to those who were prepared to listen, right back to 1958. Indeed, as the General is now admitted to have said, all of it had been given to Mr Soames's predecessor by the Foreign Minister months ago—and rejected by the British government.

Mr Soames made his report back to Lon- don, where it took on a rapidly different aspect.

One can hear the whoops of glee echoing down the corridors between Downing Street and Great George Street. 'Now we've got the old rascal really cooked. Disbanding NATO—the Germans'll love that. Scrap the Common Mar- ket—just see how that'll go down in Rome, Brussels and the Hague. And what's this? An "Inner Circle"? Oh, boy, by the time we've done with this the General will be taking the boat to St Helena.'

Just for safety's sake the Ambassador was invited to check back his record with the Elysee, which he did. There seems to be a flat contradiction here as to whether M Tricot, on behalf of his master, demurred at the references to the dismantling of NATO and the 'Inner Circle,' or not. The General may, on seeing the record, have felt he had said too much. But it hardly matters, for the first reference can hardly have come as news to anybody, while the second was in reality no more than a logical formula for genuine coordination of policies in a greatly- enlarged European Community.

Now the Foreign Office argues that it had good reason, from past experience, to fear that if it failed to report the General's pre-prandial philosophising to France's partners, together with the British reaction, the French would nip in first with a version which implicated us in, if it did not attribute responsibility to us for, ideas which would be very ill received in the other capitals. The grounds for expecting such treat- ment at the hands of the French are not exactly specific, and the logic of the assumption that they might be able to make hay with the two essential propositions—the fading-away of NATO, and the transformation of the Common Market —which Mr Soames had been instructed to re- ject out of hand is not easy to follow. It is also worth noting that the British government did not feel it necessary to circulate these proposals to the Five when they were presented by M Debre last year. But it must sadly be accep- ted that given the conditioned reflex of the Foreign Office to any proposition emanating from Paris it was inevitable that the first thought of our diplomats should be to 'avoid the General's trap.'

However, the question-mark that does arise over the behaviour of the Foreign Office con- cerns the nature and above all the presentation of the text which was given to the Five. Mr Stewart claimed on Monday that while it 'was not the Ambassador's full record of the con- versation,' it was 'in no sense misleading or a distortion.' In general, this may have been a fair claim (although it is by no means clear whether the emotive word 'directorate' was originally interpolated into the section of the text dealing with the `inner circle' idea, and only withdrawn subsequently following French protests). But then we come face to face with two iitton- gruities which shed a disturbing light on the behaviour of the Foreign Office.

Firstly, the Foreign Office spokesman on Friday last, and Mr Stewart on Monday, in- sisted, in Mr Stewart's words, that General de Gaulle had 'outlined his ideas for the future of Europe [and] said that he would welcome talks between Britain and France and that he would like Her Majesty's Government to suggest that such talks should take place' (my italics). Now the impression thus created—and it seems to have been formally confirmed at Friday's press briefing—was that the General was inviting the British government to initiate bilateral discus- sions on the whole range of his proposals—the fading away of NATO and the Common Market among them—whereas the request to the British government to initiate talks was quite specific- ally related only to his last proposal for a bi- lateral discussion of economic, monetary and defence collaboration between France and Britain. This is important, for the request to the British to make the first move has been used to lend colour to the Foreign Office's fears of a trap. It is difficult to exonerate Mr Stewart from the charge of intention to mislead in this instance.

Secondly, and more generally, if indeed the record passed to the Five was an accurate sum- mary of the Soames record, then not only could it hardly justify the suspicions of a French trap, but it was not a matter to raise more than a passing yawn in the chancellories of Europe.

They knew it all before land incidentally the Germans were so shocked by what they were told that they cheerfully advised the British government to go right ahead and start talks with the French). Clearly, however, transmis- sion was accompanied by a gloss which was designed to give the text an importance and a dramatic quality which it did not have. It is impossible to find any other justification for this than the desire to make mischief. (It is also possible, however, that what Hugh Fraser rightly described in Tuesday's debate as 'the paranoia of the Foreign Office' was on this occasion heightened by professional jealousy.

For here was this amateur Soames stepping in and achieving the first meaningful conversation between a British Ambassador and the French head of state since the General's return to power. The frustration of the Soames initiative may have given satisfaction to the meaner spirits in the profession.) But what almost passes belief is that it was apparently the Foreign Office which decided to tell the Germans without advance notice to the French. At first blush it seemed charitable to assume that our diplomats could not have so far taken leave of their senses as to com- mit an impropriety of this magnitude, and to detect here the hand of the sorcerer's apprentice himself—Harold Wilson. Not so, however. On Tuesday the Foreign Secretary had the effrontery to pretend that the order in which the six governments were informed was simply a hazard of the timetable—as if the 'inform- ing' of the French that we intended to breach their confidence was on a par with the 'inform- ing' of the Five which constituted the breach of confidence. The Prime Minister stands con- victed of inexcusable frivolity in agreeing to play the Foreign Office's game, and in playing it for all the mischief he could make of it. But the suggestion came from Whitehall.

I suppose the Foreign Office can claim that it has succeeded in deepening existing mistrust of French intention. But in doing so it has be- haved in a manner which has scandalised the beneficiaries of its confidence as much as it in- furiated the French. The only conclusion to be drawn—and it is being drawn, let us make no mistake about this—is that nobody in his senses will hold confidential discussions with the present British government. And as for Mr Soames, he might as well be withdrawn and not replaced. For this government to sustain a British Ambassador in Paris from here on is simply a waste of the taxpayers' money.

What hope is left for the future? Precious little. Since our diplomats must now be regarded as incapable of conducting a constructive or even civilised dialogue with our neighbours, it is essential that we should try to build up con- tacts among politicians, journalists, and busi- nessmen to fill the void. Some new occupation must be found to distract the Prime Minister's attention from diplomacy—and this is a matter calling for urgent attention. Law and order, or the state of the universities, anything would do so long as it offers sufficient scope for headlines to keep him out of mischief, and a complete absence of substance. As for the great adven- ture into Europe, this had best be forgotten until kindlier times and more rational governments supervene. But is it just possible that as both Britain and France are, for the moment, rightly regarded as pariahs from the international com- munity, we might seize the opportunity to begin to understand each other, and to rub our re- spective diplomats' faces in the sand?