The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990 (34 page)

It was an enjoyable evening but it became clear that Dick believed he had established a relationship with Roy that was as good as his relationship with Harold. This transfer of loyalty should make Harold pretty anxious. Roy is, of course, sitting pretty.

One forty-five, and all my red box still to do. What a life!

Thursday 4 January

The Cabinet met in an icy atmosphere, every Minister realising that he would have to defend his department estimates. The Chancellor opened with a severe warning about what could happen if things went wrong.

There had already been a general agreement that we should be out of our Far Eastern bases by either 1970/71 or 1971/72, and possibly earlier from the Persian Gulf. George Brown argued strongly in favour of 1972 and in
this he was supported by George Thomson and Jim Callaghan, Fred Peart, Denis Healey, Cledwyn Hughes, Willie Ross and Michael Stewart On the other side were Roy Jenkins, Dick Crossman, Barbara Castle, Peter Shore, Gerald Gardiner, Tony Crosland, Lord Longford, Patrick Gordon Walker, Ray Gunter, Tony Greenwood and Dick Marsh.

I said that I had never supported the idea of East of Suez very enthusiastically. I thought the Cabinet had not yet realised how isolated Britain was: we were locked out of the EEC, our US link was weakening and we would just have to look after our own interests. For my part I could see little credibility in a lame duck military presence on borrowed money and the best thing to do was to speed up the withdrawal.

We went on to discuss our military hardware. The Chancellor led in favour of a substantial cut and although he detailed the Phantoms and one or two other possible cuts, the whole debate centred on the F-111.

Here Denis Healey made the most formidable case in favour of the F-111, calmly and quietly, and with considerable power of argument. He said that our ground troops and our air force in Europe were much smaller than those of the French and the Germans and that the particular contribution we could make was strike reconnaissance by having fifty F-111s, which were the only aircraft capable of penetrating into Eastern Europe. He said this was the cheapest way of doing it and he drew attention to the offset purchases by the US in Britain which would help to meet the foreign-exchange costs.

After that the argument began building up for and against. Roy Jenkins was the first to speak and he said that here was a clear saving that could be made in foreign currency and he was prepared to accept the fact that the cancellation charges would be slightly more expensive in the coming year.

I was the last to speak and by the time I was called, the vote was ten in favour of keeping the F-111 and nine against, with mine really being the decisive vote. My heart was in my boots and I knew what this would mean in terms of relations with the Ministry of Defence.

I started by saying I found it an extremely difficult issue to deal with. Two factors inclined me strongly towards the Defence Secretary.

The decisive argument for me was that it was inconceivable that we could change our defence role and maintain the same hardware purchases. If the F-111 were to continue, we should have to knock off other bits of hardware: either the Polaris submarine fleet, the Harrier, which was the most advanced aircraft produced in Britain and had considerable export potential, or the British military capability to build complete aircraft on our own. If we abandoned this capability, it would mean we would be committed for ever after to buying American or French military aircraft. Therefore, if there was a hardware choice – and I thought there was – and if, as a responsible Cabinet Minister, I accepted that we had to make a choice, I
had to come down against the F-111. It was the last contribution and it left the Cabinet divided ten–ten.

Denis Healey then wound up and he directed much of his speech to me. He said he thought my arguments were fallacious, particularly with regard to the alternatives, and he might be prepared to find other savings.

We were left with the Prime Minister throwing in his vote against the F-111, so that, seen one way, Harold Wilson and I decided that issue between us.

As soon as it was done, George Brown said it would make his job a great deal more difficult in talking about our maintenance of a capability to help Australia, New Zealand, Singapore or Malaysia and he thought that as it had been such an evenly balanced vote, the Defence Secretary should be allowed to produce a paper inviting the Cabinet to reverse its decision and to accept alternative savings. I strongly agreed that any Minister whose programme was being decided for him by the Cabinet should have this right. I must say Denis behaved with great strength of character and did not allow this critical decision against him – on the vote of the Prime Minister, who had supported him throughout – to affect his composure in any way.

The Cabinet broke up at 7.30.

I heard by indirect methods that George Brown had sent telegrams to all the Ambassadors in the Six, asking for an assessment of the reaction of the governments concerned if we did cancel Concorde unilaterally. Every single one of them reported unfavourably on the idea and the Ambassador in Bonn, Frank Roberts, said it would be the worst single blow short of withdrawing our troops unilaterally from Germany. He said it would confirm all the French suspicions about us being bad Europeans and would destroy our credibility as a technological partner.

Tuesday 9 January

Drove myself to the office in my own car because of the snow and from 10 to 11.45 we had a conference following up the Cabinet meeting at which it was decided to go ahead with Concorde but to try to get some agreement with the French on airline commitment by the summer of 1969.

After that, Ronnie Melville stayed on to tell me a bit more about the F-111 and the Ministry of Defence position. First he said that Sir James Dunnett, the Permanent Secretary at the MOD, wanted an opportunity to apologise to me for Denis Healey’s behaviour at the end of last week.

I replied that I had known Denis for many years and neither his language nor his approach had in any way influenced me. But obviously it had greatly shaken the officials of the Ministry of Defence, and they were keen that I shouldn’t have been so alienated that I would desert the F-111. Ronnie also told me that Denis is fighting for 100 per cent of his programme, and that the Ministry of Defence realised that there will have to be a fall-back position and are trying to persuade him to work one out.

I think what is really going on is an alliance between Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Technology officials to try to persuade Denis to recognise that he is not going to get everything he wants; and to try to drive me towards Denis, particularly in favour of a major purchase of the F-111, even if it is a little bit less than fifty.

At 4 the Cabinet met again for a further session on the survey of public expenditure. We began with roads and poor Barbara Castle was absolutely at the end of her tether. Her voice was rising with emotion as she explained the consequences of what Roy Jenkins was proposing and in the end a compromise which will affect a large chunk of her programme was agreed.

Then we had an amusing session on Home Office economies whereby Roy, because of his expert knowledge, has suggested a number of cuts which poor Jim Callaghan, his predecessor at the Treasury and successor at the Home Office, would have to carry out. Jim said, ‘Now that Roy Jenkins has left the Home Office, he is proposing serious cuts, and I’m the one who has got to carry these cuts through so that the reforms which I, as Chancellor, financed for Roy will come to a stop.’ This had a ring of truth about it. He stuck his toes in on the reduction of the strength of the police force and there was a flare-up in which Dick Crossman, always ready for a row, said it was intolerable that a Minister should decline to carry cuts through. The atmosphere was very unpleasant.

Monday 15 January

Cabinet at 10. When we got there, the Prime Minister handed round two telegrams from Lyndon Johnson about the current review of public expenditure. It concentrated on two things: first, our projected withdrawal from the Far East and the Middle East by 1971, which filled him with dismay; and second, the proposal to cancel the F-111. Johnson warned us in the strongest terms that this would be a catastrophic decision and would affect the offset arrangement that had been reached under the original agreement. I have often heard of American pressure upon British Cabinets, but this was extremely direct and it is much to our credit that we ultimately resisted it.

Then Harold reported on his talks with Harry Lee over the weekend. He said Lee had been almost hysterical and incoherent for large parts of the discussions, although he calmed down over dinner. He had threatened to withdraw the sterling balances and it had been very difficult to make sense of what he was saying. Lee kept repeating, ‘This is the end of 150 years’ association.’ But he had left Harold in no doubt of his view.

Tuesday 30 January

Otto came in later about honours. He presented me with a very breezy list of people and I resented this for a number of reasons. First of all, I don’t like honours. Second, they are always sent to me with a 48-hour deadline, so, in
effect, I really don’t have any opportunity to change them. Third, my position is that of constitutional monarch – Otto will come in and explain why I can’t do what I want. So when I saw the list, I said, ‘Why don’t we ever recommend trade unionists?’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘that’s for the Ministry of Labour.’

‘Why don’t we recommend Dr Curran, the Vice-Chancellor of Strathclyde? He was on our Advisory Committee.’

‘Oh, that’s the Department of Education and Science.’

‘Well then,’ I said. ‘On knighthoods, you’ve put down Sutherland, the rather mediocre Chairman and Managing Director of Marconi, who is also the Chairman of the Conference of the Electronics Industry. What about Arnold Weinstock? He’s just done the GEC/AEI deal.’

‘I assure you, Minister, I couldn’t put that forward convincingly.’

‘You put forward things that aren’t altogether convincing to me,’ I replied.

‘Oh well, Helsby wouldn’t have it.’

Of course it turns out that a group of civil servants crawls over this list and Ministers have no real say at all. John Stonehouse had put forward a private enterprise arms sales merchant-of-death type who handled the Saudi Arabian arms deal. Apparently the Ambassador in Jeddah thought he really
was
unsuitable! Of course the more Otto tried to justify his list, the worse he made it because I was clearly a very minor element in the decisions. ‘I’ll ask Helsby whether he would agree to consider Weinstock,’ he suggested.

‘That’s no good,’ I said, and he replied, ‘If we put it in and it’s turned down, we shall lose a knighthood,’ as if somehow getting the ration was more important than getting the right person. But I didn’t want to pursue it too much. It wasn’t worth it.

Dinner with Verdet, Rumanian First Deputy Premier, at the Rumanian Embassy. The son of a miner, he had been a miner himself and had studied economics. We had a lot of jokes and fun and he said that the Rumanian Planning Committee had a saying: that miniskirts concealed the essentials but raised the hopes. I said that reminded me of a Five-Year Plan which also conceals the essentials and raises expectations.

Wednesday 21 February

Melissa, Joshua, Caroline and I went to the Mermaid Theatre to see a play organised by the Molecule Club about light. In the audience were hundreds of schoolchildren and Spike Milligan and a few bigwigs, including the Duke of Edinburgh. As Caroline and I talked to Spike the Duke came up and said, ‘Sorry to interrupt your conversation.’ We all went and had a cup of tea and Joshua and Melissa were introduced to the Duke: it was very funny because Melissa was sucking her hair and saying what she thought about education, completely unmoved, while Joshua kept interrupting his conversation to turn round and pick up more sandwiches.

Friday 23 February

Up very early and by helicopter to Winfrith with William Knighton for the opening of the Steam Generating Heavy Water Reactor. It was a tremendous affair which has received a lot of adverse press publicity because the whole day was to cost about £15,000 and 700 guests were to get lunch at £7 a head. At lunch I found myself sitting next to the Duke of Edinburgh.

We began by talking about Europe and it was evident that he was not a keen European and thought British opinion would be opposed to our joining now that the opportunity had passed. I said I thought this was perhaps inaccurate and that we would need a larger economic unit because industry was now on a bigger scale than national institutions. I explained that I was really a federalist. This worried him enormously, no doubt because the royal family wouldn’t have much of a place in a federal Europe.

Then we talked about the institution of government and he said he thought it was a mistake to overcentralise, warmly supporting Welsh and Scottish nationalism; and so do I. But he did say he thought advice ought to be integrated at different levels. I asked him how he thought the monarchy would work over the next twenty-five years. His answers were rather interesting. He thought the first thing to do would be to get rid entirely of the Commonwealth angle by which he meant the Queen being Queen of Canada as well as of Britain. ‘They don’t want us and they will have to be a republic or something.’

He wanted to connect the monarchy more directly with Ministers and said he thought that Privy Councils were an absolute waste of time; that the Prime Minister’s audience with the Queen should be broadened out to include other Ministers, who could explain things to her.

I said I didn’t think that would help the monarchy at all because when this government got even less popular, which was possible, it would just identify the monarch more with us. He said, ‘You wouldn’t want the Queen to meet the
Opposition,
would you?’ I said I didn’t think that would help the monarchy. He said he wasn’t thinking of the monarchy but of the national interest and he thought that if the monarchy didn’t meet the national interest, he would opt out altogether. Quite what he meant by that, I don’t know.