European Diary, 1977-1981 by Roy Jenkins Page A

had decided otherwise.’
    Towards the end I made it clear I was not asking him to have a major row with Giscard, but that I did not think the French position was as hard as it was thought to be, and that if he used some gentle influence it could be quite effective. ‘Why doesn’t Callaghan do it?’ he said. ‘Well, I don’t know,’ I said, ‘but in any event you have more influence with Giscard.’ ‘That’s true,’ he said contentedly. Then hesaid, ‘Well, I think probably that it will work itself out at Rome so that you will be there.’
    We next discussed direct elections, my encouraging him to put some beneficial pressure on Callaghan. I then expounded to him my ideas for a very substantial increase in the Communities’ borrowing role, in order to lend money not just for balance-of-payments reasons, but for infrastructure and ‘sectoral’ improvements in the weaker economies, although accompanying these by firm measures of macroeconomic ‘conditionality’, as it is called; in other words a requirement upon the receiving Government to accept effective disciplines. He was rather favourable, warmed to the idea a good deal, even suggested that there might be some German money available for borrowing from their large reserve funds. A successful conversation on this, although necessarily vague at this stage.
    It was then 4.15,1 had been with him three-quarters of an hour, and I thought he was showing signs of wishing to bring the interview to an end, which indeed would have been totally reasonable, as he wanted to go to Hamburg for the weekend. However, he then began one of his cosmic gloom conversations. How long did I think he should stay in the job? ‘As long as you think you can do it better than anyone else,’ was my opening bid (which would have given him substantial tenure). We then talked about who could succeed him if he went. ‘Apel is the only person within the Government,’ he said. ‘It may be a break-up of the Coalition.’ ‘Would Willy Brandt be brought back?’ I asked. ‘Ah, a lot of people would like that,’ he said, ‘but I don’t know that Willy would really want to come back in the present extremely difficult circumstances. What he probably most wants is to feel that people would like him to come back, without his having actually to return and do the job.’ We then gossiped a little about our respective experiences in German and English politics.
    He then got on to his relations with America and it became clear that he was deeply offended at not having been invited by Carter, and although superficially very irritated with the American administration—particularly over the Brazilian nuclear deal—was also profoundly concerned at a deterioration of German/American relations to ‘a worse point than they had been in for at least ten years’. He brooded on this for some time saying, ‘I am verypro-American. I am much more pro-American than I am pro-British, and I have never really been pro-French. But Valéry is my only real friend.’ Then a certain amount of: ‘Well, I have done what I can. I sent my Foreign Minister to see Carter. Genscher was rather impressed by him. I sent Brandt, the leader of my party, to see Carter; he was impressed by him too. But I can’t go myself unless I am asked, and in present circumstances, even if asked, I do not think I could easily respond very quickly.’
    Then, very surprisingly, he said, ‘I suppose you see a lot of Americans and have a lot of American contacts, do you? This is the reason why I have been exposing to you my mind about this.’ So I said that I would certainly do anything I could to ease this extremely delicate and dangerous problem and I was glad he had raised it. He showed no sign of wishing to bring the conversation to an end until a protocol man came in to say that as (to Schmidt’s