14 JUNE 1969, Page 13

Not in front of the children

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN

I must be one of the few people taking an interest in politics, national and. inter- national, not to have read any account of either of the speeches made by Mr Heath in Washington. It is, perhaps, because I myself am a member of the National Press Club in that city, and have seen something behind the scenes of programmes like Meet the Press, that I decided not to bother. But however tactless Mr Heath may have been, and he seems to me to be highly tact- less compared with his much more adroit opponent, the Prime Minister, it is not his behaviour in Washington which worries me so much as his interviews with the Shah of Iran and other attempts to run foreign policy without any official commission to do so. Whether Mr Heath misled the Shah or the Shah misled Mr Heath does not matter. Mr Heath may be Prime Minister in petto or in posse, but he is not yet in office. (In fact, there is an American act usually called the Logan Act under which he could be prosecuted. But Mr Heath is not an Ameri- can citizen and in any case I don't think anybody ever has been prosecuted under the act, which was passed in a period of panic about the dangers to the Federalist estab- lishment caused by French Jacobins and intrusive Quakers like Dr Logan.)

Mr Skeffington-Lodge is more angered at Mr Heath's conduct in Washington than he is about his behaviour in the Middle East: this a matter of judgment in which I prefer my own to Mr Skeflington-Lodge's. Indeed, it is possible that the Prime Minis- ter may have got tired by now of the praise poured on him by faithful Mr Skeffington- Lodge, which recalls one or two historical precedents to my mind. I am old enough to have heard the conversation of elderly Liberals speaking of the deceased Mr Glad- stone in tones of reverence no more solemn than those of Mr Skeffington-Lodge in his fervent salaams to the Prime Minister.

But the brouhaha over Mr Heath's speeches in Washington has made me reflect again, as I have often reflected in the past. on difficulties involving not merely a future Prime Minister (if that is what Mr Heath is), but quite minor people. The British visitor to the United States who has the slightest notoriety is continually bothered to express his opinions, not so much on the nolitics of the United States (if he volun- teers these, he is often snuhFed) but on the politics of his own country. If he says, as I often and quite truthfully say, that I am more interested in the politics of the United States than in those of my own country, because they are more important. I am accused of evasiveness—an accusation which may have some justice in it. But after many experiences, I have learned to act on Mark Twain's famous dictum: 'When in doubt, tell the truth'.

It is not so much that one will be mis- quoted, although one will be, for so few American journalists know shorthand that misquoting is almost inevitable. But even quoting can be alarming or annoying. A good many years ago I was asked by a local TV station to talk on the general situ- ation in Britain. I had no idea that any of my remarks would be listened to or picked up anywhere outside the academic com- munity in which I was then living. One of the questions I was asked was, did I approve of the promised or threatened marriage of Princess Margaret to Wing-Commander Townsend. I said I certainly did: if she wanted to marry Wing-Commander Towns- end. I was in favour of her making her own choice. This was picked up by some ingen- ious person. and a good many papers came out with headlines. 'Brogan says he is all for love'. Perhaps I did say this, but if I did. I had no intention of being overheard all over the eastern states. as I was.

But there is a problem which affects much more important people than myself, and Mr Heath may not have got out of this difficulty in the most adroit way. For a Balliol man, he is singularly maladroit. But I am a Balliol man myself, and I am famous for my bricks. Perhaps he should have re- fused to go on Meet the Press. Giving a speech to the National Press Club is not really so serious. The ruling officers of that valuable institution are accustomed to say that the audience at the National Press Club is 'the most critical in the world'. This is not true, since the audience at these great official lunches of the Press Club is too polite to be critical, or if critical. is too polite to say so. An important speaker can get away with murder or nonsense or even the truth: and the only dissent comes from the Younger members of the audience: usually sitting at the back. who at least can avoid applauding the evasive banalities which are handed down from the Sinai of the --rout hie), table.

Meet the Press is another matter. Here

the important visitor is thrown to the wolves in the form of sometimes acute, sometimes friendly but curious newspaper men who are not so bored as the audience at the official lunches of the club. Sometimes the questioners arc extremely ill-informed. I remember one instance in which I had to brief one of the questioners on the main subject on which he was going to hold forth as a devil's advocate, since it turned out he knew hardly anything about it. Conse-

quently I have a good deal of sympathy with Mr Heath when he was tackled about what he had written in an article in the Sunday Express, which was apparently very critical of the policy of Her Majesty's government. Mr Skeffington-Lodge's solu- tion is that he should simply have said this was written for local con- sumption in Britain and had no real relation to the truth--that is, the truth

as Mr Sketlington-Lodge sees it. I am afraid this won't wash. You cannot adopt the attitude of 'not in front of auntie' or 'not in front of the children' in these days of the world village. It is usually a mistake to evade the questions of Americans be- cause they regard such evasions as a spec- ies of Limey cunning unworthy of the citi- zens of the Great Republic.

Thus visitors to the United States who find themselves addressing an audience. large or small. unimportant or important. where questions are encouraged (and most American audiences are not encouraged to ask questions, and are not willing to do so) usually find this disastrous.

For one thing. you may be a victim, and often are a victim. even in private discourse. of an American habit which I have not learned to like after nearly forty-live years of subjection to it. This is the habit of 'needling'. Needling consists of making

aggressive statements hoping to provoke the victim into losing his temper or indulging in flagrant and unconvincing mendacity. I think I know how to deal with needling now, but 1 don't like having to deal with it.

I think the best thing to do is to answer frankly. aggressively and. if necessary.

rudely. It is even possible. although usually unwise. in a particular case to answer 'tu quoque' or 'sez you'. Americans are some- times startled when a British visitor, norm- ally at their mercy. answers some general criticisms of the deplorable state of Britain by offering a possibly genuine commiscra- afion with unkind remarks about the dan-

gerous side of America. Thus. last year I found one way to stop a great deal of this condescending sympathy. or Schadenfreude

disguised as sympathy, was simply to say the chief American fault was a passion for murder and a real fondness for violence. This at least diverted attention from Mr Wilson and from Mr Heath.

The American whom you answer frankly and with no affectation of false superiority is really more impressed than he is by any

kind of evasion, especially if it comes from an official source. This is a lesson which I

do not think the Foreign Office has yet

learned. if I may judge by the behaviour of its representatives in the United States. And

after all. if Mr Heath had said not what he did say, that Britain was fundamentally sound (a debatable assertion). but that he really agreed basically with the present government. nobody would have believed him for a moment. Americans are sceptical enough of their own government not to have any faith in the mere assertions of leading figures of any other government. No doubt sad. but true.