The good courtier's craft
Sir: As a participant in the famous, or noto- rious, Chequers seminar on Germany, may I add to the comments already made by George Urban, Lord Dacre and Lady Thatcher (Letters, 5 and 12 October) on the review of George Urban's book by Sir Charles Powell (Books, 28 September)?
Like Dr Urban and Lord Dacre, I said at the time, and repeat now, that Sir Charles's memorandum did not give a fair account of what we, the invited specialists on Ger- many, said. Take, for example, this much quoted sentence: 'Some even less flattering attributes were also mentioned as an abid- ing part of the German character in alpha- betical order, angst, aggressiveness, assertiveness, bullying, egotism, inferiority complex, sentimentality.' Can you wonder that the Germans were offended? Though Sir Charles clearly did not leak the memo- randum, and in this sense was not respon- sible, it was still his words — or arrange- ments of words — that caused the trouble.
I do not, however, quite understand why he feels obliged to defend his 'rather racy' (his description) text on the basis that it was the kind of summary 'which any good reporter should produce'. Later in his review he hints at a much more plausible and interesting interpretation, that 'the purpose of the note was to demonstrate to ministers and senior officials that her [Mrs Thatcher's] views had been thoroughly aired but worsted in debate'. To this end, it seems to me, he merrily mixed up her views and ours, without making it clear who stood where, then added to this rich soup a good pinch of his own spice. In short, this was an example not of the good reporter's but of the good courtier's craft.
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