Europe and the US

Reality breaks through

Douglas Jay _

It was a piece of good luck for sorely-bruised Anglo-American relations that Mr Callaghan's "pro-Atlantic" first speech as Foreign SeFretary on March 19 immediately preceded the annual weekend conference of Congressmen and British MPs from both main parties at Williamsburg, Virginia,,a few days later. Such talks do not of course commit governments to anything. But they can at least persuade influential Congressmen that the British public do not share the French anti-American obsession which led Gaullist ministers to obstruct even Dr Kissinger's desire for a common oil policy and a formal declaration of Atlantic solidarity. Mr Callaghan's speech, simply by the absence of any trace of Gaullist hysteria, has been exceedingly helpful.

It was none too soon. The combination of French anti-Americanism and Mr Heath's personal subservience to M. Pompidou had been the main cause of the deterioration in US-European relations to their lowest level since tie war — or rather since the days of Neville Chamberlain. Profound, but not yet irrevocable, harm has been done. For the Gaullist obsession, which has come so near to disrupting the Atlantic alliance, has no rational basis. Indeed, the more it is examined, the more irrational it is seen to be. It even works contrary to French interests in such cases as the recent boycott of a common oil policy and the long-standing obstructive attitude to NATO — which amounts to little more in American eyes than the French assuming they will be defended if necessary by the US, but declining to co-operate in planning it. When one issue after another is thus judged by France, not on its merits, but as a pretext for annoying the Americans, it is unhappily

clear that the still prevailing Gaullist motives are jealousy, injured pride at France's performance in the war, and the ingratitude which generosity,seems to inspire in those whose character combines egotism and weakness.

All this might not have mattered so much to Britain if British policy had not been crippled for three years by Mr. Heath's willingness to appease the French on every issue and to almost any extent. One extreme example was his acceptance of an EEC policy directive for the new GATT world trade talks, which excluded discussion on the "principles and mechanisms" of the *Common Agricultural Policy from the negotiations from the start. Here was a British government alienating the United States by insisting, in order to appease narrow French self-interest, on a policy even more damaging to Britain than to the US.

So the unholy alliance of French perversity and Mr Heath's pro-French extremism has doubled the damage. Not merely has the Atlantic alliance suffered on both the defence and economic fronts. But Washington has come near to regarding 'Europe' as primarily represented by the unreasonable French, with Britain ineffectively tagging along behind.

It is not in the least surprising that, in this scenario, first Congress and then the Administration itself should start thinking and talking of withdrawing troops from the Continent. Just as British Labour Party conferences love to be told that large cuts are to be made in defence spending; so inevitably Congressmen are asked by their constituents why the US should keep 300,000 troops across the Atlantic when the French are boycotting NATO, and obstructing and abusing US policy whenever the opportunity turns up. It is no good simply retorting from this side of the Atlantic that the Americans are here to protect the US as well as ourselves. They are. But the brute fact is that the US could defend itself alone and we could not.

The whole idea that something called 'Europe' (how public discussion would gain if this piece of verbiage were banned from our vocabulary) could build nuclear weapons comparable with the Russians' is an absurdity, but dangerous because it is so muddled. It would mean a vast expansion in West European military spending, totally contradicting aspirations for a cut in our defence bill; and much less security at the same time. Nor is this basic truth altered by the fact that the Soviet, as I believe, has now no aggressive designs on the West — largely for the good reason that they fear the Chinese much more than the Americans. No sane Soviet leader would want to become involved in a Western conflict when his Eastern and Southern frontiers are so much more vulnerable. But it is also partly because the West has shown itself, until recently, united as well as pacific, that we have enjoyed twenty-five years' peace.

One valuable gain, therefore, from Mr Callaghan's speech — helped a little, I hope, by the Williamsburg conference — will be to convince Americans that the British public has no sympathy with the Gaullist antiAmerican vendetta which has done so much damage. We now have the •chance of a new chapter in which Britain's aim should be to get the following principles established. first, for purposes of defence policy, NATO — which contains non-EEC members like Norway and Canada — must be the instrument, and not the EEC (still less a non-existent chimera called 'Europe'). Secondly, Dr Kissinger in his dealings with Western Europe, whether on defence, oil, or monetary and economic policy, would do far better to talk to the national governments of Britain, France, Germany. "Canada and the rest, rather than to the Brussels bureaucracy, which has neither the responsibility to speak nor the power to decide. Dr Kissinger rightly asks for consultation before decisions. He will get it from London and Bonn, if not Paris. But he won't get it from Brussels because France can al

ways put a spoke in the bureaucratic wheel. 11111 Mr Callaghan and Dr Kissinger can inject thI9lie amount of sense and realism into the present ld tangle, the disappearance of the appeasing Mflou Heath will be almost as profound a relief as h

that of Neville Chamberlain. eri

For underlying the short-term quarrels and o manoeuvres, fundamental British interests 0 ne well as inclinations coincide almost whollY u with American and hardly at all with Gaullist a France. A world-wide liberalisation agricultural trade and the collapse of the CAP os are even more in the British interest than the e American. So is the success of Dr Kissingers ft5 efforts to maintain harmony with the Sovle OA leaders and a common front of oil consumersloi against the OPEC cartel. On world monetarqu reform and aid for the Third World, British al and American views are far closer togethethd than are either with those of the continenta14.,a When Mr Healey had to borrow $1,000 million in his first few weeks of office, reality broic, through. He got it, not from some 'European, institution, but from the New York Federal

Reserve Bank. u

Yet, the very difficulties at present era' y barrassing us on both sides of the Atlantic O. can, with skill and persistence, be turned int° iv opportunities. The path of wisdom for a BO'k

t(

1 tish government faced by an enormous ar payments deficit, and an American govern' til ment faced by Watergate and impeachment, i5 If to seek friends and not pick more quarrels ill the outside world. If ever there was a moment to bury vendettas and obsessions, and return to common sense in Atlantic relations, it Is now.

Douglas Jay is Labour MP for Battersea 11 North, former President of the Board . Trade and was a member of the recent, 11 Parliamentary delegation to Washington an° Williamsburg