AMERICA

White ties for Mr Wilson

JOHN GRAHAM Washington—I never thought that my first donning of the white tie, in this land of

egalitarianism, would be to honour, if that is the right verb, a socialist Prime Minster of England. Yet there it is, for next Tuesday evening in the White house . . . '10.00 o'clock, white tie, music'.

Harold Wilson is coming to town, and everything is in order. It will be his first visit to Washington for nearly two years, and he will be the first important European leader to be received by President Nixon. Anglo- American relations are less ruffled than they have been for years, Messrs Nixon and Wilson appear to get on well enough with each other, and the visit will no doubt be a methodical, if rather dull, success.

The smooth .survival of the Anglo- American relationship is indeed slightly surprising after the ups and downs of the middle and late 1960s. Shortly after Mr Wilson's election in 1964, he telephoned Lai and asked to come on an official visit. The story goes that LW saw no reason why Mr Wilson should play English politics in the White House, and Wilson got some rough treatment from that master of earthy language.

The following years brought various irritations. There was a time when 'disengagement' from American policies in Vietnam was a very dirty word here. Despite the us Treasury's strenuous efforts to pre-

vent any devaluation of the pound,

England's steadily intensifying economic troubles were a profound nuisance, to say the least, to the Johnson administration. The military withdrawals from the Middle East and South-East Asia were even more unpopular, and the atmosphere became very bad indeed in 1967.

Then came the announcement that John Freeman would be the next British Am- bassador to the United States, and we were suddenly in that terrible year, 1968. It was a year when almost everything went wrong for the United States, and Americans began more and more to look inwards to the mess inside their own country. There was a vague fear that the country would become isola- tionist, or neo-isolationist, and that Europe in general, and England in particular, would become less and less important. The Prime Minister had nominated Mr Freeman to be his man in Washington, but that was when Robert Kennedy was still alive—how long ago that seems—and no one knew that Richard Nixon would be the next President. When Nixon was duly elected, what Freeman had said about him was remembered, and the special relationship looked lamer than ever.

Since then, mirabile dictu, it has been a great year for the English. There has been no Anglo-us crisis, and the fears that the Republicans might be less `European' than their predecessors have been unrealised. Mr Nixon kept his word about not telling the Europeans what to do, and the Ad- ministration barely shrugged its eyebrows even at the Soames affair. British and American interests in the Middle East are too similar to cause any trouble, even if no one can do anything to improve the situation there. The Biafran war, over which there was a difference of opinion, is over, and even induced at its end an amicable telephone call from the White House to Downing Street.

More positively, the President has adopted the British position on chemical and bac- teriological warfare. He has also, it seems, adopted some of Sir Robert Thompson's views on the Vietnam war. Dr Kissinger has always had better contacts with Europeans than his immediate predecessor, Walt Rostow, and there have been other English visitors to his shop apart from Sir Robert ... Alastair Buchan, for one. In the matter of cabinet ministers, Denis Healey continues to go down very well here, and—dare I say it in these columns?—so does Michael Stewart.

As for Her Britannic Majesty's Am- bassador. he has surely changed his spots. He has been almost an apologist for Presi-

dent Nixon; his praise has even been too fulsome, some say. That he is not so highly regarded by the top men in the White House is perhaps irrelevant. Mr Nixon, unlike LW, does not play favourites among the diplomatic corps with a brash partiality, and his Administration in general does not put great weight on any Ambassador. It may well be that John Freeman can represent Harold Wilson more accurately than the more traditional type of career Foreign Office diplomat, but it does not seem to mat- ter much.

At any rate there have been no biases, and the backcloth to next week's visit is all velvet. Mr Nixon and Mr Wilson have much in common. Both are politicians by nature, and leaders of parties that have seldom been in power. Both are deeply distrusted by cer- tain sectors of their electorate, and both are adept at dividing the opposition. The Labour party may have a more natural affinity with the American Democrat party, indeed Mr Wilson has been reported as eager to turn it into something like an English version of the Democrats. But after what happened to them in 1968 and 1969, his eagerness may be less than unbounded.

On the major aims of British foreign policy, there is hardly cause for serious squabbling. NATO is functioning fairly well, and the Americans were well pleased with the recent foreign ministerial meeting in Brussels. The President has promised not to reduce American troops in Europe until at least the middle of next year. In the longer term, troop levels in Europe remain a prob- lem, with the Americans as always wishing that the Europeans would do more of the work. But there will be no fireworks about this next week. Mr Nixon has also em- phatically supported British membership of the Common Market. This is a much livelier matter, since the United States has several specific arguments with the present EEC ar- rangements, notably concerning agriculture. To borrow their own phrase, Mr Nixon and company will keep 'a low profile' as far as any British negotiations are concerned; they do not want to spoil things, let alone be seen to be doing so.

Where Mr Nixon and Mr Wilson will have much to say to each other is over larger strategic questions. Mr Wilson will want to know exactly how the Americans and the Russians are getting on in their arms talks, although obviously they must remain a two-power affair; the Russians and the Americans have the weapons, and any overall détente must start with them.

But Mr Nixon professes to want to negotiate widely with the Communist world, and the Europeans equally obviously have a major role. It is too much to expect the Presi- dent to ask the Prime Minister for advice, but Mr Nixon is a studious man, and he will no doubt wish to know what the Prime Minister thinks. After all, Mr Wilson is forever visiting Moscow, and it is still easier for him to go there than for Mr Nixon.

So there will be plenty to talk about, and the Prime Minister will be well received. Never mind that Mr Nixon's administration made a fuss over Mr Heath last summer: they can live with either party. They are nothing if not pragmatic, and their guiding principle is flexibility. It all seems too smooth to be true ... there must be a catch somewhere. Could the catch be Rhodesia? After all, where better to display that 'Pragmatism'? But I'll bet my white tie that ihat won't be mentioned in any com- munique.