DIARY
PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE It was a bit disturbing to read that my very right-wing American columnist friend, Patrick Buchanan, had been taken on by Ronald Reagan as his White House Director of Communications; in the same way as it would be disturbing if Mrs Thatcher were to give a similar role to, say, Edward Pearce or even me. For the last type of journalist presidents or prime ministers should take advice from are those whose skill it is to shock or make surprising connections. There can be no doubt, for example, that Patrick Buchanan was re- sponsible for Reagan's gaffe about dead Nazi soldiers being victims of the Third Reich 'just as surely' as those who perished in the Final Solution, the tell-tale phrase being 'just as surely', which is always a sure sign that a columnist has thought of some- thing particularly controversial to say. My suspicions about Patrick Buchanan were first aroused when many years age he wrote to me, on White House paper — he was then working for President Nixon — praising an article of mine urging the United Stated to bomb the hell out of Hanoi. Later Buchanan carried his enthu- siasm for my geo-political views to the point of fixing up for me to give them to the President personally in the Oval Room. Rather on the Groucho Marx Principle that any club foolish enough to elect him as a member could not be worth Joining, my feeling is that any President Who wastes his time listening to me can't be worth taking seriously. Mr Reagan, it is true, has not done anything quite so silly so far; at any rate not since becoming Presi- dent. But in listening to Patrick Buchanan he has taken one small step down his Predecessor's slippery slope.
Whenever I read rumours of the Daily Telegraph going public — of which there are lots at the present time — my envious thoughts turn to an experience of another American journalist friend of mine, Joe Fromm, Deputy Editor of US News and World Report, who is now 3-4 Million dollars richer as a result of finencial Changes at his own paper. Before retiring, the proprietor, David Lawrence, who, !ncidentally, had 30 years ago offered me a Job, gave all the senior staff substantial slices of equity which, when the paper was eventually sold to a new owner, turned out to be immensely valuable. Apart from a few at Reuters. I can think of no British Journalists who, through no financial acu- men of their own, have suddenly found themselves transformed into millionaires. BY and large the only people in Britain who become very rich are those who are good at manipulating money — bankers, brokers, accountants, industrialists etc. In- creasingly in the United States, however,
through the growing practice of equity- sharing, even non-acquisitive people, like Joe Fromm, are becoming millionaires. CapitalisaPis too important to be left to capitalists and, special pleading apart, I think it would be a thoroughly good idea if a selection of those doing spectacularly well out of the system, as much here as in America, were people good at doing other things than making money.
In a new book about 'Young Fogeys', drawn to my attention by Alexander Chan- cellor, I am not amused to find myself described as an 'ageing dandy'. Dandy is fine by me. Nor do I at all mind the reference to the fact that I am getting on a bit. It is the adjectiffe 'ageing' that hurts, since it seems somehow to suggest a process of deterioration, degeneration, even decay, which is far less dignified than the wholly honourable condition of being old. Nobody would describe an old build- ing in good repair as 'ageing'. Only a disused and crumbling dump with cracked paint and peeling plaster gets describes as
'Nowadays it's worth an arm and a leg.'
'ageing'. I don't think the authors of this book intended to be rude. They probably thought that 'ageing' was a polite euphem- ism for old. But for future reference let all such authors know that just as the prefer- red appellation for furniture of a certain age is antique, and for monuments, ancient, and for wine, vintage, and for soldiers, veteran, and for clergymen, vener- able, that for hacks is, for want of a better word, and unless readers have other sug- gestions, seasoned.
After dentists, the group of profes- sional people who have improved their standing in society most in my lifetime are accountants. For example, the TGWU, in an effort to convince the public that the next ballot for their new general secretary is honest, have announced that the results are going to be refereed by a firm of accountants, no less, as if this news would somehow elevate them above suspicion. A generation ago accountants certainly did not carry this kind of moral authority, which in those days belonged only to the Church and the Law. But today manifestly they do, although their record recently does not make it easy for the layman to understand quite why. In any case, apart from presumably being good at counting, what possible qualification has a firm of accountants for determining whether the votes in the ballot box are genuine or not? In the old days, when suspect democracies, like Nicaragua, for example, held suspect elections, they usually tried to give the results spurious legitimisation by inviting gullible British peers to observe the pro- ceeding, who invariably returned saying, surprise, surprise, that they had seen no- thing untoward at the polling booths. What, I repeat, have accountants done to deserve now to share this fig-leaf role with the highest in the land?
It does not surprise me to read that dreadful things go on at those short, sharp shock penal establishments for young offenders since dreadful things went on at the officer cadet training camp where Colin Welch and I spent three months or so in 1943. I remember waking up in the middle of one night to find our squad Coldstream Guards colour sergeant Craggs, who has just returned from a long beer-drinking session at the Naafi, purposefully peeing onto our beds, causing not so much a short, sharp shock as a night-long sensation of indescribable fury and disgust. When up- braided next morning, his explanation was that he had developed this unsavoury habit in the course of his 'Jesus f...ing Christ job' in civvy life, the job having been that of a borstal housemaster.
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