AMERICAN COMMENTARY
Among our rich relations
AUBERON WAUGH
Washington = All conversation in the mightiest capital city of the world last week centred around the film of our Royal Family's life, which had just reached here after various complicated negotiations. Above all, there was speculation about what form of reprisal might be taken for the humiliation inflicted on the us ambassador to London, Mr Walter Annenberg. He is already referred to in smart circles as `Mr Nixon's revenge'—a somewhat unkind reference to Mr Wilson's choice of Mr John Freeman as ambassador to Wash- ington. Nobody here doubts that the humilia- tion was deliberate. Mr Freeman has every reason to feel uneasy.
It is not that he has done anything to merit it—at any rate, since writing his piece of standard left-wing invective against Mr Nixon many years ago. In fact, he has been a highly competent ambassador, and his wife has been a great success. But Mr Nixon, as a political animal, combines the longevity and surface toughness of a tortoise with the memory of an elephant, and in a political environment where personal loyalties have always taken precedence over policies, Mr Freeman's crime is most unlikely either to be forgotten or forgiven. Mr Nixon is far too careful a politician to behave with anything except the greatest propriety and correctness, but there can be no mistaking the coolness he feels not only towards Mr Freeman and the jokers of Whitehall, but towards the whole position of the United Kingdom in the world.
Before proceeding, I must point out that I am not in Mr Nixon's confidence. This may seem a curious protestation, but Washington is so extraordinarily open to visiting jour- nalists that readers of the SPECTATOR here might suppose I was making the claim. In fact, I was able to penetrate the President's office in the White House, under the most august auspices, and was even allowed to touch his telephone (it does not have a red button—only a black one labelled 'Kissinger') but he was not actually there. An engage- ment pad lay upon the Presidential desk, recording that he had an appointment with Bob Hope at two o'clock. Well, one must keep trying. But what is immediately appar- ent here is the way in which the administra- tion as a whole, taking its cue from this real or imagined coolness at the top, now manifests an impatience and scepticism with the United Kingdom—not confined to the Wilson regime but embracing also its prob- able successors—which seems, at times, to border on dislike.
Perhaps I should qualify this. Washing- ton society, in common with that of nearly all the East Coast, remains almost embarras- singly Anglophile. English visitors are feted and flattered by Cabinet Ministers, Sec- retaries and Under-Secretaries, hostesses and under-hostesses wherever they go. With the traditional diffidence of his race, your American correspondent has always thought it his social duty on these occasions to sell his country short, moan about its minis, under- mine confidence in the Jenkins economic miracle and impugn the sanity of the Foreign Secretary. Never has it been received so favourably as here in Washington. One is often asked about the persistence of any anti-American sentiment in England, and questioners—even rather exalted ones—are invariably polite enough to appear gratified when told that it is negligible. What these questions mask, or so it seems to me, is a burgeoning Anglophobia among the official classes, especially among those connected with foreign affairs.
Part of this undoubtedly derives from the irritation that anyone feels with a friend who has fallen on hard times. There is exas- peration that we seem unable to put our economic house in order, unable to join the Common Market, unable to honour our defence commitments and unable to modern- ise our industries or produce the slightest symptoms of a recovery. Added to this, there is extreme irritation—and it is here, I think, that the element of dislike creeps in—at almost every one of our postures on the inter- national scene, most particularly at that of the honest broker. Communist studies are a major industry in the United States. Vast institutions tabulate and record each Soviet initiative, producing every conceivable inter- pretation of its motive and prediction of its consequences. The idea that some pipe- sucking amateur might choose to do some of his electioneering in the Soviet Union fills them with speechless fury.
Some months ago, I hazarded a guess (it was not without support from within the Cabinet) that the only logical explanation (outside the purely medical one) for Michael Stewart's extraordinary behaviour over Anguilla was pressure from the United States. If Mr Stewart's action in launching the invasion was in fact in obedience to instruc- tions from Washington then never has a faithful servant been treated so shabbily. Not only is there undisguised glee at his dis- comfiture, but visiting journalists are assured that there was never anything in American intelligence reports to give the slightest sup- port to his cock-and-bull story about the Mafia, and, so far as the State Department is concerned, he must have invented it himself.
Inevitably, many of my conversations in Washington centred around Mr Stewart's other little initiative, in the war between Nigeria and Biafra. I mention them here, be- cause it seems to me that the issue may yet develop into one of the most extraordinary episodes in Anglo-American relations since the War of Independence. As in England, support for Biafra's claims to independence as the best and only just solution to the war has never developed any political weight, but unlike the case in England (where not a single front-bench politician has supported any of the Biafran appeals) American support for humanitarian efforts to breach the Nigerian blockade is a commonplace of politics—to such an extent that Mr Nixon himself
succumbed, a year ago this month: 'Getioci is what is taking place right now ... and s vation is the grim reaper. This is not time to stand on ceremony or to "go throw channels" or to observe the diploma niceties ... the destruction of an entire peo is an immoral objective, even in the in moral of wars. It can never be justified, can never be condoned.'
Since Mr Nixon came to power, howm the Department of African Affairs has able to scale down these generous emotie and all the Nixon administration has in done to relieve the suffering has been to gi six aeroplanes to Joint Church Aid. 0th wise, it has been prepared to play Nigerians' game for them, along with Wilson and the Red Cross, by seeki Nigerian permission to breach the blocka and by appointing a special representati with instructions to do nothing which mi upset the blockaders. This gift of aeropla caused a major row with the Federal milita government (and, indeed, inside the De ment of African Affairs) but -the significa thing is that Mr Nixon persevered with and has been engaged in playing the iss both ways.
Whatever the reason for this, visiting jo nalists are liable to receive two tota different unofficial background briefings the American involvement. The first, a more official, certainly represents Mr Nixo views more closely. It starts by saying America's first and overriding concern is relief question, to which all others are s ordinate. When one. points out that government could get in as much relief as liked, simply by giving it to Joint Church or the French Red Cross, the answer is th there are difficulties, that General Gowns after all recognised in Washington as head the Federal military government, even if substantial part of Nigeria never recogn him as such, etc etc. The second briefing sta by saying that America wishes to see a co promise settlement in the dispute. On inv gation, this compromise means acceptance the Biafrans of the Federal governme present terms to be brought about either persuading the French to end their a supply or by the bombing and capture of airport. This second briefing comes from permanent African experts on the De ment's staff, I must add, rather than from political leaders or intelligence pund However, there is general thankfulness America is not more heavily involved.
Mr Nixon to date has been playing mugwump, as I have said. There has nothing in his behaviour to date which eludes him from giving a repeat perform of his 'genocide' speech at any time chooses, or whenever events in West Af seem to call for a new approach. If he ;5 to do this, and to couple it with a deterrni relief initiative and also with the sort denunciation of all arms suppliers which have already heard from M Naville, of International Red Cross, it would have interesting results. In the first place, he w have made the greatest contribution in power to settling the murderous war. In second place, he would have finally totally destroyed any claim to a higher s dard of morality which might have been forward in the past, or might be put for* in the future, by the British Labour Readers might suppose that this is fanc but I have noticed one thing at least in W ington—that President Nixon has very time indeed for socialists, or even for wholike to pose as socialists:
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