Notebook
Unlike the editor of the New Statesman, I did not refuse the invitation to lunch last Week with Richard Nixon. Mr Nixon may be a villain, but he is an interesting villain. And I have no objection to lunching with interesting villains. However, it was lucky that Mr Bruce Page of the New Statesman did not attend. He For would, I fear, have suffered most dreadfully. the deference shown to the former President bordered on the insane. The principal offenders were our two hosts, Lord Longford and Sir Charles Forte (who Provided, may I say, an uncharacteristically delicious lunch at the best of his many establishments, the Hyde Park Hyde Park Hotel). Lord Longford, of course, is capable of almost anything, but he still has the ability to surprise. He did so on this occasion by quoting Kipling: If'you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on You.
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too . 11-..ord Longford regarded these lines as particularly applic,able to Mr Nixon. But for Sheer inappropriateness, Sir Charles's Speech was even better. The attendance at the luncheon, he said, was an indication of the 'love still felt in London towards the ex-president. As it is, one of the most _notable attributes of Mr Nixon is his inability to inspire love. Even his warmest admirers do not love him. For Sir Charles to l_ntexpret one's acceptance of his kind invitation to lunch as a sign of love gave me a very odd sensation — almost as odd as when Chapman Pincher, rising to ask a ques!ion, declared that it was 'a privilege to break bread' with such a great man. The ossible reasons for the adulation shown towards Mr Nixon during his visit to England have been explored most interestingly the Sunday Telegraph by Mr Peregrine i'lvorsthorne. I think it is just the emPtYjaded wetness of most `118lishmen modern Which responds admiringly to _a Man with such single-minded ambition °Ind truly amazing powers of survival. Spain of d_ much has so recently chosen the path ern „s_rocracy, is on the way to becoming a 10 re liberal country than ours. The new cv_nstitution. on which Spaniards have been hu_ting this week, contains a provision that it, an shall be forced to join a trade union. 17 Vanish trade unions will not be allowed Pursue the sort of vendetta which the National Union of Dyers, Bleachers and Textile Workers has pursued here against the unfortunate Mr Joseph Thompson. Readers may recall that Mr Thompson was sacked from his job under a closed shop agreement because he had worked briefly fifteen years ago for another firm that was 'blacked' by his union. And the National Union of Dyers, Bleachers and Textile Workers is an organisation of such notorious moderation that it might well deserve some sort of award from the CI31. But before apportioning the blame for this grotesque piece of victimisation, one is called upon to hesitate. Closed shop agreements are not sought only by the unions. They are often welcomed by employers, who like to deal with strong unions which can impose their will on their members. After all, this is precisely what Times Newspapers is seeking at the moment — an arrangement by which the unions will discipline the workers and prevent unofficial disruption of its newspapers.
The half-heartedness of the strike by provincial journalists only shows once again the virtues of holding a proper secret ballot before a strike is called. The NUJ leaders boasted of having secured a 4-to-1 ballot for a strike. But the only votes actually taken by their branches were to support 'sanctions' — a jargon word like 'industrial action' now much in vogue to describe all sorts of mischief — and to give the leadership authority to call a strike when it considered the time was ripe. This is little more than the usual declaration of loyalty to the leadership — a very different thing from a specific vote to strike now. A truer indication of feeling within the branches might be gathered from the messages they sent to HO —40 against a strike, 25 for. Inside the leadership, chaos reigned as usual. The crucial vote on the NUJ executive was not, as reported in the press, the 14-7 vote to strike but the earlier 12-11 vote not to give 28 days notice before striking. Unfortunately, one of the 12 voted the way he did because he was against all strikes on principle, failing to grasp that if the strike was postponed, it might well never happen. The old combination of muddle and Trotskyists just carried the day.
If Dutch justice is not yet among the derogatory 'Dutch' expressions in which the English language rather unfairly abounds, it is perhaps time that it should be. The millionaire art collector and ex-Nazi Pieter Menten, who was sentenced only a year ago to fifteen years in prison for involvement in the murder of twenty-eight Polish Jews in 1941. has been set free in circumstances that are extremely disturbing. For many years his wealth and his connections seemed to inhibit the Dutch authorities, who showed great reluctance to prosecute. But when finally they did so, mainly because of the persistence of a relative of some of his victims, it was claimed that he had been granted a mysterious immunity from prosecution by the Dutch Minister of Justice in 1952. Why ministers of justice should have the right to grant secret immunity to murderers I cannot imagine. Why this particular minister should have wished to grant it is yet stranger. It is said that Menten had information to incriminate Dutch resistance heroes who had illegally enriched themselves after the war. But whatever the reason, no proof of the existence of the immunity has been found. The alleged letter containing it has disappeared. And the loud-mouthed, unrepentant brute has gone free, having already spent most of his declining years not in prison but in the enjoyment of his probably ill-gotten fortune. He is seventy-nine years old and in poor health. A pardon might be in order. But to release him on such obscure and unsatisfactory grounds is surely an insult to his victims and a disgrace to Dutch justice.
Mr Callaghan, whose unshakeable smugness in the face of failure is on the point of becoming intolerable, clearly intends to remain Prime Minister for a very long time. But in his interview with Mr Kenneth Harris in last Sunday's Observer, he left it unclear whether he intends to carry on until he is 100, like Sir Robert Mayer, or merely into his eighties, like the Spectator's City correspondent, Nicholas Davenport. Both men were chosen by him as examples of the vitality in old age which he believes he will also enjoy. 'These are spiritually and mentally young men!' Mr Callaghan said. He is absolutely right. Nicholas Davenport's weekly column in the Spectator remains one of the liveliest and best written financial columns in the country, and he has been writing it now for twenty-five years. Long may he contine — much longer, I hope, than the Prime Minister.
Alexander Chancellor
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