The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990 Read online

  Monday 21 April

  In the evening I went to the London Chamber of Commerce banquet at the Mansion House for the International Chemical and Petroleum Exhibition. The first man I spoke to, who was from IPC, was criticising unofficial strikers and praising Barbara’s Bill.

  When I said to him, ‘You look very brown, have you been away?’ he said, ‘I have just been to Majorca for two weeks but it was absolutely spoilt for me by all the Jews there.’

  So that finished me. The sight of all these businessmen with their medals, sitting in that extraordinary Mansion House Banqueting Hall, just made me think that nothing at all had changed in one hundred years. Fortunately my speech was a summary of all that was wrong with British industry from 1850 onwards. It didn’t go down very well but it was exactly what needed to be said.

  Saturday 3 May

  Melissa was on the ‘Braden Show’ and was asked about families she saw in television programmes. She said that they were very untypical because, ‘we are just indifferent about our parents, we don’t get excited about them because we know we have to accept them’, and ‘you never see people going to the lavatory on television’. All in all it was hilarious.

  Thursday 8 May

  A remarkable Cabinet. Jim got in again on the Industrial Relations Bill and more or less made an open challenge to Harold’s leadership. Harold had been fiddling around with the constitutional issues raised by Douglas Houghton’s speech yesterday in which Douglas Houghton warned the Government not to go on with the legislation, or else face the possibility of a parliamentary defeat.

  Harold is a very small-minded man, he always gets to the least important part of the issue, suggesting ways of downing the Tories or embarrassing Heath or putting Harry Nicholas in his place, when events call for a higher degree of statesmanship. But the really significant thing was that Jim said that he thought that we had no chance of sinking or swimming and it was now a case of ‘sink or sink’.

  In the course of this discussion I absolutely went for Harold and said that what depressed me most was this view that we were utterly defeated. This was half our trouble. The Cabinet never discussed anything seriously, we were still tied up as if we were civil servants, calling each other by our official names, and I knocked Harold for six. He said we would have to discuss it later and it would come up again under the question of tomorrow’s joint meeting with the National Executive.

  Then we came on to Rhodesia and we killed the letter that was to be sent to Smith, who had overnight made a speech saying the whites would be in charge for a hundred years. So Barbara carried the day on that.

  Monday 12 May

  To the National Executive Home Policy Committee. Work was quite impossible because George Brown was totally drunk and Frank Allaun rebuked him for attacking Terry Pitt. The whole thing was a waste of time.

  I rang Harold about my trip to Russia tomorrow. I told him that Michael Stewart had given me a very frosty interview, telling me to keep off politics, and I hoped I would do better than that, and did he have a message for Kosygin? He said yes, and then before giving me the message he asked, ‘Is there anyone on the line?’ and one of his Private Secretaries answered, so I knew the discussion was monitored, which was a comfort to me because, of course, what he said was totally contrary to what Michael Stewart had told me.

  Harold wanted me to send his warmest greetings to Kosygin and to tell him that ‘although we had had a difficult year, for reasons which we all understood’ (referring to the invasion of Czechoslovakia), he now wanted the best possible relations. He told me to welcome the Soviet initiative in the Middle East and hoped we could make progress on it, and also hoped that in the new situation in Europe following the resignation of de Gaulle, the Russians would see the value of their links with Britain.

  He asked me to remind Kosygin that when he had been at Chequers, Harold had told him that our membership of the EEC had as one of its objectives the containment of Germany within a wider community. This was all the more necessary now. I was also to tell Kosygin how much he still regretted the fact that the work they had done together on the Vietnam peace initiative in Chequers in 1967 had not come off.

  Being in a position to pass on this message has put a completely new complexion on my desire to see Kosygin, which Michael Stewart was so much against. Harold said I should give this message to the Russians as soon as I arrived and asked for fifteen minutes with Kosygin and that I would probably get an hour.

  Tuesday 13 May

  A brief stop at Helsinki, and we picked up a Russian navigating guide and we got to Moscow at 10.15 pm (Moscow time), where we were met by Gvishiani and Kirillin himself, our interpreter Madame Santalova, the Ambassador, Sir Duncan Wilson, other Embassy staff and by Harry Slater and Cecil Timms, the head of Machine Tools who had gone on ahead of us.

  Wednesday 14 May – Visit to USSR

  At 10 I went to the State Committee and just before we began our discussion, Kirillin took me aside and said that Kosygin wanted to see me in the Kremlin at 12.

  I told the Ambassador and this inevitably curtailed the morning meeting. At Solly Zuckerman’s suggestion I also wrote out, on a piece of paper, what Harold Wilson had said to me and gave it to the Ambassador so that he would have something before him to set against Michael Stewart’s guidance that I shouldn’t talk to anybody about anything interesting.

  At 11.45 we left the State Committee office and went to the Kremlin. There was a very modest entrance and a little lift. We went up two floors into a sort of waiting hall and then along a long corridor and turned left along another corridor, all on the inside of a quadrangle. There was a door marked ‘Kosygin’ in gold lettering on black glass, characteristically Russian. Inside were the Private Secretaries and press and television.

  I had taken Duncan Wilson, Solly and Ivor Manley with me and the inner door opened and there was Kosygin at the end of a long table. He walked towards me and we shook hands warmly. Then we sat down at the far end of this long table, with him facing me and the interpreter in the middle, next to me the Ambassador and then Solly Zuckerman and Ivor Manley. On Kosygin’s side were Kirillin and Makiev from the Soviet Foreign Ministry and his Private Secretary.

  Kosygin greeted me again while we were filmed for television. Then he started. He said that the technological agreement was going very well and that he was satisfied with it, as was Kirillin. Kosygin then reminded me that the Five-Year Plan was being approved next year, and that there was a lot of argument going on about what should and shouldn’t be bought and he rather indicated that this was a factor we ought to keep in mind if we expected to boost our sales in the USSR.

  Then he expressed considerable interest in atomic energy matters, saying that he had sent somebody to America who had come back and reported that the Americans were making good progress on this. He said he thought there might be scope for co-operation in this field in return for which we would get nuclear fuel.

  I later discovered that this included enriched uranium as an offer, as well as natural uranium. So this was an indication that they might be interested in trying to provide an alternative source, other than the Americans or the new centrifuge plan, of enriched uranium for us.

  After he had talked about the pollution of rivers in Russia I got in and conveyed Harold Wilson’s greetings. I reminded Kosygin of the visit that he and I had paid together to Elliot-Automation in 1967 and I stressed our link with long-term trade and planning, referring to a speech which he had made on this subject when he was in London.

  I moved on to fast reactors. I told him how very advanced we were in this field and how we had generated more nuclear power than the rest of the world put together, including the USA: our fast reactor would be on stream in 1970/71. He was evidently impressed.

  Then we came on to the monetary situation and the behaviour of Germany. I said that the EEC provided an opportunity for us to supervise the Germans and I drew a parallel between this and the centrifuge arrangement with the Germans, where we we
re also supervising their work.

  Kosygin didn’t take up the question of the centrifuge although no doubt it registered in his mind. He did say that it wasn’t just a matter of supervising the Germans, it was a matter of controlling the Germans and he greatly wished that we had co-operated on that many years ago.

  I then congratulated Kosygin, in accordance with Harold’s suggestion, on the initiative taken by the Soviet Government in the Middle East. Kosygin nodded his acknowledgement and replied that he wished that Britain was not so dependent on other parties who exercised a negative attitude, which I took to be a reference to the Americans.

  He then went on to say that he would like to see the Prime Minister in Moscow in June or July for a day or two for talks ‘on matters of common interest’. This proposal immediately gave a certain hardness to the talk with Kosygin and enabled me to bring something back to London. Indeed it involved an immediate cable to London.

  I said I would convey this invitation and said that the Prime Minister had made it clear that he knew that we, that is the British and Russians, had had a difficult year ‘for reasons you will understand’, but that he hoped for the best possible relations. To which Kosygin answered, ‘We do not understand the reasons why we have had a difficult year but we would greatly welcome the Prime Minister in Moscow’, and he repeated the invitation to Harold again when I said goodbye to him.

  It was a very friendly meeting lasting for forty minutes and I had got across all the things that Harold had asked me to say. I was also reminded of what a very competent manager Kosygin is.

  I went straight back in the car to the Embassy, drafted a telegram to the Prime Minister to be sent FLASH PERSONAL. Just as I left the Embassy a message came from Makiev, specially asking that ‘I shouldn’t make known one particular part’ of Kosygin’s proposals. This was obviously a reference to the invitation to Wilson and as I had no intention of making it public myself, because it would tie Harold’s hands, there was no problem.

  At 1.15 I went to lunch in the Kremlin and sat next but one to Miznick from Gosplan. He asked after Melissa, which warmed my heart to him. Elyutin, the Minister of Higher Education, was next to me.

  I took the opportunity, since I was near Elyutin, of asking about their special schools. He said that about 1 per cent of the children in the Soviet Union went to the special schools and they were reserved for the most gifted children. ‘However,’ said Elyutin, repeating his observation of two years ago, ‘I am very sceptical about special schools for gifted children, because I think they are really for the children of gifted parents.’

  He said that they had been doing some tests on the amount of knowledge that was retained and after one year’s gap 50 to 80 per cent of what had been taught at school had been forgotten, which was very worrying. On specialisation he said that there was absolutely no specialisaion at schools, except in the special schools, right up to university level.

  Miznick told me that Kosygin had laid on a computer course for the top 200 people in the Soviet Government, including Ministers, Deputy Ministers, the chairmen of the State Committees and that, on a Tuesday and Friday in April, for three consecutive weeks, there had been ten lectures on the academic, hardware and application aspects of computers. I was impressed at this example of the professionalism of the Soviet Government. One of the most interesting things was that Kosygin had attended most of these lectures himself.

  Thursday 15 May

  Dinner at the Embassy. I tried to talk to Kozyrev, the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, about the centrifuge. They were reasonably relaxed about it, although they clearly thought it was part of the British tactic to bribe the West Germans to let us into the Common Market. They raised the Non-Proliferation Treaty issue and German power.

  I just slogged it out by arguing our case. I stressed the importance of Anglo–Soviet links in the post-de Gaulle situation when the new Germany was getting very powerful, while France was rather weak and I thought that the Russians and ourselves ought to keep fairly close.

  After the guests left, we went into the Embassy security ‘Cage’ at 10.30, and sent off telegrams about the Nuclear Policy Committee and the centrifuge. The Defence Department are being very difficult about the ‘special relationship’ and feel that our readiness to make our nuclear technology available to the Dutch and the Germans is likely to cause trouble with the Americans. A special memorandum is being written containing the whole nature of the Anglo–American nuclear relationship, and this is going to be submitted by the Foreign Secretary, who is also submitting my paper in my absence. It really is a very important meeting.

  At 11.30 we went to the station to catch the Red Arrow, one of the marvellous trains still left in the world, to Leningrad.

  Saturday 17 May

  From 6.30 to 7.45, we went on a car tour of Leningrad in the rain, and I took a lot of movies.

  In the evening we had dinner at the hotel with the Ambassador. I had a talk to Lady Wilson, who is an intelligent woman, about security and she said there was someone in the British Embassy who reports on them to the Russians and it was very unpleasant.

  She said that anyone who has an affair, whether it’s with a Russian or anyone else, is sent home at once, and that when she and the Ambassador had arrived, a couple of typists had been having affairs with diplomats from other embassies and had been sent back. It was known of course that people rather higher up also had affairs, and there was a feeling of discontent that the junior people should be picked on to return to London.

  Sunday 18 May

  We had a bite to eat in the Embassy, which Lady Wilson had provided, just cheese and apples and coffee, and at 10.30, Derek Moon, Ivor Manley, Ieuan Maddock and I walked in Red Square, then went back to the hotel where I found a radio, a gift from Kosygin and Gvishiani. I played it a bit, packed and went to bed.

  Tuesday 20 May

  I had a mug of tea made with my little boiler, which I plugged in to the shaver socket. This has made life tolerable this week.

  At the airport I bought a few presents and had my last talk with Gvishiani, who had come to see me off, along with Kirillin, Madame Santalova, and the Ambassador. Then I thanked Gvishiani for the radio and he said, ‘We know you listen to the radio a lot,’ and with this inadvertent admission that my room was bugged, he added rather hurriedly, ‘We remembered that you told us that you listen to the radio a great deal.’

  The only other example of bugging that occurred while I was there was that the Ambassador had complained to his wife about the room which they had been given in the Astoria in Leningrad, and they received an apology the following morning.

  Kirillin and Gvishiani examined the aircraft and we waved goodbye at 9.15 am and left for London.

  There was a late night sitting and the Chief Whip wouldn’t let me off, so I didn’t get home until after midnight I saw Caroline and the children and gave them their presents, including a balalaika for Stephen.

  Tuesday 17 June

  Our twentieth wedding anniversary, a day altogether spoiled for Caroline by the fact that she heard this morning that her mother had got cancer and was shortly going into hospital for treatment She didn’t tell me this all day and even in the evening when we had dinner together in the Post Office Tower she didn’t want me to know it and only told me very much later, when we got home.

  I went back to the office after Cabinet and had a meeting with UCS: Hepper and his people from Scotland told me that they were, after all, going to liquidate the following morning and I had at this stage absolutely no authority to prevent them from doing so. So I just listened very carefully and asked them to keep in touch with me.

  There was a further Cabinet on industrial relations, which went on and on. Harold and Barbara became extremely bitter. Harold threatened to resign several times and said he wouldn’t do what the Cabinet wanted him to do and they would have to look for a new leader, and so on; people were completely unmoved by it. His bluff was called and he just looked weak and petty, he spoke
too much, he interrupted, he was angry. Barbara was frantic in the usual Barbara sort of way. In the end he said he would meet with the TUC tomorrow and he would tell them what he thought, do what he thought necessary, and the Cabinet would either have to uphold him or repudiate him. That was how it was left.

  It was a very, very tense meeting and Harold and Barbara had evidently taken the future into their own hands, relying on the fact that we couldn’t get rid of them. But I’m not sure that if it had come to a choice between Harold and Barbara and the survival of the Labour Movement and Government, people would not let them go; and I think Harold knew that and that was why he was so angry. But he did emerge as a small man with no sense of history and as somebody really without leadership qualities. My opinion of Harold Wilson, if I haven’t set it down in my diary recently, is very low indeed.

  Wednesday 18 June

  Cabinet was postponed and postponed and postponed, awaiting the outcome of Harold’s negotiations with the TUC. We finally met at 5.50 pm. I went to see Peter beforehand, having told him that I knew Harold would climb down: and Harold and Barbara climbed off the hook and announced that they had found a settlement. Harold said that he told the TUC he had rejected their Letter and that if his demands weren’t accepted, a Bill on penal sanctions would be introduced. He proposed that a solemn and binding agreement requiring unions to carry out this new arrangement should be taken by them and would have the same force as the ‘Bridlington’ Agreement of 1939 which regulated inter-union relationships.

  He then went on to describe what a triumph he’d had, that it was a tremendous success. Judith Hart very foolishly suggested that there should be a dinner in honour of Harold and Barbara, which didn’t go down very well because Harold was furious with Judith for not supporting him, and the rest of the Cabinet saw it as a complete climbdown. Harold was truculent; he had pulled it off again and this was his great achievement and nobody really felt disposed to disagree with him at that particular moment. He went and announced the settlement with the TUC at the Party meeting which of course was popular because it meant the end of the penal sanctions.