Ceausescu’s Romania already reflected this in an advanced form, though for me and my party it was a matter of farce, not tragedy. I had already been told at the British Embassy how one of our diplomats, anxious to recruit a nanny for his young children and hazy about how to insert a suitable advertisement in a Romanian newspaper, decided that the simplest and most reliable method was to tell an astonished friend on the Embassy telephone of his urgent requirement. Sure enough, and without a blush, in the course of some discussion of a quite different subject a Romanian official suggested a candidate.
Richard Ryder and I were put up in the State Guest House. Interestingly, the sitting-room ceiling consisted of an open wooden grille, doubtless good for ventilation but possibly for other purposes too. I just could not make the television work when I wanted to listen to the news. Richard was no more successful. We were still struggling when a knock on the door announced the arrival of a member of the Guest House staff who helpfully put us right.
Even before this visit, I had few illusions about the oppressive nature of the regime. Whatever Western strategic interests might require, I was determined that the pressure should be kept up to improve respect for human rights, particularly when the ink was barely dry on the Helsinki Agreement. An expatriate Romanian group in Britain, knowing of my impending visit, sent me a list of five political prisoners, asking me to urge their release. I immediately agreed to do so. But somehow the Foreign Office got wind of this and sought determinedly to dissuade me on the grounds that it would alienate Ceausescu to no good purpose. A senior civil servant explained in person the deep unwisdom of my intention. I was not impressed. In Bucharest I gave the Romanians the list and said that these people were wrongly imprisoned and must be set free. I was glad to see that they subsequently were.
Undoubtedly, the most important foreign tour I made in 1975 — probably the most significant during my time as Leader of the Opposition — was to the United States in September. I already, of course, knew something of the States; and I liked and admired most of what I knew. This, however, was my first opportunity to meet all the leading political figures, and do so on something approaching equal terms. I was guaranteed plenty of media attention, if largely for the depressing reason that Britain’s stock had rarely fallen lower. American newspapers, magazines and television programmes were concentrating on the precipitous decline of the British economy, the advance of trade union power, the extension of the socialist state and what was perceived to be a collapse of national self-confidence. Aside from the schadenfreude, also evident was a nagging worry that America, itself suffering a deep but different crisis in the wake of the fall of Vietnam and the trauma of Watergate, might suffer the same fate.[47]
I had discussed the situation with Norman Lamont, an early supporter whose job with Rothschilds enabled him to keep me in touch with what was going on in the City and abroad, and who had just returned from the United States where he had spoken to politicians, officials and opinion-formers. I gained the impression, which proved accurate, that the Ford Administration’s confidence had started modestly to increase, which was giving them all the more opportunity to worry about what was happening in Britain. The Prime Minister, who had recently been in Washington, had done nothing to improve perceptions by claiming that all our difficulties were grossly exaggerated. Something different and more serious was expected. I resolved to provide it.
Gordon Reece flew on ahead of me to New York in order to set up the media arrangements. Just before I left London he telephoned to say that expectations of my visit were now so high that I should make the first speech I was to deliver — to the Institute of Socio-Economic Studies in New York — a blockbuster rather than, as planned, a low-key performance with the main speech coming later in Washington. This required frenzied last-minute speech-rewriting with Adam Ridley, and it showed in the text. Most of the speech struck exactly the right note. It began by taking head-on the American comments on the sorry state of contemporary Britain and treating them seriously. I then drew attention to what I called ‘the progressive consensus, the doctrine that the state should be active on many fronts in promoting equality: in the provision of social welfare and in the redistribution of wealth and incomes’. There followed a detailed analysis of its effects in the form of over-taxation, the discouragement of enterprise, the squeeze on profits, the defrauding of savers by inflation and negative interest rates and the apparently inexorable growth of the public sector and public spending.
Unfortunately, tacked on to the draft and, far more seriously, to the ‘final’ version issued to the press by Conservative Central Office was a passage about public expenditure constraints requiring tough, painful decisions such as limiting the number of kidney machines. Kidney machines were in fact already limited in number as part of the unacknowledged rationing of health treatment under Labour. Nevertheless, a frank statement of it — particularly in the form of a throwaway line — was asking for trouble. In the helter-skelter preparations Adam and I let it through. Luckily, when Gordon in New York saw a copy of the speech he immediately understood the potential damage and removed the offending part. All press releases are subject to the usually formal qualification ‘check against delivery’, so he was also able to ring round Fleet Street to tell the editors that the page in question, although part of the press release they had received from Central Office, was not being used and so should not be covered. They had sufficient respect for him to comply; and since the front page of the Sun had already provisionally been dominated by the headline ‘Let ‘em Die, Says Maggie’ before it was replaced with something blander, it was a narrow escape.
In fact, the main message of the speech was given maximum attention on both sides of the Atlantic. I was promptly attacked back home by the Labour Government for running Britain down abroad. In fact, the message I was bringing to America about Britain was essentially one of hope, namely that the nation’s potential was great enough to withstand even the effects of socialism. The criticism from the Foreign Secretary, Jim Callaghan, who quaintly criticized me later for putting ‘argumentative passages’ into my American speeches, found a faithful echo in the British Embassy where I was staying. A senior member of the Embassy staff briefed the American press against me. Gordon Reece quickly discovered what was happening, and there was a sharp exchange of letters on the subject between me and Jim Callaghan when I returned to England.
Aware of the attempt to try to cast me in this light, I used my speech to the National Press Club in Washington to point out that if the present socialist policies were abandoned, Britain had underlying strengths which would ensure its swift recovery. A shift of popular opinion against the far Left, the extent of our energy reserves and the strength of our scientific potential — shown by seventy-two Nobel Prizes, more than France, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium put together — all justified long-term optimism.
Now, slowly, we are finding our way. It is true that the reports about Britain still reflect a serious situation, and they are right to do so. But a change is coming over us… I see some signs that our people are ready to make the tough choice, to follow the harder road. We are still the same people who have fought for freedom, and won. The spirit of adventure, the inventiveness, the determination are still strands in our character. We may suffer from a British sickness now, but our constitution is sound and we have the heart and the will to win through.
47
Typical of the coverage was an article from the