A Talk with James Callaghan

...But they seem to have had a different impact on German opinion, a feeling that perhaps the United States might want to be ready to fight a nuclear war without sacrificing American cities—the very converse of what Schmidt had in mind...

...Do you believe that, in the long run, Western Europe will be united politically and economically...

...Callaghan: I hope so, but I think it will be a long run...

...Callaghan: Oh, certainly...

...That complicated the special problem of Cyprus...

...I think there is a growing recognition that a fresh assessment of the interests of our countries will be made by this coming generation, which is not bound together by the ties that bound us as a result of our wartime and postwar experiences...

...I assume what he meant is that his people thought everything in Britain was luxurious and lush, and there was plenty for everybody...

...I would hope for a change in American policy in Central America, but we in Europe don't really want changes with every change in administration...

...Before they visit England they believe even the fences are made of sausages...

...At the same time, there are enough of us with long memories, who are anxious to preserve the Alliance and the relationship between Europe and America, to prevent any disastrous step from being taken...

...I think he is right...

...It's a long time since the days of the Marshall Plan, but it was quite apparent then that the Soviet Union felt threatened by the possibility of links between Eastern European countries and the West...

...It may be that our concentrating on economic relations among us is the wrong approach...

...The answer will depend on the state of international relations...

...Callaghan: I don't think we should attach either description to the situation...

...I guess, however, that the Soviet Union is not going to take the United States position seriously until the Presidential election is over...

...I would guess that in this country, if they were really put to it, the great majority of British people would say they want a very close relationship with the United States...

...Chernenko is clearly a provisional figure...

...We were kicked around when we were world leaders...

...Economically, it's going to be very difficult...

...Q: There has been much criticism in the United States of the United Nations, a feeling that the world body is particularly critical of the United States and overly indulgent when it comes to transgressions by the Soviet Union...

...But I think one of the consequences of the installation of cruise and Pershing missiles has been to awaken people even more than they were before, at least in the West, to the horrors of nuclear war...

...If you look at Britain, [Prime Minister Margaret] Thatcher really isn't of the wartime generation, nor is [Labor Party Leader] Neil Kinnock, nor is [Liberal Party Leader] David Steel...

...The German people and German politicians are now much more concerned about the possibility of a war being fought with these weapons on their soil, from which America would perhaps be detached...

...As for [Konstantin] Chernenko, he is probably the last Party Secretary from what I would call the generation with wartime experience...

...Callaghan, there have + been two major develop-^ ments bearing on East-West relations in recent months—the installation of American missiles in Western Europe, and the emergence of a new leader in the Kremlin...

...It has surely been developing over the last decade and a half...

...We must not give up...

...Janos] Kadar in Hungary has encouraged his people for many years to travel abroad...

...The United Nations is the one forum we have in the world...

...When they decide the terms under which they will live together, then there will be a solution...

...It is an inevitable consequence of the United States' position as a world power...

...Q: Could anything be done by the West to prepare the way, so that a Soviet Leadership lacking memories of World War II would not be inclined to be trigger happy...

...Q: Mr...

...We all know that because of the American election scene, there is little that will be done in this area...

...Q: To what extent do you believe the Soviet Union would allow this...

...American attention, including the attention of the Secretary of State, was so focused on the constitutional issues raised by President Nixon's resignation that we missed opportunities in Cyprus —not of resolving the dispute between the Greeks and the Turks, that has been going on for too long, but of preventing the Turkish invasion...

...On the other hand, [Gary] Hart clearly is not and [Walter] Mondale is somewhere in between...

...Europe must come together...

...The baton is being taken from our nerveless hands...

...Callaghan, is it really true that the American Presidential election campaign every four years distorts international problems...

...In that the American leaders may be reflecting the true views of the American people, it only goes to show how necessary it is that there be far greater exchanges or contacts than there have been to date...

...I'm talking about a growing identity of interests and culture between our countries...

...The solution to the problems of Northern Ireland will not come from Britain or the United States or any outside agency...

...Yet certainly because of the constitutional difficulties in the United States at that time, Cyprus did not receive the full attention it would otherwise have gotten...

...May I ask if you would like to see any fundamental change in American foreign policy...

...That, too, is a new factor in the fresh assessment of relationships that will be made on several levels—European-American, European-Soviet Union, nato-Soviet Union, American-Soviet Union...

...Callaghan: I would not resist any disinterested offer of help in the affairs of Northern Ireland...

...Is this a matter of concern or relief to a European...

...We must deepen these links all the way round...

...Though events are moving on, I think the American election process, with its long, long life, means there won't be any major developments before January, or certainly November or December, depending on who is elected...

...This time, however, I think the campaign does, because there are problems that are simmering and could reach a boil and no action will be taken...

...We've had [Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei] Gromyko's deputy, Georgy Kornienko, visiting us here recently...

...That would give an inconsistency to American foreign policy that would be very dangerous...

...Q: I know it is improper to ask you who you favor in the American Presidential election race...

...I suspect that would go for other countries in Europe as well...

...But I must warn anyone who has that idea that he's likely to get his fingers burned...

...Europe is struggling to be born at the moment, and it is a very painful birth...

...How did it complicate your problems...

...So although there will be difficulties, I think they will not be fatal in any sense...

...The growing interdependence of the world demands that there should be such a forum...

...We have to struggle to make these institutions work to the best of our ability...

...Not in any way to separate them from the Soviet Union, if that is the course they wish to follow, nor to lessen the security of the Soviet Union...

...As regards East-West relations, the cruise and Pershings have made life more difficult because the Soviet Union has walked out of negotiations of all kinds—although they've come back now to the Mutual Balanced Force Reduction negotiations and there will probably be a resumption of negotiations along the start lines in the not too distant future...

...Europe has a common heritage...

...If there is a period of detente, hard-headed detente without illusions, I can see contacts growing that would benefit all of us...

...It hasn't yet entirely passed...

...Callaghan: It is vitally important for the West to encourage maximum contacts and links with the leaders of the Soviet Union in every field—political, economic, cultural—so they can see the West and judge our true intentions...

...Former Chancellor] Helmut Schmidt was always in favor of the weapons coming as part of the dual track defense system, on the grounds that they would attach the United States more closely to Europe...

...Q America has been show-+ ing great interest in the ^ Far East at the expense of its traditional involvement in Europe...

...Callaghan: I don't think I would use the word "loggerheads...

...But events are not standing still...

...I think he was wisely and shrewdly indicating that people get a better balanced idea of what our countries are like when they're free to travel...

...Whether he is succeeded by Mikhail Gorbachev, or even Grigory Romanov—who of course headed the Party in Leningrad—or whoever, it will be a different set of hands...

...It is not possible that we should continue in isolation from each other...

...A lot that goes on there is not very valuable...

...That would be wrong, and I do not believe the Administration in Washington would take such a course...

...What the new generation will do, on either side, is a matter for speculation...

...I was always comforted by the fact that no Soviet leader I spoke to in my contacts over many years had any intention ever of fighting a nuclear war...

...It will come only from the people of Northern Ireland themselves...

...Callaghan: The installation of cruise and Pershing missiles has altered more the nature of the debate between the United States and Europe, especially between the United States and Germany...

...Where I would like to see a greater advancement is in relations with the Eastern European countries...

...We must accept and acknowledge that responsibility, and carry it out no matter what irritations we may have to suffer in the process...

...The Soviet leadership will pass into the hands of a postwar generation, just as in the United States and Europe...

...I am not a pessimist about the future of the Alliance, at least from a European point of view, though I am fairly clear in my mind that the United States seems to be taking a more detached view than it has done since the end of the War...

...Q: Senator Hart has suggested that the United States might play a useful role in seeking a solution to the problems in Northern Ireland...

...I would hope the rhetoric would change, whoever is elected—it has, I think, begun to change already—and that there would be more understanding of the Soviet Union than seems to have been shown...

...LOOKING TO THE NEW GENERATION A Talk with James Callaghan BY NORMAN GELB The following interview with former British Prime Minister James Callaghan (see "Between Issues, "page 2) was conducted in his office at the House of Commons by The New Leader'sLon-don correspondent, Norman Gelb...

...Still, it is the place where all the countries meet...

...Callaghan: My major recollection is of the change of Presidents from Richard Nixon to Gerald Ford...

...Not until then...

...Callaghan: Not in the basic policy as regards East-West relations...

...Is this a harbinger of something nasty lurking around the corner for the NATO Alliance...

...It's one of these traumas we go through every four years...

...I myself broke the ice during the Korean airliner affair by visiting Moscow and seeing Gromyko for a very important and useful conversation...

...It is the fate of every world leader to suffer this...

...How have they altered the pace or direction of East-West dealings...

...As for the election when President Carter was elected and President Ford bowed out, no, I can't say it made any great difference...

...There is a further point: Although we may not like a lot that the Third World does—and the United States may feel that particularly hard—we need always to recall that we have a responsibility for our fellow men and women in the Third World who do not have the great advantages we have had...

...If there is a lack of understanding then, yes, it could mean real trouble...

...What I do not want to see is suggestions that America will withdraw troops from Europe as a form of punishment because Europe is failing to do this or that which U. S. policy demands...

...I would like to think that in a more relaxed international atmosphere, it would be possible to develop these kinds of contacts...

...The East European countries have a culture, a history and a background they share as much with Western Europe as with the Soviet Union...

...Politically, in some ways, it will be a little more easy to achieve coordination, though perhaps not unity...

...I remember him saying to me once, "I have no difficulty in allowing people to go abroad...

...I hope that is what will happen...

...You must bear the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with as much equanimity as you can muster...

...So we're handing over now...

...Q: You were of course Prime Minister during the 1976 election campaign in America...

...We must use it to the best of our ability...

...Would the Soviet Union permit that...

...That is also true in Lebanon and Cyprus...

...If that means Europe has to stand on its own feet more, that ought to be a good thing and something we should certainly not complain about...

...Foreign Secretary] Sir Geoffrey Howe has announced he is going to Moscow in July...

...I was convinced with [Leonid] Brezhnev and with others that, because of their experiences during the last War, there was no prospect of their launching a major European war again...

...Therefore, I would like to see closer ties between us...

...The same, I think, is true in the case of negotiations with the Soviet Union...

...Q: The European Community is going through a very testing time...

...Whether we could have, I don't know...

...Henry Kissinger has suggested Europe should play a greater role in its own defense...

...Callaghan: I'm not talking about formal constitutional links...

...Indeed, if we make the fresh assessment which I believe is now called for, that would help strengthen the relationship between Europe and the United States...

...Perhaps we in Europe should have concentrated on the political links and political attitudes that we share...

...After all, the British were kicked around, partly in the United Nations and before that in the League of Nations, and before that in other world forums...

...What are your feelings about the UN...

...I regret that some of the rhetoric we've listened to over the past two or three years must have given Soviet leaders a false view of the real attitude of the people in the West, and probably a false impression of some of the Western leaders...

...If it didn't exist, we would have to create it...

...I assume the American leadership is ready to do so...

...Do you believe the United States, or anybody else outside the United Kingdom, might be able to help find a solution to the Ulster troubles...

...But Europe is one...

...Q: As you have already suggested, Western Europe and the United States are at loggerheads about certain policies and actions and sometimes about certain inactions...

...QMr...

...President Reagan is wartime...

...the U. S. is bound to have relationships of a very important character with countries other than those in Europe...

...Callaghan: Logically, I think the American public opinion's view is understandable...

...They are moving on whilst the election halts progress in discussions...

...I think political coordination is coming about now...

...But when the United States has been a leader of the world for a little longer, it will accept this as inevitable...

...I refer especially to the Arab-Israel problem, where King Hussein's impatience has clearly come to the surface...