A very private passion, or how Greece got into the EU

Some readers have queried my assertion in my last post that leaders put their personal political interests ahead of issues of “foreign policy” or “national interest.” I should have added that sometimes those personal interests can be very personal indeed. Alexander Hamilton, in propounding the thesis from which I take my inspiration (“Innumerable wars originate entirely in private passions; in the attachments, enmities, interests, hopes, and fears of leading individuals in the communities of which they are members”) cited as example how the Athenian leader Pericles started a war and destroyed a city as a favor to his girlfriend. (She was a brothel-owner seeking to settle scores with a business rival.)

As it so happens, my favorite example of a leader adopting a foreign policy for very personal reasons also concerns Greece, and sex. It came about in the following way. In the fall of 1976, James Callaghan, Prime Minister in a British Labour government, was facing trouble from his party’s left wing. They were demanding that Greece’s application to join the EU be expedited as rapidly as possible as a reward for the Greeks’ recent overthrow of the fascist regime that ruled their country for six years. The leftists planned to make vociferous demands to this effect at the party’s upcoming conference. Callaghan was eager to appease them, but he knew that the bureaucrats in Brussels were nixing the Greek application on grounds the country was an economic basket case and couldn’t possibly qualify. But then a ray of light appeared, in the person of Maurice Oldfield, the head of MI6, the secret intelligence service. He advised the prime minister that a call to French President Giscard D’Estaing, might yield dividends.

Callaghan was surprised to hear this, as the French foreign office had been firm on rejecting the Greeks, but nevertheless put in a call to Paris and requested Giscard’s help. To his astonishment, Giscard was effusive and grateful. “Of course, mon vieux, together we will tell those stupid bureaucrats,” he shouted. “Thank you, thank you!”

So it came to pass. With united pressure from the top in London and Paris, Greece’s application moved forward, detailed negotiations began, and Callaghan was able to appease Labour party leftists.

Happy but bewildered by the turn of events, Callaghan summoned Oldfield for an explanation. The spy-chief was happy to explain, albeit in roundabout terms: “It may be that a certain lady of Greek extraction has been denying the pleasures of a mistresses bed to a certain leader,” he murmured, “unless and until her country’s just requests were gratified.” In other words, Giscard’s greek girlfriend was refusing to sleep with him unless and until he did something about Greece’s EU entry.

I should add that this account, complete with dialogue, was given to me by a former very senior British intelligence official. Who was this patriotic lady? My lips are sealed.