Sir In my column (December 30th), in the context of stressed the importance of securing and maintaining the goodwill of our EU partners, I referred to my first meeting with Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in 1973 when, in response to his question as to what benefit the European Community would derive from Irish membership, I stressed our positive approach to European integration.
My light hearted comment that when I had finished responding to his question the Chancellor "bad become positively genial" has evoked from Senator Michael O'Kennedy (January 9th) a portentous response of heavy handed irony, denouncing what he describes as my "self laudatory account of the dramatic, if not miraculous, change brought about (by) one masterly presentation to him from Garret FitzGerald"
Were I writing to him directly, would say "Come off it, Michael" Did he really miss both the point I was making and the exclamation mark at the end of my comment?
And how on earth did he think he was helping his denunciation of me by his subsequent (self laudatory?) reference to the "special package of loans and grants (Chancellor Schmidt) agreed to at the launch of the FMS in 1979 during Michael O'Kennedy's period as Foreign Minister. Had he really forgotten that at a European Council meeting his Government actually turned down membership of the EMS, rejecting the aid offered by Chancellor Schmidt and President Giscard d'Estaing?
Or that, despite the fact that I was then Leader of the Opposition, in the national interest, privately and without the knowledge of my Party, I approached the French President to ask that an improved offer be made to Michael's Government to enable it to pull back from this negative stance without loss of face and that three days later the Franco German offer was in fact improved, and was then accepted by his Government?
Or that Jack Lynch, when I subsequently spoke to him on several occasions about this said, with his customary generosity, that he thought my intervention had been helpful. (See .411 In A Lc Ps. 343 344.)
Perhaps that wasn't the best example for Michael to choose of his Government's relationship with Chancellor Schmidt