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Owen — Back in the Eye of the Storm

Derek Ingram writes from London
TO the public David Owen in Britain's most exasperating, most irresistibly charming politician. To Whitehall officials he is the kind of brusque, intellectually bright master they are not comfortable with. To many political colleagues he is an awkward player they would rather not have in their team.
After a short time in the wilderness he is back where he likes best to be — up there tn the international arena taking on a tough assignment. He has succeeded Lord Carrington as chief negotiator for the European Community on
The careers of the two men. so different In style and background, have crisscrossed. David Owen found himself Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary on the sudden death of Anthony Crosland in 1977. Carrington succeeded him a little more than- two years later.
Owen had been Crosland s No 2 in the Labour government of James Callaghan. Carrington took over as Secretary of Stale when Margaret Thatcher began her 11-year run at the Ten Downing Street In 1979.
His priority then was to get Rhodesia off Britain ^ back, to end the long civil war and hand over to a majority government.
Owen had put enormous energy Into that problem, but his initiatives had run into the sand, mainly because the ingredients for peace in the region were still not to hand. Owen and Andrew Young, President Jimmy Carter's man at the UN. had worked out a peace plan and pedalled it round Africa.
They made much progress, but in the end the initiative ran into the sand. Owen's style did not always go down well with African leaders, and Ian Smith was his old slippery self.
When Carrington moved in the Owen-Young proposals were taken off the Foreign Office shelf, dusted down and became the basis of the Lancaster House settlement that led to peace and the independence of Zimbabwe In 1980. Carrington took great credit for that and the skill with which he handled the situation should not be underestimated.
But Owen's success in first breaking the Rhodesia logjam two years earlier, was forgot -
ten, and Carrington and the Tories had no wish to admit the key role a Labour Foreign Secretary had played. Owen was always on the right of his party, and when Labour made Michael Foot leader and veered Increasingly to the left he walked out and formed a new party. He was always his own man and he deplored what he called 'smudge and mudge ' But leaving Labour was probably a fatal mistake.
In due course the party moved into the centre ground Owen had wanted it to occupy If he had stayed and fought from within the party Labour might have returned to power many years ago and Owen might eventually have become prime minister. Instead, his Social Democratic Party collapsed — many say because he was an impossible colleague —
and at the last election he did not stand.
He went to the House of Lords as Lord Owen and began to search for a new role. Although those who had followed him to the false dawn of democratic socialism felt let down by Owen, he often remained the voice of common sense. His actions may have annoyed the voters, but what he said did not.
Whether on domestic Issues like the future of the health service and national defence or on the future of the Economic Community or the breakup of the Soviet Union. Owen has always had the knack of winning a favourable public reaction.
It Is not just the attractive way in which he always puts over his views, but people tend to feel he articulates what they
are thinking and that he seems to be talking common sense.
He was always listened to with respect In the House of Commons, and his outspokenness has sometimes moved dithering politicians Into decisions. When a few weeks ago restlessness was growing in Britain that the West Europeans were being slow to act on Yugoslavia he advocated force against the Serbs.
His remarks stirred the pressure for action, but did not help when Britain put forward his name to the European Commission to succeed Lord Carrington as chief negotiator. Prime Minister John Major, currently In the .EC chair, had to persuade the other eleven countries that the former Labour minister was the right man for the job.
Whether he can make more
headway than I.ord Carrington found possible to achieve no one can tell The shoe is now on the other foot Where once Carrington picked up Owen s groundwork on Rhodesia Owen now finds himself picking up Carrington’s on Yugoslavia And at his side Is Cyrus Vance, who as Carters Secretary of State, was his opposite number In Washington when they were working on Rhodesia.
Oix thing is certain. No oi" will brief himself better on the Balkan situation than Dam I Owen.
In Whitehall officials at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will view hts return to their spheres f operations with mixed feelings. As Foreign Secretary he was not popular with them.
He was sharp-tongued, some would say bullying, and he did not always take their advice. He shook up their routine and in 1979 they were glad to see the back of him. The patrician Carrington was much more to their taste.
Some years after Owen had left, however, officials began to speak rather differently. They admitted that Owen always did his homework thoroughly, lie was regularly in the office early and left late and knew exactly what was in his papers.
Owen admits now that as Britain's youngest Foreign Secretary, promoted straight into the Cabinet to hold one of the three great offices of state, he was in those days rather brash.
Now, having been through a log political fire, he is already at 54 being talked of as a statesman. A new career as international trouble-shooter seems to beckon.
Derek Ingram is Editor of Gemini News Service.