.png)
.png)
Dom Mintoff | The Kissinger Cables
Malta’s ‘peppery and persuasive socialist prime minister’, as he was once described by anthropologist Jeremy Boissevain, was the big man of Maltese politics thanks to his redoubtable persona, deft negotiating skills, and political brinkmanship.
11 April 2013, 12:00am
Matthew Vella
Matthew Vella
2 min read
Dom Mintoff, 1972
Malta's 'peppery and persuasive socialist prime minister', as he was once described by anthropologist Jeremy Boissevain, was the big man of Maltese politics thanks to his redoubtable persona, deft negotiating skills, and political brinkmanship.
At the same time, the leader of the small island was putting Malta on the map, using his hard bargaining prowess to extract a satisfactory deal for the continued presence of NATO's sixth fleet, and carve himself a niche in world politics by bringing the Mediterranean dimension and Middle East conflict to bear on the Helsinki talks of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe.
His stormy relations with Western powers, and his flirting with Soviet satellites and emerging independent states within the Non-Aligned Movement, cemented Mintoff's position as the cantankerous leader of a 'juvenile' democratic state, eager to extract any form of financial support from any country that was willing to give it to Malta. But at the same time, as seen in some of these telegrams sent from the US embassy to the Department of State and to the US mission to NATO in Brussels, Mintoff's antics and boisterousness also nurtured a sense of ridicule.
While many of the telegrams in the run-up to Helsinki's final act of 1975 talk of Mintoff's delaying tactics, they also reveal how the Labour prime minister used his role in European politics to strengthen his relations with other Arab states.
The telegrams themselves are peppered with sardonic observations of Mintoff and his personal staff or his 'terrorised' civil service. The observations of US ambassador John Getz show Mintoff to be a man who enjoys working late at night, refuses to go by the rules, and is always angling for recognition of Malta's problems as an emerging independent country in development.
Reading the telegrams
The telegrams were sent on a near-daily basis to the US Department of State, where they sometimes received the attention of the office of Henry Kissinger, the US Secretary of State, or else that of Donald Rumsfeld, then the US permanent representative to NATO in Brussels. Every telegram bears the surname of their author, some of them embassy attaches, who would give a run-down of daily events. Most of them contain some observation of Mintoff and his closest aides.
Matthew Vella, a freelance journalist at MaltaToday, was formerly executive editor at Malt...
•
Ma qalux il-wikileaks li fl-15/10/1979 ministry fil-gvern tieghu kien qed jirkattah u qalghalu l-irvellijiet ta' dak inhar; li Dom Mintoff kellu ihalli bniedem innocenti u habib tieghu(infatti li kieku ma kienx ghal indhill personali tieghu, Lorry Sant ta ordni biex joqtluh f'Kastilja stess biex jinghalqu l-kotba)Karm Grima jigi iffrejmjat min l-avukar taghana stess; li wara l-elezzjoni tal-1980 l-Imhallef Lino Agius baghat lill-missieri, Karm Grima ghal ghomru Monte Carmeli fuq tlitt certifikati medici foloz u hu kien jaf x'se jigri bhalma kien jaf Dr. EFA u Dr. de Marco imma kellu jghalaq halqu ghax il-Lorry kellu ritratti personali hafna li wara ta' bniedem baxx kixifhoim fil-parlament stess; li l-Kabinett ta' MLP ta' 1980 ha l-gurament mhux lejn il-Prim Mintoff imma lejn il-Kabinett stess ghax dom Mintoff ried li issir elezzjoni gdida ghax ma gabx il-maggioranza tal-unijiet (qalli ex ministru tar-ruh hafna);u li minflok irranga l-hnizirijiet li kienu qed isiru minflok warrab u ghamel bniedem incapaci li jaffronta l-Lorry u ic-corma tieghu;li dak iz-zmien kemm il-PN u kemm l-MLP kienu klikka fit-terrur li inqala biex jidher l-MLP ikrah.(elementi taz-zewg partiti).
•
Ma qalux il-wikileaks li fl-15/10/1979 ministry fil-gvern tieghu kien qed jirkattah u qalghalu l-irvellijiet ta' dak inhar; li Dom Mintoff kellu ihalli bniedem innocenti u habib tieghu(infatti li kieku ma kienx ghal indhill personali tieghu, Lorry Sant ta ordni biex joqtluh f'Kastilja stess biex jinghalqu l-kotba)Karm Grima jigi iffrejmjat min l-avukar taghana stess; li wara l-elezzjoni tal-1980 l-Imhallef Lino Agius baghat lill-missieri, Karm Grima ghal ghomru Monte Carmeli fuq tlitt certifikati medici foloz u hu kien jaf x'se jigri bhalma kien jaf Dr. EFA u Dr. de Marco imma kellu jghalaq halqu ghax il-Lorry kellu ritratti personali hafna li wara ta' bniedem baxx kixifhoim fil-parlament stess; li l-Kabinett ta' MLP ta' 1980 ha l-gurament mhux lejn il-Prim Mintoff imma lejn il-Kabinett stess ghax dom Mintoff ried li issir elezzjoni gdida ghax ma gabx il-maggioranza tal-unijiet (qalli ex ministru tar-ruh hafna);u li minflok irranga l-hnizirijiet li kienu qed isiru minflok warrab u ghamel bniedem incapaci li jaffronta l-Lorry u ic-corma tieghu;li dak iz-zmien kemm il-PN u kemm l-MLP kienu klikka fit-terrur li inqala biex jidher l-MLP ikrah.(elementi taz-zewg partiti).
