Observing Conor Cruise O Brien

FROM HIS SWIVEL chair behind an old mahogany desk on the fourth floor of the Observer building on the fringes of London's press world of Fleet Street, Dr. Conor Cruise O'Brien, former Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, former TD, now Senator for Trinity College Dublin, can see the massive clock faces on the domes of Christopher Wren's cathedral of St. Paul's. By Henry Kelly

It is a sumptuous office complete with easy chairs, a treble-seater couch, Picasso prints on the walls, a vast paper-strewn desk. All the good comforts which the owwners of British newspapers feel their top men should have jostle with the intelllectual bric-a-brac of a man who, recently, told some friends that his new £25,000 a year job as editor-in-chief of the London Sunday with the liberal/rational tradition was: "The best and happiiest job I've had in my life".

If appearances are any guide, I can well believe it. The man fairly nestles into his chair, answering q uesstions as fairly as he ever did, always with that halffsmile which either tempts further argument or suggests tongue-in-cheek. In the course of an hour's connversation with him last month for Magill, Dr. O'Brien reevealed 'several pieces of innformation which go to exxplain why he took the job at the Observer in the first place, and why he conntinues to provoke controversy with his well-thumbed dicctionary of opinion on the present Irish political scene.

Dr. O'Brien told me:

*That he would not have served again in Mr. Cosgrave's Government if the Coalition had won the June election last year and the Fine Gael leader had served a second term as Taoiseach.

*That, though painful at first, the loss of his Dail seat has in retrospect proved a "release".

*That, under him, the Observer will hold extremely sceptical views on what, for want of a better term, are called "atrocity" stories about British Army behaviour in Northern Ireland.

*That his own views on such stories were significantly shaped in. the aftermath of the July 1970 Falls Road "curfew" in Belfast when he toured areas which had been held for two and a half days by British troops.

* And that he still suppports, as he has done for some years, continued Direct Rule in Northern Ireland with the added suggestion that there should be an elected, consultative Asssembly, with access to, and the ear of, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, run along United Nations committee-style lines.

I didn't get the figure for his yearly take-home pay from Dr. O'Brien himself. All he would say was: "The job, which is on a fiveeyear contract, is not at all badly paid".

What I did get from him was his reaction to the job, editor-in-chief of the Observer. "I personally find it preferable to being Minister for Posts and Telegraphs; yes, it is personally more congenial to me to be withhout the constraints of party politics, the whips and so on. That is not to say that the exxperiences of having been in a parliament and being a Minister were not enjoyable, they were. They were exxperiences it was good to have. I didn't expect to lose my seat. In fact I assumed I'd hold it easily. But i wouldn't have been a Minister again.

"Why not? Because quite simply I wanted one of two other Ministeries: Foreign Affairs, of course. But also Education. I got the distinct impression I would be offered Posts and Telegraphs again. And after four years - and though I'm proud of certain things we did during that time - well .. .four years as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs ... thank you very much". 

In the event, the question didn't arise. He lost his Dail seat, the Government fell, he won a Trinity seat to the Senate.

"I see no problems about my holding a Senate seat. After I was offered and accepted this job here, I circulated my closest supporters asking them if I should hold on to the seat and telling them that I would be an infrequent attender and speaker in the Senate and asking for their opinion. Nearly all replied and all but one said I should keep the Senate seat and go on saying the things I've been saying about the North there and elsewhere".

Though his title,' editor-in-chief, implies an editor below him - and there is indeed one in Mr. Donald Trelford, the 'official' editor of the newspaper - there doesn't seem much doubt that Dr. O'Brien himself is exercising a real, daily and considerable influence over what actually finds its way into the Observer every Sunday.

Put in a nutshell: on that fourth floor where he can see St. Paul's clock, O'Brien is two floors above Trelford who has an office next to the newsroom. In strict Observer terms one is left with the distinct impression that it is the editor-in-chief who really knows what time of day it is. And, more to the point, what the new American owners Atlantic Richfield, would like it to be.

O'Brien and Trelford are both members of the Board of the Observer. O'Brien says he took the job only when he had been assured that Trelford was happy about the arrangement and the unions wouldn't raise any noises. "I think because I had a 20 year-old association with the Observer as a freelance writer that things were smoothed in my path in this regard" he says.

When that half-smile fades, Conor Cruise O'Brien can be steely, cold; even a hint of nastiness creeps into his voice. Why, for example, had he chosen as first act in his new role to almost his sign a leading article attacking the new Taoiseach, Mr. Lynch: "Because I'm more committed to the truth than to gentility" he says, "and because I believe the things Mr. Lynch was saying and is saying are dangerous and I intend to say and write so". Next question.

Why doesn't the Observer, and indeed Dr. O'Brien him-self as a professed liberal (with a small '1'), investigate allegations of brutality, for example, against the British Army in Northern Ireland?: "What allegations? What brutality are you talking about? If there was something like another Bloody. Sunday you can be sure this newspaper would be saying something about it, but we're not going to squeak every time Fr. Dinny Faul squeaks. If I learn something from a serious source which I regard as serious then this paper would look into that".

And what about allegations of brutality, tough treatment, call it what you will, against un convicted , innocent people held in police or British Army custody?: "Look, let's get all this straight. Searching by troops in ordinary people's houses is frightening, personally, I don't like that.

"It is also easy to make allegations about such searches. And there are groups of people, the IRA and their allies whose aim it is to make allegations about such searches and to spread stories. As to those in custody: I am sceptical, and so is this newspaper, about these stories. There was obviously a period, I would say the Maudling period (when Mr. Reginald Maudling the Conservative Home Secretary was 'in charge' of Northern Ireland), there was a period then, I think when the order from the top was to apply a little bit of terror. I believe that now, and for some time past, the policy has been not to do that. Of course this doesn't mean that some solldier won't blow his top.

"And another point I want to make: in 1970 after the July curfew in the Falls Road I toured the area and people came up to me and told me of terrible things that had happened and took me to their houses and showed me ... showed me' what? maybe a picture brooken, a door broken but the advance stories always outtran the evidence I saw. And I remember meeting one well-known French journalist and asking him what he thought of all the 'atrocity' stories and he said: 'My friend, they should be thankkful they didn't have the French Army here' "

On the political side of the North today Dr. O'Brien beelieves: "For all its faults Direct Rule is at the moment, .and likely to be for some time, the best available allternative. It seems to be the most tolerable to both commmunities.

"For the Prods it retains the link and for Catholics it ensures the removal of caste supremacy from Stormont Castle to Derry Corporation. And for Catholics such a removal is a gain. Personally, I would favour an advisory assembly to the Secretary of State. It would be elected, have a question time and so on. Out of it one might hopeefully get the sort of quiet adjustments that one gets, for example, at the United Nations.

"Is the Irish problem innsoluble? It's certainly unique, that's all I'd say. There are probably some solutions which would be more unndesirable than the problem. We shall have to wait until a solution arrives which is more desirable, for everyone, than the problem".

I'd say there's plenty of time before that happens. In the meantime, Conor Cruise O'Brien will concentrate on writing, travelling - he lists as his only recreation in Who's Who, What's What and Where in Ireland (Geoffrey Chapman & The Irish Times 1973) "travelling" and carrying out the other terms of his contract with the Observer.

"When I was offered this job it was by Lord Goodman. I had literally just arrived back in Howth from five weeks in Africa and the teleephone rang and he wanted me to come to London at once. I told him I was going to bed at once so he said come next day.

"So I went to his flat in Portland Place, met Gooddman, Lord Barnetson, the chairman of the Observer, Bob Anderson, the majority shareholder and another shareholder, Thornton Braddshaw. They put the offer to me simply: editor-in-chief, five year contract, in charge of the overall policy of the paper, in touch with interrnational scene and in contact with Governments and interrnational policies around the world. I said there were only two hurdles: my home in Dublin and whether the editor of the paper and the staff would be happy. Both were settled to all particiipants'satisfaction."

For himself, O'Brien still finds the commuting tough going: "It's meant to be four days a week in London but it's often or not five. We don't want to leave Howth because the children are happy there at school. At the moment I'm staying in a flat in Prince's Square and either I go to Dublin or, as for Easter, the family come over to me. I'm about to buy a house-boat on the Thames down by Cheyney Walk as a more permanent London residence."

As for the practicalities of his newspaper, O'Brien is happy that the Observer is climbing steadily in cirrculation, and now heading towards 750,000 with an ever-increasing . readership too. He says it won't be a 'paper for everyone'; "Not like the mistake the Sunday Times made with a corner for everyone. We won't have a corner for fasscists and a corner for commmunists. We are a rational, liberal paper...with a small '1', for God's sake. It doesn't mean we support David Steele.

"We have some changes on the way, but you'll have to wait and see them. But you won't have to be patient too long. Is the paper finanncially sound? It's by no means 'solved' but I am cerrtain that the commitment and resources of our new owners are more than suffficient to meet our plans and adequate to sustain us over our development" .•