Many eyebrows were raised when, a short while ago, I spoke of aspects of Dom Mintoff’s life that had hitherto not been publicly known. Some of the episodes I recounted were extraordinary and had no written records to back them. I was not surprised to hear sceptical questions asked about their veracity and my motives.
I expect the eyebrows are now resting back in place but there are some misconceptions about the truth and my motives, which still need clearing up.
I certainly did not do it for the publicity. I do not need it, either personally or as a politician. I would never think of courting such publicity for electoral purposes but, in any case, as I have long told some colleagues, I have decided that, in all probability, this legislature will be my last one.
My motives are really much simpler. They are guided by a love of the truth.
In the first place, I care enough about truth for me to mind some of the misconceptions about what I said in my articles.
In two instances, the public discussion of what I said went beyond what I wrote.
I spoke about a very tense encounter between Mintoff and Abdesalam Jalloud over the Median Line. The public discussion assumed this meeting occurred at around the same time as the infamous gunboat incident.
In fact, Mintoff did not tell me whether they occurred during the same period and, therefore, I myself made no such connection in my article of September 21.
What I know is that he told me these two episodes on different occasions without connecting them.
I have been very careful not to add to what Mintoff told me without making it clear that I was adding my own thoughts. Hence, despite some readers’ impression, I never claimed Mintoff said that Jalloud threatened him. I said very clearly that that was my suspicion, given that Mintoff told me it was the scariest encounter of his life. I can remember his dramatic countenance and gestures even as I write this.
I hope this concern for detail says something about my concern for veracity. I know they do not address the fact that other friends and associates of Mintoff were not aware of the episodes. Mintoff asked by Muammar Gaddafi to be an intermediary in the purchase of a nuclear submarine? Mintoff exploring the possibility of buying the Curia? I know, obviously, that the episodes seem extravagantly larger than life.
All I can say, very solemnly, is that what I have written is faithful to what Mintoff told me.
In the case of the nuclear submarine, which he told me about in 1988, all I have is his word but I have no reason to doubt it. My own personal view is that, if Gaddafi wished to approach the Chinese, asking Mintoff to be an intermediary seems a less wild proposition (although Mintoff himself told me of the episode with a tone of indignation, to illustrate the wild aspects of Gaddafi’s behaviour).
With respect to the Curia episode, which must have occurred in the early 1990s, I have more than Mintoff’s word. There was more than one meeting with the Archbishop (who was not told, as far as I know, that Mintoff was thinking of new headquarters for Labour). On one occasion, I accompanied Mintoff himself for a meeting in Mdina.
Despite all this, some people may still wonder about my motives in disclosing some of my conversations with Mintoff. Why now? Why at all?
Friendship, enduring friendship, is one reason. Of course, I was not his only friend or confidant. However, from 1987 I was one of them. We had discussions about history and politics, among other subjects. What he confided of a personal nature I will take with me to the grave.
As for politics and history, as long as he was alive, it was for him to defend his record as he thought fit. Now that he cannot do this I feel obliged to put across his point of view, as it came out in conversation with me, against the crude simplifications of his detractors.
There is also my sense of history, how it is written by piecing together many small fragments, each with many facets.
I hope my anecdotal fragments will help historians put together the multifaceted portrait Mintoff deserves. While I am faithfully repeating what he told me, it is for the historians to weigh what he told me against what he told (or did not tell) others, what he said about an event in the thick of things and what he said years later, what he chose to recount only by word of mouth and what he chose to put down on paper.
Mintoff was a complex man leading our country in complex circumstances. It would be extraordinary if his view of events did not change or develop over time.
As I have said, I have not written out of any need for publicity, especially not for the kind which I knew my articles were bound to attract. I write with a deep sense of the privilege of having known Mintoff and shared some of his memories. Having written out of loyalty to the truth, I am, of course, prepared to repeat what I wrote under oath.
Dr Attard Montalto is a Labour member of the European Parliament.