George Sammut, a leading journalist of his time, was close to completing his autobiography before he died in 1984. This is the second part of a two-part series extract taken from his writings in which he briefly writes about Dom Mintoff’s early political career and how Mabel Strickland used to deal with the Labour politician. Mr Sammut was editor of The Sunday Times from 1956 to 1965. He was best known for his Roamer’s Column which he began and wrote exclusively until his dismissal from the paper in 1972.
I was to express my appreciation of Mintoff’s determination 25 years later – this time in print – after an unforgettable night at Luqa following the hijacking of a jumbo jet which was made to land in Malta.
Before the split with Boffa, Mintoff, because of the charm he was adept at putting on, and the British connection, had Mabel eating out of his hand
Mintoff carried out negotiations with the hijackers from the airport’s control tower and thanks to his persuasive methods, carried them to a successful conclusion. I wrote a letter to It-Torċa, a Labour front newspaper, saying what I had thought of his performance, and they carried it on the following Sunday.
The following is a translation of my letter as carried by that newspaper on December 2, 1973, and headed Il-Ħila tal-Prim Ministru (The Capability of the Prime Minister).
“Mr Editor,
“Like many journalists colleagues of mine, I spent the dramatic Monday/ Tuesday night on duty at Luqa Airport. We managed through portable and car radios to tune in to the conversation that was going on between the Prime Minister in the control tower and the hijackers’ interpreter.
“I was very impressed – and likewise my colleagues, including two English journalists – with the good sense, the diplomacy, the eagerness and the affable yet determined manner with which Mr Mintoff stood up for the eight air hostesses whose fate remained in the balance till the very end.
“All were following with fast-beating hearts the hijackers’ negative rejoinders which continually met the Prime Minister’s appeals that the hostesses should be allowed to leave the aircraft. But finally, the Prime Minister’s arguments – sound, persuasive and leaving no loopholes – carried the day.
“When, after a pause of more than half an hour (or less, because time seemed eternity) the interpreter announced that the hijackers had agreed, all drew a sigh of relief, and an Englishman with us, who was getting on in years, had tears in his eyes.
“In that moment I felt proud of my country’s Prime Minister who, after a sitting of Parliament, went up to Luqa, took over the situation at a delicate moment, and in circumstances hitherto unknown to Malta, achieved a happy ending.”
My letter had an aftermath three years later, on the eve of the 1976 general election. I was rung up from Xandir Malta, at the broadcasting station which is a government corporation, and invited to take part in an eve-of-the-election programme, going through that historic night again, in view of the letter I had written. My first reaction was that once I had written that letter and it had appeared in print over my signature, I felt I would be going back on my word if I refused, so I accepted.
But I felt uneasy, so I rang up a legal friend for advice. He was adamant in saying I should turn down the request. It was one thing to approve of something, even in print, when it happened, but quite another for it to be made use of three years later in a completely different context.
So I rang up Xandir and withdrew. I did not rue it, for when I watched the programme I saw that with the exception of the visiting Japanese Ambassador from Rome (there were many Japanese passengers on the hijacked aircraft) mumbling words of thanks, all the speakers were well known Labourites singing their pro-Mintoff hymns of praise.
To go back to the days before the split with Boffa, Mintoff, because of the charm he was adept at putting on, and the British connection to which I have already referred, had Mabel eating out of his hand. He spent much time in the Berqa offices with its editor Ninu Zammit – incidentally, Mintoff had been a student with him at the Archbishop’s Seminary before going to the University and England – painstakingly going over the Maltese translation of the Labour Party 1947 election manifesto, which was printed at Mabel’s Progress Press.
Subsequently, when the party was returned – forming Malta’s first post-war Government – and he was given the Ministry of Works and Reconstruction, he often rang up Mabel when he thought his parliamentary interventions had been reported inaccurately and, at least on one occasion, she sent the fuming Hedley himself to the Palace in the course of a parliamentary sitting to get the correct version.
He took me along with him – to make himself grander or just for company. Mintoff met him in the corridor, told him how the report should have read and without so much as a discussion – so sure did he feel of Mabel – sent him back to the office.
Safely ensconced in his ministerial chair, Mintoff threw his weight about – and this he went on doing, in Government or Opposition, for many, many years.
In those first post-war years with self-government returned to Malta, Mintoff was truly a busy man, and he made sure everybody noticed it, so that it was certainly not all that easy to get an interview out of him.
However, there are ways and means of doing things, whatever the circumstances. A problem that has plagued Malta from time immemorial is the low rainfall and consequent water problem.
Water was Mintoff’s pet concern and although the island’s ‘tourist age’ had not yet dawned, it was a major headache for Malta and him.
Word came our way that the Navy had given him a hand to help alleviate the situation and obviously the editor wanted to have all the details so he asked me to interview Mintoff. Easier said than done!
I knew it was no use ringing up and trying to get an appointment. Too busy, and who was a Times of Malta reporter? So I just went along and joined the queue outside his office, my fellow travellers being a motley collection of contractors, civil servants, canvassers and people asking for favours.
As, every so often, I moved a couple of steps forward, I was anchored to one hope – if there was nothing in the story, he would just unceremoniously show me the door. If there was, it was too good a success story for him not to succumb to the temptation and tell a newsman all about it. That is exactly what happened.
Whey my turn came, the conversation went something like: “Who are you?” “Times of Malta reporter”. Looking as if he couldn’t believe his ears, “Times of Malta? Do you just come along like this, no appointment or anything?” “Look, you know it’s no use trying to get an appointment. If you can’t see me, I’ll just leave”. “Well, what’s it about?”
Times of Malta? Do you just come along like this, no appointment or anything?- Dom Mintoff
He then asked me in; the conversation had taken place at the door. He asked me to sit down and told me that following talks with the Navy, the latter had put a tank they owned, with a capacity of 10,000,000 gallons, at the disposal of the Government.
This meant that the Dockyard (then purely a Royal Naval domain) would have their mains disconnected from this tank and avail themselves on payment of Government water for their requirements. They would also be subject to Government cuts and other measures.
The Prime Minister added that the Navy had been co-operating since 1947 when they started using sea water for their flushing systems. And so the interview went on, oozing bonhomie between Mintoff and the Navy and Mintoff and The Times of Malta. That atmosphere was not to last. Before long, war was to be declared, with no holds barred.
Nobody who had Malta truly at heart – Malta with its traditions and values, its unique heritage, its spirit of camaraderie and hospitality, its hand of friendship proffered to one and all, especially old-time friends – could possibly see eye to eye with Mintoff, who was ever the man for radical change. In the years to come, I was hit to out relentlessly at Mintoff in my ‘Roamer’s Column’ when I took over the editorship of The Sunday Times of Malta.
I was told by a civil servant present at Prime Minister Mintoff’s office some four years after I had left Strickland House that one Monday morning, a member of his staff asked him whether he had seen what ‘Roamer’ had written about him the day before. Mintoff replied that he didn’t care what George Sammut wrote. He was still linking the two names years after the link had been broken. But ‘Roamer’ will be dealt with on its own.
Mintoff made use of people and circumstance as necessity arose. When he thought they could hinder his progress or even felt it was more in his interest that he should not be seen to be connected with them, they were promptly discarded.
When Mabel first entered the political arena after the war, all those who were not with her were against her and her papers hit out at them accordingly, but when Boffa and Mizzi were successively returned, she would awooing go and try to get what she could out of them. They played.
When Mintoff was first elected in 1955, she tried the same gimmick. He would have nothing to do with her.