The Richard Burton Diaries (178 page)

The President is surprisingly small and delicate. Little short arms and legs and a small head with little features. He wears slightly tinted glasses and I can't really tell the colour of his eyes. He has quite a pot-belly but the rest of him is slim – no bottom and thin chest and legs. He walks slowly and with short steps. When he sits down behind a table he seems most formidable. I'm slightly put out by the nervousness with which the servants serve us all. They live in remarkable luxury unmatched by anything else I've seen and [I] can well believe Princess Margaret who says the whole business makes Buck House look pretty middle-class. After lunch the President and I talked a great deal about the war and Sutjeska in particular. I asked him if he liked Stalin. He took a long time to answer and finally said he ‘liked him or rather admired him as a politician but disliked him as a man.’ Most of the time he talked Serbo-Croat but when we were alone talked slow but adequate English. I said I had read that he was fluent in French and perhaps he would prefer to speak in that tongue but he appeared not to have heard me and continued in English until, with obvious relief, the interpreter rejoined us, and he rattled away in Serbo-Croat again.

He called for us at 4pm in a convertible Lincoln-Continental – ‘a present from the people of Zagreb’ I think he said – and started to drive – E in front beside him and me behind with Madame Broz. He immediately punctured the front right tyre by driving over a very sharp curbstone not 50 yards from the house. Instead of stopping and cutting the engine he revved-up and we jerked and jolted about for a nerve-racking 10 seconds or so. We left the car and went on foot to visit a small zoo with an elephant and ibex and elands etc. Gazelles too. He suddenly looked very old and even smaller after the car incident but was soon his old confident self again. He seemed a little apprehensive of the elephant when feeding it. To my horror – after about 15 minutes (and to E's horror too I found out later) – the Continental turned up again all mended and we took up the drive once more. He drove at a funeral's pace but my (and E's) heart was in my mouth for the rest of the journey, which was a tour of the
entire island. I was very glad to get back to his villa. He was obviously used to power-steering and power-brakes and we all threatened to go through the windscreen every time he stopped to show us something or other. But he and Madame were so charming that one forgives them anything. He loves animals and trees and has a huge collection of both on the island and elsewhere, we gathered.

At one point I asked him what he would have done had Churchill had his way and instead of opening a Second Front gone straight up through the Balkans and Austria etc. and cut off the Russian advance.
⁵⁰
He answered without hesitation: ‘We would have stopped you. We had, by this time, 35 divisions, all battle trained, and a great deal of arms taken from the Italians and Germans.’ I suppose he would have, at that and another war would have developed. Almost in the same breath he said that he trusted Churchill but not the British. Nobody it seems trusts the British. We really are, to the foreigner, ‘perfidious albion.‘
⁵¹

We finally got home about seven and had yet another enormous meal. This time I weakened and had some ice-cream. Later, having already weakened, I ate two bars of choc while watching S. Tracy in a film – rather good – called
Bad Day at Black Rock
.
⁵²
Scales show 79kg this morning 174lbs nearly. Saw many stills this morning. I looked very haggard. Perhaps I'm getting too thin. Tito looked rubicund and toby-juggish in comparison. I should film well though. Will certainly look hungry!

Monday 2nd
Another day spent almost entirely with the President. I woke late – for me, 7.40. – and had breakfast down by the sea. As usual it was too much. Cold meats, ham, salami etc. Tea. An omelette. Hot sausage. Many sweet cakes. More tea. Then at 9.30 saw Deli
, Popovi
and a P.R. man who asked me a lot of questions about why I was doing it all etc. For the umpteenth time I went through my stock verbiage. ‘Great man’, ‘great opportunity’. ‘Hope I can do justice’ etc. I hope, more aptly, that they can do justice to me. Give me the tools, i.e. part, and I'll get on with the job.
⁵³
Were it not, actually, for E's delight in the power and glory of it all I would do my best to cut and run – so great is the strain of boredom – especially the interminable translated conversation. Both Tito and Madame Broz tell long stories which they don't allow the interpreters to interrupt result being that by the time the latter have finished
one couldn't care less what the story is about. Madame has a very penetrating voice which, after a time, becomes extremely tiresome. And protocol demands that I'm always with her and the President with E. And they have a professional interpreter whereas I have a minister's wife whose English leaves a lot to be desired. Mrs Broz smiles all the time and so does the interpreter.

In the morning at precisely 9.50 we left the house for the President's villa. Then straight on to a small powerful yacht – 35 knots top speed, 160 tons, 120 feet – and went belting off down through all the hundreds of islands in this part of the world. Lovely towns and hundreds of spanking new hotels. The beaches, mostly rock, were crawling with tourists. They average 30,000,000 a year they kept on saying. Almost everybody waved at the Presidential Yacht and he waved back. So did E and Raymond. As soon as we were aboard drinks were served – whisky for the President and wife and E and local red wine for the others and a gin marguerita for some and the inevitable water for me. From then on the same booze was produced at regular intervals for the rest of the day. We disembarked at the President's villa after about two hours at sea during all of which time we were escorted by two torpedo boats and a police launch. The President proudly told me that his coast was the best defended in Europe and that guns, submarines and gunboats were hidden under all the cave-infested islands.

Occasionally through the binoculars which were amply supplied I would glimpse a sailor at attention on some remote hillock rigidly saluting. We had lunch on a little island facing Brioni, not without the excruciating examination of the house and grounds. ‘This is from Indonesia from Sukarno himself.‘
⁵⁴
‘This is work from the people of Macedonia.’ ‘This is from the Sudan.’ I noticed that most faces bore fixed smiles of boredom long before the end of lunch and despite the fact that they were drinking. E's face of course, was an exception. She is having a ball. It is as well that I'm not drinking or I might be asking some very awkward questions. There were occasional bright moments. Tito in English: ‘I was very glad when my grandmother died.’ E: ‘Why?’ Tito: ‘Because it meant she stopped beating me.’ E: ‘That's an awful thing to say.’ Tito: ‘She was small but strong and always angry.’ He met Churchill who was in the vicinity on Onassis's yacht. Winston C. accepted a very small whisky. Tito had his usual large one. ‘Why so small a portion?’ asked Tito. ‘You taught me to drink large ones.’ ‘That was when we both had power,’ said Winston C. ‘Now I have none and you still have yours.’

Power does corrupt. I doubt whether Tito sees the ordinary Joe Soap from whom he came except when the latter waves a flag and carries a banner. At least he doesn't keep his people waiting. Last night we went to see a film in the Roman Theatre at Pula. The streets were lined with sailors rigidly at attention
behind them being masses of people who applauded the whole route. E was the star of the evening – much more so, or at least equal to Tito. When we entered the coliseum – 6000 people capacity – they all stood up and gave an ovation. E deeply thrilled. Me cynical as ever. The film was fun. The inevitable tray of drinks was presented at the same intervals throughout the film. We had earphones with an English translation. [...]

Tuesday 3rd
Have just come back from the minute island of ‘La Madonna’ which is just off the front of our villa which I discover is called ‘Jadaranda’ I think. We see the President and Madame for the last time this trip at noon. It is now 11.30. We had a swim and breakfast on Madonna. I eat nothing and have, in fact, eaten nothing since lunch yesterday except one plum and a vitamin pill. Rarely have I stuffed myself as much as I did at lunch yesterday on the President's island – not Brioni, the other little retreat. Madame Broz likes to play practical jokes, so I understand but is restrained by the Marshal.

Had a 3 hour discussion with Tito about Sutjeska, Mihailovi
,
etniks, British, Churchill, Allies, Stalin and Uncle T. Cob. which I will type up later when I get back to the
Kaliz
this afternoon.
⁵⁵
[...] Am still worried by the atmosphere of dread which surrounds Tito. Cannot understand it. Neither can the rest of us.

Thursday 5th, Villefranche
Have been back since Tuesday. [Monte] Carlo a nuisance as usual so nipped over here for a slice of quiet. Michael Caine on board from his rented yacht – a veritable tub that bobs like a cork.
⁵⁶
He has a nice girl with him called Suzy Kendall who is married and presumably separated from her husband who is a comedian called Dudley Moore.
⁵⁷
Michael speaks in a shout which becomes a bit hard in a small room. He is very funny and very cockney most of his ‘wit’ being a regular and repeated pattern of catch-phrases. ‘Black as your hat,’ ‘A turkish religion with a tip-up seat’ etc. All repeated at various times during the day. Spends his time going to discotheques and parties of which, down here, there are hundreds. Many good reports of
XYZ
from all kinds of sources so E might have a big one again. [...]

Wednesday 11th,
Kalizma We left Monte Carlo two or three days ago and went to Portofino which is as enchanting as ever and where of course we inevitably met Rex Harrison and his future wife Elizabeth Rees-Williams. She was
married to an actor – very good I believe, though I have never met him or seen him – called Richard Harris. Professional Irish type I gather, getting drunk and fighting when sufficiently so. Rex came on the
K
at cocktail time and was already paralysed with booze. So was the Rees-Williams. Acutely painful hour or so with Rex being endlessly repetitive and eventually tottering on the brink of outright rudeness. We all agreed after they had left that this couple were among the most unattractive we'd come across in a long time and the thought of their getting married before the end of the month a monstrous joke. She is a kind of brazen blonde type with a veneer of finishing school. I feel very protective about Rex as I fear this woman is not just a harum-scarum shouter and bawler like Rache but a devious minx on the make. She looked ugly with dissipation and so did Rex. His casual elegance was noticeably lacking and he has put on a lot of weight – tremendous pot and jowls. E and I sat up in bed after they had gone and after dinner and had a smug hour telling each other how lucky we are in that we have each other and that we like each other. And so on. And by god we are lucky in virtually every way. E kept on saying: How lucky we are to love each other. Too right.