The Savior

Prime Minister Dom Mintoff was hailed as "Is-Salvatur ta' Malta' (Malta's savior) last week as he returned home to a celebration with waving flags, palm fronds and giant portraits of himself. Even Mintoff's enemies had to agree with his boast that he had won a "great victory." After nine months of will-he-or-won't-he negotiations with Britain, he had finally signed an agreement extending for another seven years Britain's right to use Malta as a naval base. Mintoff did not get the $72 million in annual rent that he had originally demanded, but he did get a handsome $36.4 million--about three times what Malta received before Mintoff started setting deadlines for British withdrawal.

The real hero was Italy's ambassador in London, Raimondo Manzini, who helped to arrange a new formula under which Italy, West Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and the U.S. will share with Britain the rental costs of the British base on Malta. Other NATO powers will not be able to use the island--unless, of course, they are prepared to part with additional baksheesh--but they at least won Mintoff's guarantee that Malta will not provide military facilities for members of the Warsaw Pact.

Manzini had made a bet of a bottle of champagne with Lord Carrington, the British Defense Minister, that a settlement would be reached. Manzini collected his bottle, but the price of the new agreement to his government will run to more than $50 million over the next seven years. Last week at the signing ceremony in London, glasses of champagne were duly raised in a toast to the successful completion of the negotiations; Lord Carrington left his glass untouched.

As for the victorious Mintoff, he tossed off a few angry words about British "settlers" (i.e., residents) on Malta, and then flew off to Peking. There he intended to discuss "diplomatic and economic matters," presumably meaning foreign aid.

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