"Our Sad Adieu"

The British go home

During World War II, the rocky little (122 sq. mi.) island became known as "the unsinkable aircraft carrier" of the Mediterranean. After one siege of Axis bombing raids, Britain bestowed the George Cross--its highest civilian award for valor--on the entire island. Last week Malta formally ended its participation in the defense of the West. At Malta's Grand Harbor, British and Maltese officials unveiled a monument symbolically depicting the departure of British forces. Next day Britain's last military commander on the island, Rear Admiral Oswald Cecil, boarded the guided-missile destroyer H.M.S. London, and set sail for home.

Malta, which had been a British colony since 1814, gained its independence in 1964. A ten-year military facilities agreement with London, signed that year, allowed the British to station 7,500 troops and technicians on the island. In return Malta received an estimated $70 million annually in rent and other income. But Malta's emotional and acerbic Prime Minister Dom Mintoff, who once tried to persuade the British to make Malta an integral part of the United Kingdom, decided that he did not want them there at all. The son of a ship's cook, Rhodes scholar Mintoff, 62, bluntly termed their departure Malta's "Day of Freedom."

British and U.S. officials professed to see no danger that Malta would fall under the influence of a competing foreign power like the U.S.S.R. Some Italian strategic experts, however, feared that the island might be a tempting refueling base for Soviet submarines or even a handy Mediterranean flattop for Soviet planes.

Mintoff has been as wary of the Soviets as he has of the British and their NATO allies. He barred the U.S. Sixth Fleet from liberty visits to Malta in 1972. But he has also refused to let Moscow establish an embassy. Mintoff has tried to pursue a course that he calls "positive neutrality." Aside from China, which is helping Malta build a drydock for supertankers, at a cost of $40 million, Mintoffs greatest friend of the moment is Libya. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi last week pledged "total support," but nobody knows exactly what that may mean. Many Maltese nevertheless resent the growing Libyan influence, which includes TV programs in Arabic. Unlike their Prime Minister, some of the islanders have mixed feelings about the departure of their former colonial masters. Their attitude may have been best expressed by Malta's President Dr. Anton Buttigieg, in a hymn that he and Rear Admiral Cecil composed for last week's farewell ceremonies:

Now the hour has arrived for our

sad adieu,

Not with hate in our hearts

But like lovers let us part

Linked in a kiss and embrace,

sincere and true.

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