Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal - 26 July 1991

I came back here to blinding, suffocating heat. In New York last Sunday the temperature was 102 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. Of course the sun temperature was in the 120s, enough to exhaust everybody who went out into it and kill several old people.

So I postponed my returning habit of mooching around the village I inhabit, the four blocks on Madison Avenue between 97th and 93rd Street, down to 93rd Street for cleaners and books, up to 97th Street for hardware, flowers and drugs. I mean pills, prescriptions, tablets, as they say in England. I asked in London about an old lady of my acquaintance who was too ill to be seen. I asked, "What was the matter with her?" The reply, "She's on tablets".

Well back in the infernal city, the bad apple, I locked myself in my study, set it at 70 degrees and read and watched and read. And at long intervals, by way of survival, glided swiftly into the kitchen and rescued orange juice, a snack and a bottle of the new and excellent non-alcoholic beers. Back to the reading and watching and catching up with what appears to have preoccupied Americans.

The Tuesday evening news programme was a surprise. Very rarely do our bulletins take their top story from London, short of a terrorist outbreak, an airplane disaster or a general election. But last Tuesday the first picture was of an unusually angry Mr Major daring Mr Kinnock to use the word "liar" if that's what he meant.

It was of course about the appalling scandal involving the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. But most of what we saw for this short report was the scene in the House. Close-ups, long shots of boos, choruses of dissent, members rising and sitting, rising and waving. A scene so familiar to Britons that if they'd been here they might have wondered why these scenes should have been shown for so long in fascinated focus. The anchor-woman introduced it all by announcing: "A stormy sea in Britain's House of Commons." And next morning, a friend or two here called me and said, either in fact or in effect, boy, that was some scene in the House of Commons!

I'm sure that would have been the response of almost any American watching, unless he or she had ever spent an hour or two in the House. Remember, Americans still retain a prejudice or two in favour of Britain. And one of them is that the English, in particular are, in public, very dignified, orderly, reserved, not given to outbursts of temper. So, whether they've ever thought about it or not, they'd expect the House of Commons to be extraordinarily dignified, courteous, following a ritual of restraint in debate.

Now, of course, any Briton listening to me now, knows that the exact opposite is the case. American visitors who do go into the House as spectators always come out shocked at the general hubbub, the almost continual vocal responses of "Shame! Nonsense! Hear, hear!" The choppy tide of groans and laughter and mockery that drown so many speeches. I myself wonder how anyone can make a speech of much more than 15 minutes without having to wait and repeat himself time and again. Mr Major had to start one sentence five times before the surrounding hullabaloo would let him go on.

I suppose the counter prejudice is just as firm. The British assumption that it must be much the same in Washington in the House of Representatives, only a little more raucous perhaps. Well, as Americans who've watched the House's proceedings – and you can do that from morn to dusk on a single nationwide cable channel – Americans know that the exact opposite is the case. Once in a very great while there might be a general response to a very angry man, but I've been watching the House and the Senate for over 50 years and I'm so used to the decorum and the daily conventions of courtesy and protocol that I, too, am always shocked at the rowdiness of the debates in the Commons.

Tune in any day to a session of the House of Representatives and you will see the speaker tap his gavel and say: "The gentleman from California has five minutes." The gentleman from California rises and says: "Mr Speaker, I yield my time to the gentleman from Mississippi." The speaker says, "So ordered!" And the gentleman from Mississippi, yielded to because he probably drafted or sponsored the bill under discussion, he rises and says: "I thank my distinguished colleague from California. Mr Speaker, we have been debating this bill in its original and amended forms in Committee for many weeks now, and I..." and so on.

At the end of five minutes, if he's still going on, the Speaker may give him 15/20 seconds and say quite quietly: "The gentleman's time has expired. Thank you. The Chair recognises the gentlewoman from Maryland for three minutes." So it goes, on and on. And whether it's a dull debate, or a brilliant one, it's never interrupted, it's very seldom heated. And the heat comes from the congressman or woman who has the floor. The floor itself, the members, do not hiss, boo, groan, sigh audibly. They either pay attention or they do not, and doze. Mostly even good jokes provoke the faintest ripple of appreciation. But the overall impression a Briton would get, does get, is one of humdrum orderliness and obedience to an old and respected ritual of courtesy.

Hence, I'll bet, the network producer here who decided to put John Major in anger as the top item of the world news, last Tuesday, I'm sure he assumed that the emotional temper of the House of Commons, the actual noise of the behaviour, was something very rare and wonderful, and made for television. By such means do we, the supposed enlighteners of nation to nation, confirm and strengthen each other's preconceptions.

The BCCI scandal of course has no national boundaries. Sixty-some nations are involved and doing a follow-up audit of the banks shenanigans in all those branches, of all those countries is plainly going to take months and months, if not years. The accounting firm of Price Waterhouse, after it finished its special audit, reported that: "The activities of the bank through these years and around the world represent probably one of the most complex deceptions in banking history".

Well, if it's complex to them and the various subtleties of fraudulence went unnoticed by so many top men in so many banks, it would seem to be a little early to start identifying the domestic villains.

There are going to be, of course, several investigations here. I imagine the banking committees of both houses of Congress are already accumulating documents and facts and figures. If and when the Senate Banking Committee is ready to go – I ought to think that over again – The Senate Banking Committee has several subcommittees and I imagine their chairmen are already sparring for their place in the sun, in front of the inevitable television cameras. I wonder who'll get it?

There is the Financial Institutions Subcommittee, the Securities Subcommittee, the, aha, International Finance and Monetary Policy Subcommittee. Whichever it's to be, I can promise that there you will see a lively, if not absorbing drama, and the free expression of several human emotions from the senators up there on the bench. They have extraordinary power to express themselves in a way they would not think of doing before their colleagues in the Senate, where they are, by custom, all equal in good intention. But the investigating committees, in the Senate especially, can subpoena for testimony just about anybody in the country, excepting only the president and perhaps the vice-president.

I remember a secretary of state, who shall be nameless, being called to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is the watchdog on foreign policy. They had him there for four days and many evenings, the Democrats giving him a pitiless going-over on the country's involvement in Vietnam. He said later that that ordeal contributed more than anything to his early retirement.

One of the dramatic and dependable things about congressional committee investigations, the hearings, is this perfectly courteous, the tough privilege to question very big and prestigious men from cabinet officers to heads of great corporations. I think back to what a dreadful time the great JP Morgan had, in a bruising appearance before the senate committee, during the Depression.

So, if a visitor here might be disappointed at the emotional blandness of a session of the House of Representatives, just wait for the appropriate Senate committee when it bares its elegant fangs before witnesses charged with bribery and corruption.

One final odd, and unexpected, note. I came back to discover that though the Democrats still bemoan Mr Bush's apparent unconcern with the daily problems of American society, his conduct of foreign policy is more appreciated than ever. Seventy four per cent of the people thinking he's doing a fine job. I also discovered by the way, the consensus here, that he achieved a triumph, the triumph, in London! That was a surprise! From the British papers and the telly, I gathered with more persuasive evidence, that it was Mr Major who had the triumph. I wonder what they're saying and writing in Paris and Bonn, and Ottawa and Tokyo? Maybe they all look like Julius Caesar when they come home.

Two tiny happenings in London were eagerly seized on here and blown up into specially boxed items in the papers. One, Mr Bush sat down before the Queen did and had to stumble back to his feet. Two, a lady came up to Mr Bush and said, "Why, Geoffrey! Hello!" He said, "I'm George Bush. I'm President of the United States." She said, "Well, you certainly look remarkably like Geoffrey!" And walked away with a sniff. The Democrats will not forget this when Geoffrey, er... George comes to run for re-election.

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