Queen of the World: Elizabeth II: Sovereign and Stateswoman

by Robert Hardman

  Relations continued to strengthen. Ceausescu made a brief official visit to Britain in 1975, when he dropped in at Chequers to discuss several issues, including British support for a new Romanian aerospace programme. The President let it be known that he still wanted a state visit and was very happy to wait for a gap in the Queen’s diary. In the same year, Wilson became the first British Prime Minister since the war to visit Romania. The time had finally come to fix a date for Ceausescu to stay with the Queen: June 1978. Unusually for a state visit, this one had a very clear and straightforward commercial imperative. Ceausescu would sign a £200 million contract to build eighty-two BAC 1-11 aircraft§ in Romania, under licence from the British Aircraft Corporation (soon to become British Aerospace), plus another £100 million contract for 225 Rolls-Royce Spey engines to power them. At a time when Britain’s ailing economy was lurching from one crisis to the next, amid almost constant industrial unrest (and just six months before the ‘winter of discontent’ that would eject Labour from office for the next eighteen years), this was a substantial win for the Callaghan government. Yet it all hinged on the Queen. For, in return, Britain would lay on the grandest welcome the Romanian despot had ever received. Though Ceausescu might have been entertained at the Vatican, by Pope Paul VI, and at the White House, by President Jimmy Carter, nothing would portray his stature as a global statesman quite as spectacularly as a full royal welcome in London.

  ‘We thought that Romania was rather liberal,’ recalls Sir Simon Fraser, former head of the Diplomatic Service. ‘It just shows how careful you have to be about these things.’

  Files from Downing Street and the Foreign Office show the extent to which Britain’s politicians, diplomats and commercial sector were happy to pander to Ceausescu’s ego and paranoia in almost every way in order to ensure that the visit ran smoothly. There was even an offer from British Aerospace to fly Ceausescu home to Bucharest at the end of the visit in Concorde. Roger du Boulay, the man in charge of protocol and royal liaison at the Foreign Office – and himself a Second World War fighter pilot -was quick to advise caution. It would, he wrote to his colleagues, ‘set up a very awkward precedent’ for future state visitors, who would all demand a ride home in Concorde. However, he added: ‘Of course, if it could be shown that a free ride in Concorde would turn the scale in the BAC 1-11 negotiations, we might have to think again.’

  What would go down even better, however, would be that honorary degree for the President’s wife. The signals were coming loud and clear from the British Embassy in Romania that this was very much what Elena Ceausescu was expecting, not least because Harold Wilson had apparently mooted the idea during his 1975 visit to Romania. Though Wilson had since retired from politics, he had become Chancellor of the University of Bradford. So, in December 1977, the Foreign Office wrote to Wilson’s Private Secretary, Baroness (Marcia) Falkender, with a candid proposal. Since Wilson had come up with this idea in the first place, would he please ask Bradford University if they would consider an honorary degree for Mrs Ceausescu, in recognition of her ‘distinguished work’ in the fields of ‘polymer science and scientific education’. The following month, Andrew Burns, First Secretary at the British Embassy in Bucharest, informed his bosses that the Romanian council for science and technology had again ‘dropped a number of strong hints that Mrs Ceausescu would be pleased to receive some kind of academic distinction’ during the state visit. Very soon, an entire team of Foreign Office talents would be applying themselves to this Herculean task. Lady Falkender reported back that Bradford would need to put any such proposal to a vote, and that Wilson was pessimistic about the result. Realising that a rejection would be a diplomatic disaster, the Foreign Secretary, David Owen, decided not to take things any further with Bradford.

  The Foreign Office files reveal a mounting sense of panic. Anthony Figgis, in the Eastern European department, attempted to woo Heriot-Watt University. No luck there, either. It was the same with Sussex and Liverpool. Andrew Burns in Bucharest wrote to his opposite number in London, David Lambert. ‘Surely Imperial College could help?’ pleaded Burns, noting that one of the Ceausescus’ sons had studied there. They could not. Lambert, meanwhile, had been rebuffed by the Royal Society, but was chasing Southampton University, having heard that they were pursuing new international partnerships. They might just be willing to give Mrs Ceausescu a robe and a scroll ‘as a means of putting themselves on the map in Romania’.

  Kenneth Scott, head of the Eastern European department, was nervous about all these rejections. On 15th February 1978, he wrote to the British Ambassador in Romania, Reggie Secondé, saying that it might be better to have no degree than face hideous embarrassment ‘if some disgruntled member of a university council chooses to leak that the FCO are hawking Madame Ceausescu’s somewhat dubious wares around several universities’.

  If British academe was proving unfriendly to the forthcoming visitors, other organisations were not. The chairman of National Westminster Bank, Robin Leigh-Pemberton, and his board wanted to invite Ceausescu to lunch. The Labour Mayor of Coventry was begging the Foreign Office to send the Ceausescus there. Sir John Russell, now foreign-affairs adviser to Rolls-Royce, wrote to Roger du Boulay at the FCO insisting that the company should be included in all the ‘major protocol functions’. He added that the company’s chairman, Sir Kenneth Keith, had been Ceausescu’s guest ‘at a bear shoot – not that I imagine there will be anything similar in London in June’. Du Boulay replied that guest lists were still being discussed. ‘As for bear shoots, we could I suppose round up the stray dogs in Hyde Park but I am inclined to think we will have to seek other ways of diverting the President.’

  ALARM BELLS

  From the outset, the Foreign Office planners were keen to ensure that everyone at the Palace and in Whitehall was aware of what a thin-skinned egomaniac they were dealing with. Here was a man with such a carefully controlled personality cult that the Romanian media could not even mention Ceausescu’s height (5 feet 6 inches) for fear of reprisals. British diplomats offered some hilarious guidance on what not to say in the presidential presence. There was to be no mention of the former Romanian Royal Family (because ‘the present regime might not look too favourably on the reference’). Romanians should not be described as ‘Eastern Europeans’, but as ‘sui generis Romanians’. And hosts should ‘refer to the respect with which the President is held for his dynamic and imaginative foreign policies’. In particular, demonstrations should be discouraged. Ceausescu’s head of protocol was ‘very touchy’ on the subject, and the President had recently refused to leave his embassy in the USA until a crowd of protestors had been dispersed.

  The Foreign Office was also picking up warning signals of some Mobutu-style bad behaviour. In March 1978, David Lambert received a tip-off from Ivor Rawlinson in the FCO’s Southern European department that one of Ceausescu’s sons, believed to be Nicu, had caused great offence by running up a string of unpaid bills while accompanying his father on a visit to Greece. Rawlinson added: ‘Perhaps if he comes, we could organise some parachute jumping with the Prince of Wales!’

  Staff at the Palace had complained to Roger du Boulay about the size of the Romanian entourage. In mid-March, the Romanian Ambassador had informed them that Ceausescu was planning to bring a team of fifty-five – including ten pet journalists, his personal aircrew and four extra bodyguards – who would all need to stay at the Palace. Royal staff replied that these hangers-on would have to sleep elsewhere, because even Buckingham Palace could not possibly accommodate such numbers.

  And still the quest for an honorary degree was getting nowhere. On 7th April, Kenneth Scott wrote to the British Embassy in Bucharest with further bad news: a thumbs-down from the University of Southampton. David Lambert in the FCO’s Eastern European department was still not giving up, though. Next stop: the University of York.

  On 24th April, the British Ambassador, Reggie Secondé, sent two very frank telegrams with his own impressions of the Queen’s guests. The
first, to the Foreign Secretary, David Owen (and thence to the Palace), was a candid if somewhat admiring pen portrait of Ceausescu. ‘He is as absolute a dictator as could be found in the world today,’ the Ambassador warned, adding that Elena Ceausescu was a ‘viper’, their children were ‘feckless’ and that Ceausescu’s endless speech-making to slavish, chanting party apparatchiks resembled a cross between Adolf Hitler and George Orwell. ‘The sinister aspect is that a shrewd and accomplished statesman like Ceausescu can accept such orchestrated adulation. It is all too reminiscent of 1938 and 1984,’ wrote Secondé. He warned of ‘disastrous’ scenes on some of the President’s previous tours, including one to Belgium, where his guards had roughed up the locals and ‘scrambled for places at the dinner table’. On the plus side, Ceausescu was ‘well-disposed towards Britain and, despite attacks of anxiety, there is every chance that he will restrain his natural instinct to erupt if crossed or provoked by his public reception’. Secondé concluded: ‘We are lucky to have President Ceausescu in the saddle. He is courageous, independent-minded and prepared to treat in all fields with the West.’ To which one senior mandarin added a wry note in the margin: ‘Help!’

  Secondé also wrote to Roger du Boulay with some useful American intelligence on protocol. He had just received a briefing from the American Embassy in Romania on how to handle this most prickly of guests, based on Ceausescu’s visit to the USA. For one thing, grace should be avoided before all meals. ‘He will not stand for any religious invocations,’ Secondé wrote, adding that, at one American event, Ceausescu had simply walked out of the room during grace and walked back in afterwards. ‘It is very important to keep Mrs Ceausescu happy,’ he added. ‘Madame likes shopping. She apparently pays but the payment aspect should be made clear; she gladly accepts anything which is presented.’ The staff were another matter: ‘The Americans had some trouble with the Romanian advance guard who gave shameless instructions about the delivery of fur coats etc.’ Ceausescu was also acutely sensitive to being patronised in any way – what the British Ambassador called ‘being high-hatted’ – although he could easily be seduced by extravagant ceremonial and a decent guard of honour.

  The golden rule, to be observed at all times, was the need for profuse sycophancy. ‘Constant praise for Ceausescu’s international statesmanship is very much in order,’ Secondé advised. ‘There is no better lubricant and it can be poured on in unlimited quantities.’ The Ambassador’s advice was circulated around the Foreign Office and Buckingham Palace. ‘Useful,’ noted Kenneth Scott, who would one day end up at the Palace as a deputy Private Secretary to the Queen. He quickly passed on all these tips to the Lord Mayor of London, Peter Vanneck, who had been wondering what on earth to say in his traditional welcome to the state visitor. Back came the Lord Mayor’s draft speech for Scott’s approval. Hailing Ceausescu’s ‘universal reputation as an experienced international statesman’, the Lord Mayor added that Mrs Ceausescu was ‘not only a scientist and chemical engineer of international repute but a great exponent of women’s rights’. The sharpest satirist would have been pushed to match his fawning conclusion, complete with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt: ‘We need leaders to whom are granted great visions . . . who can kindle people with the fire from their burning soul. You, Sir, are such a person.’ Even Kenneth Scott felt this was taking things a little too far. ‘Not as I would have written it,’ he wrote on the draft, ‘but perhaps we’ll all be too drunk to notice!’ The Lord Mayor’s hyperbole, however, would pale before some of the drivel that was to come.

  Ahead of any state visit, the British Embassy would normally send the Palace some briefing notes on the state visitor’s entourage. Andrew Burns, First Secretary in Bucharest, was decidedly restrained about Mrs Ceausescu – ‘tough-minded and puritanical’ – but more outspoken on other members of the inner circle. Ion Avram, the ‘Minister of the Machine Building Industry’, was ‘short fat and bald; a rather jolly man whose ungainly exterior hides a good intelligence’. The one to watch, however, was Nicolae Ecobescu, head of protocol. As well as causing ‘considerable offence’ on many foreign visits, ‘he has been known to exercise some physical violence in his efforts to restrain Ambassadors or journalists seeking to approach unnecessarily close to the President’.

  And then came a diplomatic miracle. At last, a British seat of learning had decided that Mme Ceausescu was worthy of an academic laurel. On 3rd May, Professor Terence Burlin, of the Polytechnic of Central London, wrote to David Lambert saying that the court of governors was minded to present the first lady not merely with an honorary degree, but with an honorary professorship, no less. ‘We do not anticipate any problems,’ he added. There was yet more good news to follow. While the University of York had refused to countenance an honour, its professor of chemistry, Richard Norman, also happened to be President of the Royal Institute of Chemistry. Wearing that hat, he had every confidence that he could persuade his fellow chemists that they should not merely confer an honorary award on the first lady, but a bona-fide fellowship. As soon as the news had reached Bucharest, Mrs Ceausescu accepted both offers instantly and cancelled her visits to the other academic institutions on her itinerary.

  With just days to go before the arrival, the Romanians were still demanding further kowtowing from the UK, in deference to the presidential ego. As the British Ambassador, Reggie Secondé noted, Ceausescu always liked to round off a visit with ‘an endless and turgid Joint Declaration’. There was nothing to make a declaration about, beyond the aircraft deal, but Jim Callaghan and his ministers were happy to go along with the charade. So Downing Street drafted some meaningless ‘memoranda of understanding’ about the importance of cultural and educational ties. Yet Cabinet papers show that there was virtually no attempt to mention the human rights record of a country where torture and persecution were a regular fact of life. The Foreign Office did not object when the Romanians handed them a list of undesirable dissidents and ‘irredentists’ whom they wanted expelled from Britain for the duration of the visit. The Romanian government even warned the British authorities about a ‘Hungarian’ member of the House of Lords, Lord Balogh, in case he might cause trouble. Instead of rejecting this shameless affront to British justice, the Foreign Office Minister of State, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, simply ‘welcomed the information’. As for Lord Balogh, he assured the Romanians that ‘British parliamentarians would not behave in an undignified manner’.

  RED CARPET

  For the Foreign Office, the pressing issue now was guest lists. The chairmen of Shell, ICI and Hawker Siddeley were among those in the top tier, with invitations to the Queen’s state banquet, along with the director-general of the BBC. Next down in the pecking order were those invited to the Prime Minister’s lunch (including the editor of The Sunday Times, Harold Evans, and ITN’s head of current affairs, Peter Snow). Then came the Lord Mayor’s banquet, followed by various receptions. Years later, the British establishment would pour vitriol over the very mention of Ceausescu, but the great and good were queuing up to shake his hand in 1978. Kenneth Scott received a delightful begging letter from Sir Leslie Glass, former Ambassador to Romania and chairman of the Anglo-Romanian Bank, pointing out that he had yet to receive an invitation to anything. ‘I didn’t expect to be invited to any meal at the Palace but if there is any larger reception, I wonder if I could suggest our names,’ he wrote from his home in Leominster, adding that he had no great desire to leave it at the height of the fly-fishing season. ‘It is a wrench to leave Herefordshire when the mayfly are out but I think that the Romanians might be a little surprised if we weren’t included.’ Such was the demand for invitations that Sir Leslie would remain on his Herefordshire riverbank for the duration of the visit.

  The Foreign Office was also fielding an increasing number of complaints from MPs and members of the public. Why were they inflicting another despot on the Queen? Geoffrey Howe wrote to the Foreign Secretary, David Owen (whose position he himself would occupy a few years later), complaining about Romanian
persecution of Christians. An eminent Bristol physicist relayed warnings from a senior Romanian professor that Elena Ceausescu had ‘no serious reputation as a chemist’. The FCO memo records, with a certain snobbish relish, that the physicist was greatly relieved to learn that the only seat of learning hoodwinked by Mrs Ceausescu’s bogus achievements was Central London Poly.

  By now, the Queen was receiving some reliable inside information from a fellow head of state. President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing of France called the Palace to warn her about the conduct of Ceausescu’s entourage during a visit to Paris a few months before. The official deputed to look after the Romanians had never seen anything like it. As the President later recalled: ‘He came to see me, appalled, and said: “It’s frightful. The place has been wrecked. They have taken everything away.” There were lots of lamps, vases, ashtrays and bathroom fittings. After their departure the place had been emptied. Everything had been unscrewed. It was as if burglars had moved in for a whole summer.’ To make matters worse, Ceausescu’s minders had even hacked out holes in the walls, looking for hidden wires and bugging devices.

  The Queen warned the Master of the Household to ensure that any remotely valuable loose items in the Belgian Suite were removed. As Lord Butler, former Private Secretary to three prime ministers, recalls: ‘They were advised to move the silver brushes from the Palace dressing table or the Romanians would pinch the lot.’ And criticism was mounting in the press. With two days to go, the Foreign Secretary, David Owen, scribbled that bizarre note on his Foreign Office memo, deploring the visit and wishing it was not about to take place. Looking back on it, he explains that he had no choice. The invitation had been extended by another government long before he took the job: ‘I had to defend this decision that was made by [Conservative minister] Julian Amery who had made it to get an order in for BAC 1-11s. So I just had to sit tight while papers like the Daily Telegraph poured filth on the Foreign Secretary for arrogantly making this decision. There was b***** all I could do!’