Queen of the World: Elizabeth II: Sovereign and Stateswoman

by Robert Hardman

  It was not just the fact that the Queen felt a duty to attend any gathering of ‘her’ Commonwealth. She was also, no doubt, mindful of an argument echoed by that wise old Africa hand, Sir Anthony Duff, in a recent memo to Foreign Office ministers. He warned that if the Queen abandoned Lusaka, it could even jeopardise Prince Charles’s prospects of being Head of the Commonwealth in the future. As he put it: ‘If a feeling developed that the Queen, when acting as Head of the Commonwealth, was too much subject to the control of the British government, it might increase the numbers who argued, when the time for the succession came, that the next head of the Commonwealth should not be the Queen’s successor.’

  The tensions between the Palace and Downing Street would come to a head on 2nd July. During a visit to Australia, Mrs Thatcher was asked whether she would finally confirm that the Queen would be going to Lusaka. She would say only that she ‘hoped’ this was the case, but could not yet offer ‘final advice’. Commonwealth officials were dismayed by her negative tone, echoing Robert Muldoon’s ‘serious concern’. ‘I was shocked at her ineptness,’ former Secretary-General, Arnold Smith, wrote in his memoirs. ‘It was, after all, not the job of the British Prime Minister to advise the Head of the Commonwealth on this matter. It was the responsibility of Sonny Ramphal as Secretary-General or of all the Heads of Government collectively.’ He was wrong on both counts. The Queen would be travelling to Africa in her capacity as the head of state of the United Kingdom. It was only once she arrived at the summit in Lusaka that, with a wave of the constitutional magic wand, she would be transformed from Queen of the UK into Head of the Commonwealth. Even then, its leaders had no right to give her formal advice, and vice versa.

  But the Queen’s thoughts were abundantly clear a few hours later, when the Palace took the extraordinary step of issuing a statement. It was a terse message, but one that wrong-footed Mrs Thatcher and the Rhodesian lobby. The statement said simply that it was the Queen’s ‘firm intention’ to travel to all four African nations, including Zambia, the following month. It was now abundantly clear to Mrs Thatcher that nothing was going to stop the Queen. It was a question of minimising the risks as far as possible.

  Deals had to be struck – and fast. Sonny Ramphal was well aware that one more rogue missile could scupper everything. So the Commonwealth Secretary-General had managed to persuade Joshua Nkomo and his guerrilla army to offer a ceasefire for the duration of the Queen’s African tour. Nkomo then downgraded his ceasefire to a mealy-mouthed offer of a ‘standstill’. But it was enough to extract an assurance from the new Muzorewa government of ‘Zimbabwe-Rhodesia’ that it would take ‘no action which would endanger Queen Elizabeth or anyone attending the Commonwealth conference’. Now Mrs Thatcher had one further demand for President Kaunda, if she was not going to make things more difficult. She wanted a senior British military expert to be allowed to supervise patrols around the airport for the duration of the summit. The President agreed at once.

  And so, on 9th July, the relevant Cabinet ministers, civil servants, diplomats, intelligence services and military chiefs trooped into the Prime Minister’s office in Downing Street for a final conference. Their conclusion was a masterpiece of Whitehall-speak: ‘In the light of the very thorough precautions, there was no need for the Queen to be advised not to leave the country.’ It was now down to Mrs Thatcher to make the formal decision. The following week, on 17th July, she informed the House of Commons that her mind was made up: she was not going to tell the Queen not to go to Zambia. It was just as well, because two days later the monarch was on her way.

  ‘LONGA-LIVA-QUEEEEN’

  The royal tour set off at a familiar pace in Tanzania, with the usual blend of military parades and cultural displays. William Heseltine can still recall the smell of cloves in Zanzibar, and the royal trip to a model village on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, built on the principles of President Nyerere’s doomed ‘ujama’ vision of collective farming. Conditions were basic in a country that had only just emerged from its own local conflict, ousting the deranged Idi Amin from neighbouring Uganda. Much to the amusement of the royal party, the Queen’s press secretary, Michael Shea, was in something of a state. A rat, he reported, had walked across his bed. At head-of-state level, however, the mutual admiration between the monarch and the Shakespeare-loving president grew ever stronger.

  From Tanzania, the royal party flew on to Malawi, starting in the old capital, Blantyre. The League of Malawi Women could always be expected to turn out on such occasions wearing the Chirundu, a form of ceremonial national dress featuring the Life President’s face. But no one could ever recall seeing them in such numbers. Together with crowds of schoolchildren, they lined the entire eight-mile route from the airport to Banda’s Sanjika Palace, with chants of ‘Longa-liva-Queeeen’ all the way. An exchange of decorations – an honorary knighthood for President Banda, and the Order of the Lion of Malawi (First Class) for the Queen – was followed by a reception for 350 and a state banquet. The evident rapport between the two leaders manifested itself in several ways. The African media regarded it as highly significant that Banda had removed his sunglasses in the presence of the Queen. British royal observers were struck by the unusual sight of the Queen with her elbows on the table for much of the state banquet, deep in conversation with her host. An entire roasted ox was carried aloft by six warriors, after which the President rose to speak at length. His speech was largely a homage to his own economic policies and to Scotland. He reminded his guests that Blantyre was named after the birthplace of the Scottish missionary, David Livingstone. Banda explained that he himself had been educated at a Scottish mission school and that he had enjoyed his years working there. In reply, the Queen assured him that he was still fondly remembered at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. But she also used the occasion to lay down a clear marker for the forthcoming summit in Lusaka, ‘when everyone will have opportunities for that consultation and cooperation which is the essential fabric of the Commonwealth’. In a relatively short speech, she mentioned Commonwealth ‘cooperation’ three times. The Head was laying down an early demand for unity.

  The next day, the royal party moved on to the new capital, Lilongwe. A walkabout and wreath-laying were followed by a meeting with war veterans from the King’s African Rifles. They included one old soldier who had served the Crown in both world wars and could remember his regimental number, but not his age. Dr Banda and the ‘Official Hostess’ produced a private lunch for the royal party at another presidential palace, where the Queen planted one of twenty-four English roses that had come with her. They were a personal gift for President Banda. Now one week into her tour, she was to have a rest day. She had chosen to spend twenty-four hours on Malawi’s Zomba Plateau, taking in Queen’s View, a famous vantage point named after her mother, who had visited in 1957.

  If the Queen was greatly enjoying herself, the same could not be said of Margaret Thatcher, as she prepared to fly out to join her monarch and her fellow Commonwealth leaders in Lusaka. She was still uneasy about the idea. A senior member of the Commonwealth team (and future Secretary-General), Emeka Anyaoku, believes that her earlier reluctance to let the Queen go to Lusaka was, in part, due to self-interest. ‘She didn’t want to go herself,’ he says. ‘The Queen not going would have been a possible excuse for her.’ The fact that Mrs Thatcher would eventually arrive in Lusaka wearing dark glasses reflects the strains on the new Prime Minister. Her Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, later described an exchange, after seeing her produce the sunglasses during the flight to Zambia. ‘Margaret answered very clearly: “I am absolutely certain that when I land at Lusaka they are going to throw acid in my face.” I laughed. “You totally misunderstand Africans! They’re more likely to cheer you.” Margaret stared at me. “I don’t believe you.” ’

  We might laugh at this melodramatic moment in the prime-ministerial VC10, but Mrs Thatcher’s fears were more understandable in the light of newly unearthed correspondence. In the very week the Queen left for
Africa, she received a letter from the former Foreign Office minister, Julian Amery. The son-in-law of the former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, Amery was firmly on the right of the party and someone whom Mrs Thatcher would come to regard as an authority on African matters. Downing Street papers show that Amery had obtained a report from an American academic who had been monitoring the recent Rhodesian elections and claimed to have uncovered a Cuba-based international communist plot to kill the Queen in Lusaka. The assassination would then be blamed on the Rhodesians. Professor John Hutchinson of the University of California in Los Angeles added that he had heard similar rumours from anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the United States. He wanted to discuss his findings with both the British and South African governments. ‘The great fear in Salisbury is that someone will kill the Queen and blame it on Zimbabwe Rhodesia,’ he wrote. ‘The Cuban representatives I have met with believe that the Queen and other participants in the conference are in grave danger. They believe Castro intends to invade Zimbabwe if security deteriorates sufficiently and that he may well intend to disrupt the Commonwealth conference.’ With hindsight, it is a Cold War conspiracy theory at the far end of the bonkers spectrum. How could Castro possibly hope to invade one, if not two, landlocked African countries? Though Israeli commandos had launched an astonishingly successful raid on Uganda’s Entebbe Airport to rescue more than 100 hijacked hostages three years earlier, Hutchinson’s scenario was preposterous. Cuba was no Israel. The fact that this report reached the desk of the Prime Minister a fortnight before the summit illustrates the febrile international backdrop to Lusaka. However, the need for a deal on Rhodesia had now become even more pressing. On the eve of the summit came news from Lagos. Nigeria had just announced it was nationalising British Petroleum as a punishment for Britain’s policy on Rhodesia.

  After a final day with Dr Banda and the ‘Official Hostess’ at the Sanjika Palace in Lilongwe, the Queen, Prince Philip and Prince Andrew departed for their third African state visit. Over two days they were shown the best of Botswana’s two chief industries – diamond mining and cattle – and attended Sir Seretse Khama’s somewhat chaotic state banquet in their honour at the Holiday Inn in Gabarone. While the President saluted the Queen’s ‘great personal courage and commitment’, the police patrolled the premises ordering all the other hotel guests to ‘stay in your rooms’. It was the calm before the storm. The Foreign Office had just sent a telex to the Queen’s Private Secretary containing a draft copy of the speech that President Kaunda was intending to deliver at his state banquet for the Queen in Lusaka. And it made for excruciating reading. Kaunda was going to begin by congratulating the Queen on making a ‘personal’ decision to come to Zambia, when it was manifestly a visit on behalf of both her nation and her Commonwealth. In the very next sentence, he went off the scale: ‘You made it amidst and despite intensified psychological warfare by our arch-enemies aimed at maligning our country and destroying the Commonwealth.’ Here was a clear dig at Mrs Thatcher’s earlier reluctance towards the idea, one which would be deeply embarrassing for the Queen to sit through and was guaranteed to alienate Mrs Thatcher. Kaunda could hardly have been more flattering about the Queen herself: ‘You are an all-weather friend . . . The entire world became a board of examiners assessing Buckingham Palace’s performance in a “test” on Commonwealth leadership. We are glad Your Majesty passed with distinction.’ Never entirely comfortable hearing herself being praised to the skies, the Queen would cringe at being told: ‘People like you strengthen the positive forces that make universal brotherhood and love instruments of true and durable peace.’ Most problematic, however, were Kaunda’s attacks on the ‘tottering rebel regime in Rhodesia’ and their sympathisers. ‘We hope that the small lunatic fringe in Rhodesia will not lead to the break-up of the Commonwealth.’ In tone and substance, it could hardly have been further from the Queen’s unifying call for ‘cooperation’ a few days earlier.

  As if that was not enough of a headache for the British High Commissioner, Len Allinson, he had just been informed that Kaunda was going to introduce the Queen to the anti-Rhodesian guerrilla leader, Joshua Nkomo, when she landed at the airport. While this was, presumably, one way of ensuring that Nkomo’s jumpy militiamen did not fire any SA-7 missiles at the royal plane on its way in, it could hardly be more likely to enrage the white leadership of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia and create a hostile mood. Still, at least it took everyone’s minds off the fact that, the very same day, Rhodesian commandos had just launched another raid into Zambia, possibly in revenge for the abduction of a group of white missionaries three days earlier. The Queen was now less than twenty-four hours away.

  Allinson immediately went in search of the author of this dreadful speech that President Kaunda was about to deliver. The same man had also been behind the royal invitation for Nkomo. He was Mark Chona, the President’s political adviser and a man whom Foreign Office notes describe as ‘quite unscrupulous’. Allinson accused Chona and his boss of ‘dragging the Queen into politics’. For good measure, he also asked the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Sonny Ramphal, to lean on Kaunda, too. President Kaunda let it be known that he was ‘gravely shocked’ to be told whom he could and could not invite on to his red carpet. Yet, eventually, Allinson was informed that Nkomo would be asked to stay away. Mightily relieved, the High Commissioner immediately sent a telex to the royal party, now preparing to leave Botswana, reassuring them that the Queen would not face any awkward introductions at the end of her three-and-a-half-hour flight. However, there was a thinly veiled threat to the British government, delivered to Allinson by Chona. While the Queen would be ‘respected’ in Lusaka, said Chona, ‘Mrs Thatcher must bear in mind that Zambian lives had been lost at the hands of the rebel regime. Zambia had its public opinion and the Prime Minister must expect it to be felt.’ As Allinson noted: ‘A sinister note which I was not able to explore further.’ Nor was there any indication whether Kaunda would be altering his hysterical speech. If he persisted with his anti-Thatcher, anti-Rhodesia, anti-consensus rant, the Commonwealth would be in serious trouble.

  TWO LADIES

  Shortly after 4 p.m. on Friday 27th July 1979, unmolested by gunfire or stray missiles, the Queen finally arrived in Lusaka, her first visit to independent Zambia. As Patsy Robertson, then running the press operation for the Commonwealth, recalls, the excitement had been building all day. ‘I remember the morning when it started. The Zambian news said: ‘Two ladies are coming from Britain. One we love – and then another one later”.’ In fact, by arriving first, the Queen had helped to dampen much of the pent-up hostility towards Mrs Thatcher. Everyone wanted to see the Queen. As Len Allinson recorded in his despatch on the visit: ‘Members of the Central Committee (the Zambian Politburo) were, as usual, unable to refrain from intervening at the eleventh hour to produce their inimitable masterly touch of chaos. When the Queen arrived at Lusaka Airport, the invited British children were swamped by councillors and party militants and saw nothing of the Queen. The prize for the worst offender undoubtedly went to Mr Mainza Chona.’ Brother of the difficult Mark Chona, Mainza Chona was the Secretary-General of Zambia’s only political party, UNIP, and the second most important figure in the country, after the President. He would soon come to annoy British diplomats even more than his brother.

  Accompanied by the President, the Queen was then driven to the royal quarters at State Lodge, where William Heseltine was relieved to find that the overwhelming ‘pong’ he had encountered on his recce was no more. After tea with the Kaundas, the Queen and Prince Philip hosted a reception for all the press covering her visit. Throughout the visit, the media would be struck by the passionate public response on every leg of the royal route. ‘These were no mere “sent” crowds on the instruction of the party,’ wrote Len Allinson. ‘The reason cannot be explained quite so simply. There was gratitude that the Queen had come to Zambia in its time of trouble. There was undoubtedly also an aura of mystery and respect about the person of the Queen.’ The following day, the
Central Committee Commissar of Lusaka Province, Fines Bulawayo, was visited by a delegation of local elders with an urgent request. The public, they insisted, wanted the monarch’s police escort removed because it was obstructing their view. ‘The people wanted to see the Queen,’ Bulawayo explained. ‘She had no need for police protection. The people were her safeguard.’

  Even so, Air Commodore Archie Winskill was taking no chances as he flew the royal party up to view Zambia’s copper belt near Kitwe. As he approached the runway, the ex-fighter pilot decided against a leisurely regal approach and put the royal Andover into another ‘perpendicular dive’ on approach, just in case a stray freedom-fighter with a missile launcher and poor communications had failed to receive the ‘ceasefire’ message. Once again, the crowds were historic. The head of Roan Consolidated Mines reported a ‘dramatic’ drop in production that day because most of his miners wanted to line the route. Len Allinson watched the branch of a large tree give way under the weight of spectators outside a clinic in Kitwe. ‘It was a heartwarming sight to see the big smiles on the faces of the grown-ups and children alike watching the royal vehicles disappearing down the road and still chanting “KK, Queenie. KK, Queenie!” ’