Strasbourg had one solid result: it had put the question of Britain’s unfair budget contribution squarely on the agenda. I felt that I had made an impression as someone who meant business, and afterwards I learned that this feeling was correct. It was at Strasbourg, too, that I overheard a foreign government official make a stray remark that pleased me as much as any I can remember: ‘Britain is back,’ he said.
Many of the wider issues discussed at Strasbourg were raised again shortly afterwards in the still grander surroundings of the economic summit of the seven principal western industrial powers in Tokyo (the Group of Seven, or G7 for short). As soon as I had finished my report to the House of Commons on the Strasbourg Council, we drove out to Heathrow for the long flight to Japan. Oil prices and their effect on the economy would again be top of the agenda.
The previous G7 summit had been held in Bonn in 1978 when the doctrine of ‘fine tuning demand’ had still been fashionable. Germany had then been expected to act as the ‘locomotive’ for growth, pulling the world out of recession. As Chancellor Schmidt was to tell the summit leaders at Tokyo, the main result had been to put up German inflation: he would not go down that path again. At Bonn there had been no new heads of government present and the old nostrums prevailed. At Tokyo, by contrast, there were three newcomers – the Japanese Prime Minister and Conference Chairman, Mr Ohira, the new Prime Minister of Canada, Joe Clark, and myself. Apart from me, the strongest advocates of free market economics were Helmut Schmidt and, to an even greater extent, Count Otto von Lambsdorff, his Finance minister.
Soon after my arrival, I went to see President Carter at the United States Embassy where we talked over our approach to the issues which would arise, especially energy consumption, which posed a particular problem – and one with important political implications – for the US. It was impossible not to like Jimmy Carter. He was a deeply committed Christian and a man of obvious sincerity. He was also a man of marked intellectual ability with a grasp, rare among politicians, of science and the scientific method. But he had come into office as the beneficiary of Watergate rather than because he had persuaded Americans of the rightness of his analysis of the world around them. And, indeed, that analysis was badly flawed. He had an unsure handle on economics and was therefore inclined to drift into a futile ad hoc interventionism when problems arose. In foreign affairs, he was over-influenced by the doctrines then gaining ground in the Democratic Party that the threat from communism had been exaggerated and that US intervention in support of right-wing dictators was almost as culpable. Hence he found himself surprised and embarrassed by such events as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Iran’s seizure of American diplomats as hostages. And in general he had no large vision of America’s future so that, in the face of adversity, he was reduced to preaching the austere doctrine of limits to growth that was unpalatable, even alien, to the American imagination.
The meeting began, as usual, with a short general speech by each head of government. Chancellor Schmidt spoke before me in the first session, and after me in the second. We found ourselves stressing exactly the same points – the importance of the battle against inflation and the crucial role of the price mechanism in limiting energy consumption. My interventions appeared to be well received – not least by the Germans, as Count Lambsdorff subsequently told us. It was perhaps the nearest we ever came to an Anglo-German entente. I noted that many of our present difficulties stemmed from the pursuit of Keynesian policies with their emphasis on the deficit financing of public expenditure and I stressed the need to control the money supply in order to defeat inflation. There followed, after Mr Ohira and Chancellor Schmidt had taken a similar line, an extraordinary intervention by President Giscard in which he mounted a spirited defence of Lord Keynes and clearly rejected the basic free market approach as unnecessarily deflationary. Sig. Andreotti, Italy’s Prime Minister, endorsed the French view. It was a revealing expression of the fundamental philosophical differences which divide the Community.
It would be difficult to claim too much for the quality of Japan’s chairmanship of the proceeding. At one stage I intervened to clarify for the sake of the officials – the ‘sherpas’ as they are known – precisely which of the two alternative draft communiqués we were discussing. While we were entertained that evening at a banquet given by the Emperor of Japan, the sherpas began their work. At about 2 o’clock in the morning, still in my evening dress, I went to see how the communiqué drafters were getting on. I found them refining their earlier draft in the light of our discussions and setting out alternative forms of words where decisions would be required from the summit. I hoped we would be as businesslike as they evidently were.
The following day we met once again at the Akasaka Palace to go through the communiqué, always a tedious and lengthy process. There was some disagreement between the Americans and the Europeans about the base year from which to set our different targets for the reduction of oil imports. But for me perhaps the most revealing discussion concerned the Japanese target. Until almost the last moment it was far from clear whether Mr Ohira’s advisers would allow him to give a figure at all. When in the end the Japanese did announce their figures no one had any idea what sort of reduction they constituted, if any; but President Carter warmly congratulated them all the same.
And so the communiqué was issued and the customary press conference held. The most important decision made had nothing to do with checking oil consumption. It was that, despite the inclinations of several G7 governments, we were not going to fall into the trap of trying to achieve a co-ordinated reflation of demand. It was a useful signal for the future.
From Tokyo I flew to Canberra. This was my third visit to Australia, though it was to be only a brief one. There was time to see my daughter, Carol, who was working as a journalist there, but my main purpose was to talk to Malcolm Fraser, the Australian Prime Minister. I briefed him on what had taken place at Tokyo. But even more important, we discussed the forthcoming Commonwealth Conference in Lusaka at which Rhodesia would inevitably be the main issue. Over the next eight months, Rhodesia was to take up a great deal of my time.
Rhodesia had been a long-standing source of grief to successive British governments, but the elections of April 1979 in Rhodesia fundamentally changed the whole position. Under the new constitution, Bishop Muzorewa was elected as head of a black majority government, in a 64 per cent turn-out of a black majority electorate. The ‘Patriotic Front’ parties – the guerrillas of Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo – had not taken part in the elections. Viscount Boyd of Merton – a former Conservative Colonial Secretary – had attended as an observer and reported back to me, as Leader of the Opposition, that the elections had been fairly conducted.
However, I was well aware that what the people of Rhodesia needed above all was peace and stability. It was the war, relentlessly carried on by the guerrillas, which had forced the white minority government to make concessions: that war had to be ended. To bring peace we had either to win international acceptance for the new regime or bring about the changes which would win such acceptance.
The first and most immediate problem was the attitude of the neighbouring ‘front line’ African states. We sent Lord Harlech, another former Conservative minister and an ex-Ambassador to Washington, for talks with the Presidents of Zambia, Tanzania, Botswana, Malawi and Angola. He also went to Mozambique and Nigeria. I was not at all keen at this stage that he should talk to Mr Mugabe and Mr Nkomo: their forces had carried out atrocities which disgusted everyone and I was as keen to avoid dealings with terrorists abroad as I would be at home. However, Peter Carrington’s view was that it was essential to secure the widest possible recognition for a Rhodesian regime, since that country held the key to the whole South African region.
Accordingly, Lord Harlech did see the Patriotic Front leaders and, in July, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) endorsed the Patriotic Front as the sole legitimate authentic representative of the people of Zimbabwe. Black Afric
an states insisted on viewing Bishop Muzorewa’s Government as nothing more than a façade for continued white minority rule. The fact that this greatly underrated the change which the internal settlement had effected did nothing to reduce the consequences of their attitude for Rhodesia.
Yet the situation did offer opportunities, if we were able to grasp them. First, nearly everyone considered that it was Britain’s responsibility to solve the problem, and even though this frequently made us the object of criticism it also gave us a relatively free hand if we knew how to use it. Second, there was a great weariness among the parties involved and not just the Rhodesians themselves. The surrounding African states were finding it costly, disruptive and dangerous to play host to the two guerrilla armies. Nkomo’s forces in Zambia were said to outnumber Zambia’s own army.
Our best chance of a breakthrough was likely to be at the forthcoming Commonwealth Conference in Lusaka. This would be the first regular Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting held in Africa. Zambia adjoined the Rhodesian war zone. It was also land-locked, so that the Queen, who is traditionally present during the first days as Head of the Commonwealth (though she does not open or attend the meeting) could not use the Royal Yacht Britannia. There were, accordingly, some worries about Her Majesty’s safety, on which it was my responsibility to advise. My feeling was that there was no reason why her visit should not go ahead, and she received an enormous welcome. I, by contrast, was far from being their favourite person, when, late in the evening of Monday 30 July, I arrived in Lusaka to face a hostile and demanding press conference.
Our strategy was to take full responsibility ourselves for reaching a settlement. The task in Lusaka was to persuade the Commonwealth leaders to accept this, and to acknowledge that the Rhodesian problem was not the responsibility of the Commonwealth as a whole. To obtain that result we had to make it clear that Britain would be ready to resume authority in Rhodesia and to hold fresh elections. We knew also that there would have to be significant changes to the present constitution of Rhodesia if, after elections, the new government was to receive international recognition and acceptance. Those changes could only be brought about by some kind of Constitutional Conference bringing together all sides. The decision whether or not to hold such a conference would very much depend on how matters went at Lusaka, where our host was President Kenneth Kaunda.
It had been agreed to hold back the debate on southern Africa until the Friday so that after it the heads of government could go straight to their customary informal weekend retreat for private discussions on Rhodesia’s future. My task was to win the support of the key figures there. A small group was set up consisting of myself and Peter Carrington, Mr (now Sir) Sonny Ramphal, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, President Kaunda of Zambia, President Nyerere of Tanzania, Messrs Fraser and Manley, the Prime Ministers of Australia and Jamaica and Mr Adefope, the representative of Nigeria. Sir Anthony Duff, who was part of my team, drafted the heads of agreement. Our meeting ended successfully at Sunday lunchtime and the full version of the agreement was to have been discussed and endorsed by the full conference on Monday morning. However, on Sunday afternoon Malcolm Fraser chose to brief the Australian press. This required some rapid and unconventional action.
That evening we all attended a Commonwealth service in Lusaka Cathedral, where we had the benefit of a long polemical sermon from the Archbishop. I had been told already that the press knew the substance of what had been decided. Sonny Ramphal and I were sitting together; he was to read the first lesson, and I the second. After he had read his I showed him a note I had received from Peter Carrington about Malcolm Fraser’s intervention, suggesting that we must now brief the British press on what had taken place. On the back of my hymn sheet, while I was reading the second lesson, Mr Ramphal wrote an alternative suggestion. The heads of government had been invited to a barbecue that evening at Malcolm Fraser’s conference villa: we could hold a meeting there and settle a communiqué to be issued at once. This seemed to me an excellent idea and so the meeting came about. I was none too pleased with Malcolm Fraser myself. But the conclusion was satisfactory. Indeed, most of us were relieved that it had all been so amicable and that our proceedings could therefore end a day early.
I returned home on Wednesday morning. I was well pleased with what had been achieved, so much of it by Peter Carrington and Tony Duff. Many had believed that we could not come out of Lusaka with an agreement on the lines we wanted. We had proved them wrong.
Britain accordingly called a Constitutional Conference for the interested parties at Lancaster House in London in September. Its purpose was emphasized as being not just to talk but to reach a settlement. Peter Carrington chaired the conference with great skill and took charge of its day-to-day work. My role lay outside it. The heads of the ‘front line’ states came to London in person or sent in High Commissioners to see me for a progress report. President Machel of Mozambique was especially helpful in putting pressure on Robert Mugabe. I also gave a dinner for President Nyerere, another strong backer of Mr Mugabe. His concern was how to blend the three separate armies – the two guerrilla armies and the Rhodesian army – into one, a task which would fall to the British army to achieve.
Just after the conference concluded, all three rival leaders – Bishop Muzorewa, Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo – came to see me together at No. 10. They were in contemplative mood, pondering the future. I had the clear impression that each of them expected to win. Perhaps that was just as well.
Probably the most sensitive aspect of our approach related to the transitional arrangements: it was clear to me that, both for constitutional and practical reasons, Britain must resume direct authority in Rhodesia until the elections were over. On 15 November a Bill was introduced to provide for the appointment of a Governor and for sanctions to be removed as soon as he arrived in Rhodesia. Christopher Soames accepted the post. The decision to send him, as Governor, to Salisbury on 12 December, even before the Patriotic Front had accepted the cease-fire proposals, certainly involved some risk and was much criticized at the time. But we were clear that the momentum had to be maintained. Moreover, not only did Christopher have the authority of a Cabinet minister and wide diplomatic experience, he and his wife, Mary, had precisely the right style to carry off this most delicate and demanding job. Heavy pressure from the US and the ‘front line’ states finally led the Patriotic Front to accept the proposals for the cease-fire on 17 December, and the agreement was finally initialled on 21 December.
The outcome of the elections is well known. Mr Mugabe’s party, to most people’s surprise, won an overwhelming victory. On 18 April Rhodesia, as the Republic of Zimbabwe, finally received its independence.
It was sad that Rhodesia/Zimbabwe finished up with a Marxist government in a continent where there were too many Marxists mal-administering their countries’ resources. But political and military realities were all too evidently on the side of the guerrilla leaders. With the Rhodesian question finally solved, Britain again played an effective role in dealing with other Commonwealth – and especially African – issues, including the pressing problem of the future of Namibia and the longer-term challenge of bringing peaceful change to South Africa. Britain had demonstrated her ability, by a combination of honest dealing and forceful diplomacy, to settle one of the most intractable disputes arising from her colonial past.
With the Lancaster House Conference still in progress, I had to turn my mind to the vexed question of how to negotiate a substantial reduction in Britain’s net contribution to the European Community budget. Figures had at long last been put on the size of that contribution and henceforth it was difficult for anyone to deny the scale of the problem.
At the next Council – in Dublin at the end of November, the Irish having now assumed the European Community presidency – the issue of our budget contribution dominated the business. The security risk from the IRA required that I be lodged overnight in splendid isolation in Dublin Castle and the Irish press enjo
yed the idea that I slept in the bed used by Queen Victoria in 1897 – though I had the advantage over her of a portable shower in my room. Indeed, I was very well looked after. The hospitality was perhaps the best feature of the visit, and contrasted strongly with the atmosphere at the meetings which was extremely and increasingly hostile.
The Council opened amicably enough in Phoenix Park at the Irish President’s official residence where he hosted lunch. Back in the Council at Dublin Castle we got down to business. My opening speech set out the facts of our case in somewhat greater detail than at Strasbourg and I elaborated on them in the vigorous debate which followed. There was a good deal of argument about the figures, at the root of which was an obscure and complex issue – how to calculate the losses and gains resulting to individual states from the operation of the CAP. But whichever way one did the sums, there was no doubt that the UK was making a huge net contribution, and unless it was mitigated it was about to become the biggest.
We had put forward our own proposals on the budget. But the Commission had come up with some of its own and I was prepared to accept their basic approach as a starting point. First, they proposed that action be taken to shift the weight of Community expenditure programmes. The trouble was this would take too long – if it happened at all. Second, they proposed, in addition, specific spending on UK projects to boost our receipts. But there simply were not enough suitable projects. Finally, on the contribution side, the 1975 Correction Mechanism had so far failed to cut our payments. If it were reformed on the lines the Commission was proposing, it could help reduce our net contributions – but still not enough: we would still be contributing about the same as Germany and much more than France.
Margaret Thatcher: The Autobiography Page 38
