Behind Diplomatic Lines
Page 13
18 APRIL 1989
A ten-day visit to the United States, joining Geoffrey Howe in Washington on my last day, for a call on the House Foreign Affairs Committee; a call on Vice-President Quayle – much more impressive and self-confident that I had been led to expect; two hours at the State Department with Baker, Kimmitt and others; a press conference and TV interviews before a call on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and a call on President Bush, with Baker, Scowcroft, Bob Gates and Roz Ridgway, while twenty photographers and journalists shouted questions at the President, which he totally ignored, as he spoke to Geoffrey. It is apparently a well-accepted ritual that Bush never answers any questions in these circumstances.
But it was a relaxed discussion, with Geoffrey Howe covering all the points on his checklist, with Bush himself seeming to be totally in command of every subject covered. We went on later for a third session at the White House, with Scowcroft and Gates – mainly on SNF and Germany. None of this appeared visibly to exhaust Geoffrey, who was looking impatiently for work to do on the aircraft later.
20 APRIL 1989
Lunch at Carlton Gardens for the Federal Secretary for Yugoslavia, Lončar. One of the guests was Cibi Stewart, widow of my boss in Cairo, Dugald Stewart, and a heroine of Tito’s partisans. When asked by the waiter if she wanted red wine, she was heard to say: ‘I’m ready to try anything – even incest.’ The waiter looked a trifle startled. Presumably a reflection of Churchill’s alleged advice that you should try everything in life, except for country dancing and incest?
26 APRIL 1989
Percy Cradock called, worrying about Europe, and the risk that the Prime Minister is again isolating herself over the Delors report and Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Practically everyone in Whitehall and the City thinks that we should join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) except for Margaret Thatcher. [An interesting comment, in view of subsequent developments over ‘Black Wednesday’ and the rows sparked off by the Lamont and Major autobiographies.]
27 APRIL 1989
I called on David Howell at the House of Commons, to brief him very privately on the new SIS headquarters, which is concealed in the FCO estimates, and on which the Foreign Affairs Committee may well press me at their hearing next week.
Alan Donald wrote to me today to say that Peter Morrison’s visit to Peking had gone very well; I had confirmation from Peter Gregson that Morrison had much enjoyed it – particularly riding round Peking with Janet Donald on bicycles!
2 MAY 1989
The Prime Minister had three successive meetings over the weekend with her Dutch, Italian and German opposite numbers (Lubbers, De Mita and Kohl). She clearly enraged her interlocutors by the dogmatic and dismissive way in which she pressed her arguments on SNF, telling De Mita that she was coming to the conclusion that Kohl was no longer a reliable ally (a remark which will certainly get back to him).
Geoffrey Howe told me at Chevening this morning that he was very worried by the way in which she was now going over the top, and fears that, on the substance, the Americans may be tempted to do a deal with the Germans, leaving the PM stranded. As usual, Geoffrey bemoaned the fact that, on such crucial arms control questions, there had been no structured ministerial discussion at all. I told him that I thought it was unfair and inefficient that the burden was all on him, in his bilaterals with her, to tug her back from excessive Euro-bashing. She is still steamed up about the Delors Report on EMU, on which Nigel Lawson is trying to edge her back from slamming all the doors.
The Prime Minister is showing increasing signs of hype – perhaps because of her tenth anniversary this week. But the press is almost unanimously critical, including even Tory writers like Peregrine Worsthorne in the Sunday Telegraph.
I asked Perry Rhodes today about press reports of David Mellor’s misbehaviour at his Nordic conference, which I addressed last month. It appears that Mellor grossly insulted the Swedes, by offensive references to their neutrality in the war. But Perry commented that it was a bit difficult to be too fierce about it, since all the other Scandinavians present obviously shared his sentiments.
3 MAY 1989
I had two hours in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee this morning, with much concentration on why people are resigning (a particularly alarming figure of eight fast-stream new entrants last year). Some quite useful points on pay and accommodation, though I had to steer a careful course between appearing to lobby the Treasury via the FAC or I might have seemed to be complacent (with members of the staff side present, and taking notes).
4 MAY 1989
The press today were full of blasts against the European Commission, which heightened the impression of a train running out of control, combined with all the hype surrounding the PM’s tenth anniversary today. I discussed this with Geoffrey Howe this morning, who is working quietly with Nigel Lawson to find ways of cooling the atmosphere, and trying to arrange sensible corporate discussion. It is astonishing that OD has never once met to discuss SNF and arms control, let alone wider political relations with Europe. (Have they completely forgotten the criticisms of the Franks committee, and the failure to convene Cabinet committees?)
8 MAY 1989
In the intervals of a meeting at Chevening with the Ministry of Defence, I discussed with Geoffrey Howe and William Waldegrave the handling of Rafsanjani’s latest threats, inviting the Palestinians to kill five Americans, French or Brits for every Palestinian killed in the Intifada. We are hoping to mobilise the French, Russians and Japanese into some effective condemnation (and later summoned both the Russians and the Chinese to the office). The PLO has already issued a very good statement after Bassam Abu Sharif had telephoned William Waldegrave at home over the weekend.
Ray Seitz has, most unusually, given William Waldegrave copies of two telegrams he has sent to the State Department, summing up the changes in Britain over the past ten years – moving, as he put it, from being a ‘diplomatic leg-iron’ to an effective and energetic ally.
9 MAY 1989
I lunch with Tom McNally, now working for Hill+Knowlton. He is still an active Liberal Democrat, and a member of their federal executive. He claims to be optimistic about the chances of the centre parties, but he would, wouldn’t he? Their performance at the recent Welsh by-election was pretty calamitous.
I asked Robin Butler today whether he thought the renewed press stories that Geoffrey Howe was about to be sacked were well-founded. He replied that the PM had almost certainly taken no decisions yet, but commented that, while listening to Geoffrey giving a very moving and lucid tribute to the PM’s anniversary at Cabinet last week, he was reminded of the harsh cold world of politics; there are now only four members of the PM’s original Cabinet left.
Virginia and I went to the state banquet at Buckingham Palace for the Nigerians this evening. One senior Nigerian only arrived after dinner, apologising to the Queen for having missed the President’s aircraft because he didn’t have a wife, and had therefore not been woken up in time. We both sat next to the Lawsons – she is a rather naïve, young Catholic, and talked a bit about her religion (with a husband who is an agnostic Jew). She clearly does not enjoy official life or travel.
10 MAY 1989
Following confirmation of a firm raft of top appointments with Geoffrey Howe, he discussed it today with the Prime Minister, resulting in practically all the agreed appointments going prematurely awry.
11 MAY 1989
We went to the Nigerian return banquet at Claridge’s this evening, at which one British guest said to me, while we were walking in to dinner: ‘How nice to see Jack Gowon here. What a wonderful man he is. He has never been known to say a nasty thing about any of his successors.’ This was said loudly in the hearing of Ted Heath, who must have thought it was pointed at him.
15 MAY 1989
John Kerr came to see me this morning to discuss his very private drafting sessions with Tim Lankester at the Treasury on European Monetary System (EMS). Both Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Laws
on have asked them to prepare a paper designed to persuade the PM to change her mind. John tells me that they were both in a very macho mood last week, and were talking about EMS as a resigning matter. When I commented that I hoped Geoffrey was taking care to bind Nigel Lawson closely to him, John said that he did not trust Lawson at all, and thought that Geoffrey could well find himself provoking the PM into sacking him. John is understandably nervous about his own role in this.
David Hannay told me today that Peter Morrison had told him that Geoffrey Howe would definitely be removed in July, and that Cecil Parkinson would take his place (though I doubt whether even Morrison yet knows the PM’s real plans). The row over Europe intensified today, with Michael Heseltine and Ted Heath weighing in with powerful speeches for the European elections. When I lunched today with EC heads of mission, they were all anxious to know why the PM has suddenly decided to handbag the community so violently. Several of them agreed that Delors’s appearance at the TUC conference in Bournemouth had enraged her (though in fact what he said had not been at all bad – see p. 113, above).
16 MAY 1989
Geoffrey Howe made the annual speech to the CBI this evening. It is noticeable that his criticism of Ted Heath for lack of ‘generosity’ (he had originally wanted to add the word ‘gallantry’) received spontaneous applause from the CBI. He later addressed community heads of mission, commenting, on the new American administration, that the change from Shultz to Baker was likely to be far more significant than the switch from Reagan to Bush. Geoffrey clearly still feels uneasy with Baker, and his tendency to ‘UDI’ (Rhodesian Unilateral Declaration of Independence), as he puts it. Baker’s reputation in the State Department was well illustrated by a savage lampoon in an April Fool’s Day issue of the State Department’s staff magazine, which claimed that Baker was working on his management relations, and was about to be introduced to his own personal secretary.
Later in the month there was an article by Jeremy Campbell in the Evening Standard, arguing that Bush had deliberately turned away from the special relationship that Reagan had enjoyed with Margaret Thatcher, and that American priorities had moved to Japan. John Whitehead told me, during my visit to Tokyo this month, that he and his German colleague had nearly walked out of some function at which the former United States ambassador, Senator Mansfield, had described Japan as America’s leading partner, and that Europe now took second place.
19 MAY 1989
This week has illustrated the extent to which international affairs are now dominated by problems of the movement of people – whether it is Turks pouring into Hackney, or Vietnamese boat people swamping Hong Kong.
I think that the Home Office will have to face up to the need for effective post-entry controls, which in turn would require compulsory identity cards – described by the PM in the Daily Mail as ‘totally repugnant’ (though a quick poll at my morning meeting revealed that not one of them, like myself, would in the least mind being forced to carry identity cards – nor would my driver, when I asked him today). But perhaps this is not a typical cross-section!
31 MAY 1989
Renewed stories in the press that the PM is about to sack Geoffrey Howe seem to have done some good. The PM is said to be furious about them. Having confirmed that the stories did not come from No. 10, she said loudly in Brussels that it must have been the work of aspiring promotees. She then went out of her way to say nice things about Geoffrey at her press conference, some of which were reflected in today’s press, including a story that there will be no senior reshuffle this summer, though I think that Lynda Chalker and Tim Eggar are almost certain to move.
To No. 10 for a dinner for Prince Sultan of Saudi Arabia. [My diary records an earlier occasion when I had attended a dinner for Prince Sultan, when I was home on leave from Saudi Arabia. I had received a message to say that Mrs Thatcher would like me to be at the front door to help her receive the Prince.
When I turned up, she asked her private secretary for the placement. Having looked at it, she said: ‘Sir Patrick is sitting far too low down the table. As an ambassador, he should be much higher.’ To which I told her that I had once been told by my ambassador in Washington that an ambassador at home has as little status as a bishop abroad, at which she snorted: ‘As far as I am concerned, bishops at home don’t have any status’.]
At the end of the evening, I had a discussion with the Prime Minister about Syria and Hafez al-Assad, in the company of Peter Holmes, chairman of Shell, and Roger Tomkys, a former ambassador to Syria who was now an Assistant Under-Secretary. She looked slightly alarmed to find herself in the company of three Syrophiles. Shell now does a lot of business in Syria (through their American subsidiary, Pecten) and Margaret Thatcher is one of the very few British politicians who has seen Assad from time to time.
1 JUNE 1989
I went over to 12 Downing Street with John Fretwell, David Gillmore and Paul Lever for Geoffrey Howe’s meeting with Jim Baker, while the PM started her tête-à-tête with Bush. The press again were full of stories about the diminished special relationship, which Bush did some good work to correct publicly.
But a series of DUSs have been to see me to express their concern at the way the Prime Minister has left our relations with Europe in a state of disarray. Geoffrey Howe has asked John Kerr and John Goulden to write up a paper to send to No. 10 before the Madrid summit. But it will not be easy to write, and I doubt whether Geoffrey will in fact issue it.
At the Queen’s lunch for the Bushes, Virginia and I had a talk with Elspeth Howe about the possible sacking of Geoffrey, about which she seems pretty fatalistic, saying that they only need to get their domestic arrangements in place. ‘It’s bound to happen sooner or later.’
2 JUNE 1989
William Waldegrave was in the soup today, having had to admit that it was he who told a journalist that the Russians had tried to suborn Labour MPs (on which there has been an exchange of correspondence and PQs between the Prime Minister and Neil Kinnock – with the PM denying that the government had ever claimed this). I thought William might well have to resign, but it looks as though he may have got away with it. It will increase Geoffrey Howe’s sensitivity to junior ministers a) talking to the press; and b) dealing with intelligence questions.
8 JUNE 1989
The problem of Vietnamese boat people was discussed, rather unsatisfactorily, at OD this afternoon. The Prime Minister was said to have been at her worst, simply failing to listen to any arguments she disagreed with. In a later discussion with Geoffrey Howe, he told me that the Prime Minister is very impatient at what she sees as the FCO’s failure to think up solutions, and is moving towards a policy of ‘pushing off’ – apparently oblivious of the appalling implications, with photographs reminiscent of Palestinians and Jews in 1947 in sinking boats and drowning children.
The press are now claiming that neither Geoffrey Howe nor Nigel Lawson is to be sacked. I walked round the park this morning with Peter Middleton; we both agreed that nobody really knows, though Nigel Lawson is said to be in a very jumpy mood.
9 JUNE 1989
Joe Haines wrote an article in today’s Daily Mirror, following my statement that ‘I was sure that any [eavesdropping] devices had no connection with the British government’, commenting that I was the sort of person able to convince a naked man that he had egg on his tie!
12 JUNE 1989
I gave lunch today to William Waldegrave, who is still very anxious about his row with the BBC (following John Sergeant’s report that Soviet expellees had been trying to suborn Labour MPs), and obviously came near to resignation last week. He clearly thinks his chances of promotion have been damaged.
Robin Butler today delivered the expected bombshell, telling me that the Prime Minister had ‘decided’ that Charles Powell should stay on at No. 10; that he had been disgracefully treated by the FCO (‘though not by Patrick Wright, who has always been a loyal supporter’); that he needed a more political job, like political director; and that he might succ
eed Robin Renwick in South Africa if (or when) Robin becomes PUS. Robin Butler had to make it a condition of talking to me that nothing would be said to Geoffrey Howe, of whom she had made some very disparaging remarks. I pointed out that, at the very least, I would have to discuss with the Foreign Secretary alternative candidates for Madrid. After Andrew Turnbull had joined us, we arranged to have a ‘trilateral’ meeting with the Prime Minister tomorrow.
13 JUNE 1989
Robin Butler called on me at 8.30 a.m. to say that he had just come from a private meeting with the Prime Minister, at which he had taken a very tough line on Charles Powell’s future.
Andrew Turnbull, Robin and I met in the PM’s study at 4 p.m. for a full hour of very tough talking. Robin and I put forward very strongly our advice that Charles should resume his diplomatic career; that the PM had already agreed (in writing) to the destination and timing of his next post, after three changes of post and six changes of timing; that talk of Charles being ‘crucified’ (the PM’s word) was ridiculous; and that Carla had been stirring up trouble, and claiming to me that the FCO ‘had it in’ for them both.