the meeting, I would have raised more fears than I quelled. Would people have been reassured to hear me say that our anxiety to restore world confidence in Hong Kong was in order to stave off financial paralysis, or would it have helped to bring about precisely that paralysis? Similarly, if I had said I wished to prevent the Chinese army from misbehaving in Hong Kong as they had done in Tiananmen Square, would that have reassured Hong Kong’s inhabitants, or the reverse? And would not such undiplomatic public musings have put at risk any worthwhile dialogue with China, as well as damaging British business interests? With these thoughts in my mind I returned from Paris and began to read myself seriously into my Foreign Office brief. I had no doubt that I could master the job of foreign secretary, but I was acutely aware of how poorly prepared by experience I was for this role. Once more I had a tremendous amount to learn.
As the summer parliamentary recess began I returned to Finings to pore over briefing papers, until Tristan Garel-Jones suggested I decamped with my family to his house in Spain, a beautiful property on the plain beneath the Gredos mountains which would provide perfect peace in lovely weather. ‘It’s very quiet,’ said Tristan. ‘You can sit in the shade and work and everyone else can get a suntan. I’m not going – it’s too hot for me in August.’ I accepted gladly, and went with Norma, Elizabeth and James, Robert Atkins, the MP for South Ribble, his wife Dulcie and their two children, and a suitcase full of briefings.
From dawn to dusk, interrupted only by meals, the occasional chat, cricket scores from home, early-evening gin and tonic, and Robert complaining about the heat (it was indeed very hot), I read and read and read. Never had I crammed so hard, as I absorbed the patterns of Britain’s relations with – and interests in – every part of the world. Fortunately for me, I have always been a fast reader, taking in the words in chunks rather than lines; on an ordinary holiday I get through at least a novel a day. Now, as the complex jigsaw came together, I became more and more enthusiastic about the opportunity I had been given. I so enjoyed reading myself into the new subject that the days flew by, and the joy of learning, the sense that it had a real purpose and that it was widening my horizons, was so great that, for the only time in my life, I rather regretted not having gone to university. I think I would have enjoyed it.
Shortly after my return from Spain I joined the Prime Minister in a ‘mini-summit’ at Chequers with President Mitterrand of France and his Foreign Minister, Roland Dumas. My talks with Roland were a sideshow, but they highlighted disagreements between the UK and France over social policy and European monetary union (EMU) that were to grow over the years. The French favoured a European social policy. We did not. I believed that European involvement would increase regulation, drive up costs and raise unemployment. I also believed it was for the British Parliament to decide upon such issues in Britain. These became familiar themes for me in future years, but were never accepted by the French.
Further differences were also obvious over the Delors Report on how the European Community could move to economic and monetary union. The full implications of Delors were still being debated, but the thrust was clear, and was unwelcome to the British government on economic and political grounds. I told Dumas, ‘Apart from the desirability of a single currency, the problems of persuading public and parliamentary opinion would be acute.’ For good measure I added that a single central bank was alien to our tradition of having interest rates set by the chancellor of the exchequer.
But these differences were not matters for immediate decision, and the five hours of talks were a success both at my level and between the two heads of government. The Prime Minister and President Mitterrand were very different characters, and it was enlivening to watch them in tandem. Both were unmistakable representatives of their nations: François Mitterrand could only have been a Frenchman, and Margaret Thatcher an Englishwoman. For that reason it was a fascinating contrast. Each performed in turn while the other watched admiringly and waited to get back to centre stage. It was not so much a meeting as a flirtation, which they both clearly enjoyed. Mitterrand was supposed to have said that the Prime Minister had ‘les yeux de Caligula et la bouche de Marilyn Monroe’. Years later, when I put this to him, he denied it, but it seemed in character, and having seen them together at the time, brilliantly apt.
Where they disagreed they circled one another warily, but did not follow the disagreement to a conclusion. When the Prime Minister set out our objections to the Social Chapter she did so crisply, making it clear that she saw it as an attempt to drag industry’s costs in other European countries up to German levels. When the President responded he went out of his way to say that, while he favoured the Charter, he did not have the same goals as Germany. Thus was confrontation between Britain and France avoided by a mutual expression of disapproval of the Germans. It was like watching two master chefs taking turns to carve up the same piece of meat. These exchanges served their purpose on the day, but only at a price. I was to learn later that Helmut Kohl was well aware of such exchanges, and that they caused real damage to our relationship with Germany.
Then came the conference season, always in autumn. The first to concern me was the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in September, then the Conservative Party Conference at Blackpool in October, and finally the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM – ‘Chog-um’ to everyone at the Foreign Office), held that year in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.
The UNGA is a massive foreign-policy jamboree where representatives from all over the world come together to express their views. Paradoxically, with few exceptions, their speeches are ignored by the world media, but for diplomats they set out in order of urgency each country’s hopes and fears. My speech contained a good deal of standard foreign-policy fare – although I had to fight hard for tough passages on the internal situation in China – and also some personal matters that I felt were important. One concerned the drugs trade.
Years earlier, during my Latin American tour as a member of the Whips’ Office, I had visited Colombia. Near the British Embassy in Bogotá I met some men in fatigues displaying weapons and devices for use against drugs traffickers. They turned out to be members of the British Army sent to help the Colombians in their fight against this lethal trade. I now offered to increase that help.
I also pleased the Africans with a lengthy passage on South Africa. ‘Apartheid cannot survive and does not deserve to survive,’ I said. ‘It is not something to be tolerated or to be patient with. It is something to oppose constantly and comprehensively.’ I not only believed this, I also thought it might sweeten the atmosphere at CHOGM the following month. I was wrong – it did not. But a scholarship scheme I announced for black South Africans was well received.
One of my earliest actions as foreign secretary had been to agree to open talks – led, on our side, by Sir Crispin Tickell, our Permanent Representative at the United Nations – with the Argentinians in Madrid. These had made some progress in re-establishing our still shaky relationship following the Falklands War, and I sought to carry it forward by meeting the Argentinian Foreign Minister during my time in New York. I also met Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, in an attempt to secure the release of a British citizen who had been jailed in Baghdad. Aziz attempted to link the case with that of an Iraqi in London who had been convicted of murder. I told him that British politicians could not – and would not – interfere with our legal system. He seemed pretty baffled by this. Years later Robin Cook, as Labour’s shadow Foreign Secretary, mistakenly claimed that my meeting with Aziz had been ‘secret’. This had the effect of suggesting that we had been discussing illegal arms sales. It took the officials on whom I was obliged to call most of a Saturday searching through files to provide the information to refute this mischief.
Other bilaterals left their own memories. While a further meeting with Qian Qichen had been unproductive but friendly, one with the Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Arens was less friendly. I asked some questions about Israeli policy which offended him. ‘I’m not in a court of law – I don’t have to answer your questions,’ he said. I wasn’t seeking a row with him, and in fact spent much of my time later at Number 10 improving Anglo – Israeli relationships. But this was a tricky start. The Hungarian Foreign Minister
