Behind Diplomatic Lines_Relations with Ministers Read online

  Michael Weir (ex-Cairo) called today, and advised me to try to go to the lunchtime concerts at St John’s Smith Square [I never did!], for the music, but also for the excellent impression it would make in the service – echoes of Douglas Hurd’s later reply to my question about which former PUS he would like me to emulate: Harold Caccia or Derek Hoyer Millar (to both of whom Douglas had been private secretary)? Douglas’s reply was firmly in favour of Hoyer Millar [later Lord Inchyra], since he had always left London for Scotland at midday on Friday, and did not return until Monday midday – in marked contrast to Harold Caccia’s very hands-on style.

  Once, when I was Caccia’s private secretary in Washington, he had handed me a letter about Cuba, and had asked me to draft a reply for him. Having walked down the corridor to Gill Brown’s office (she looked after Latin American affairs in the Chancery), I handed her the letter and asked her to draft a reply. A few minutes later, Caccia asked me if I had yet drafted a reply, so I told him what I had done. He immediately walked down the corridor to discuss a draft reply with Gill!

  9 JANUARY 1987

  I pressed Charles Powell today on Geoffrey’s attendance at Moscow. He thinks that a compromise is workable, but strongly advised that Geoffrey should not talk to the PM about it, or ‘there would be blood on the floor’.

  10 JANUARY 1987

  Antony Acland called and described Geoffrey Howe’s meeting with Shultz in Bermuda, at which Antony thought Geoffrey was too tired after his Colombia visit to have focussed properly on the detail of his briefs. I commented that it was too easy to assume from Geoffrey’s physical and intellectual energy that he is not capable of exhaustion. I once commented, rather cheekily, during a bilateral meeting with him, that I knew that he, like Margaret Thatcher, had a reputation for needing very little sleep; so far as I could tell, the only occasions on which he slept properly were when I was talking to him.

  In a letter to the service, dated 12 January, I wrote:

  Sadly, my visit to Southeast Asia was interrupted by a detour to Hong Kong for Teddy Youde’s funeral, which Tim Renton and I attended. We both found it a deeply moving occasion, both because of the exceptional level of official recognition of Teddy’s services to Hong Kong and because of the very obvious affection and respect which the people of Hong Kong of all races had for the late governor. The funeral itself had been preceded by a quite remarkable display of grief in normally undemonstrative Hong Kong. 80,000 people signed condolence books in government offices all over the territory, and some 11,000 paid their last respects during the lying-in-state at Government House.

  I reflected many of these comments when I was later asked, by Pam Youde, to give the tribute at Teddy Youde’s memorial service in Westminster Abbey on 17 February – a service rather dauntingly attended by at least three Prime Ministers.

  18 JANUARY 1987

  I attended Geoffrey Howe’s meeting to discuss the latest Argentine approach on Falkland fisheries, which may be a trap but appears to open the way for bilateral talks without discussing sovereignty. It is important to appear positive; but it will cause difficulties with No. 10.

  I face a very embarrassing and difficult row with Buckingham Palace, having asked Roger Hervey to raise with Princess Margaret’s private secretary the size and cost of her entourage when visiting China. Lord Napier was extremely resistant and thought that Princess Margaret at least would strongly object to being asked to contribute to the cost. Geoffrey Howe (to whom I had earlier reported on the problem) thinks I am not asking the Palace for enough. I am likely to end up on the anvil, if not in the Tower.

  20 JANUARY 1987

  Roger Hervey spoke to Lord Napier today about her China visit, and I later spoke on similar lines to Bill Heseltine, who reacted robustly, describing the proposal that the government should pay for Princess Margaret’s children as ‘quite monstrous’, and said he would talk to the Queen.

  21 JANUARY 1987

  Today was my first appearance before the Public Accounts Committee, after nearly two hours of rehearsal with Sherard, who took great delight in giving me a very hard time! But the practice was invaluable, and the meeting went quite well. I was well supported by officials, both from the FCO and from the auditor general’s office.

  22 JANUARY 1987

  An extraordinary day in which ministers spent most of the time trying unsuccessfully to stop dissemination of Duncan Campbell’s film and article on the Zircon Project [which was treated as so secret when I was a DUS in 1982/83 that I was not allowed to keep any papers on it in my office]. In spite of injunctions yesterday, the New Statesman carries full details today, and MPs managed to see the film, notwithstanding unprecedented injunctions against them. There was also a tussle about ministerial responsibility for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), ending with a prime ministerial ruling that the FCO should be responsible for the news handling of this. I commented that it looked as though there would have to be a revision of the Official Secrets Act; but attempts in the recent past to do so have always come to nothing, and Duncan Campbell himself was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the famous ABC case.

  Not only was GCHQ still unavowed at this date. I had an early meeting today on the avowal of Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), which reached no conclusions. My diary describes this as ‘a typical Howe meeting, consisting largely of philosophising. Presumably Geoffrey himself ends these meetings a bit clearer in his own mind, even if no one else does.’

  25 JANUARY 1987

  The resident clerk telephoned at 2 a.m. (Sunday) to say that the White House had contacted the embassy in Washington following the capture of three or four more hostages in Beirut, and had asked for contingency permission to preposition a force of approximately 500 at Akrotiri, in preparation for a ‘rescue mission’. Geoffrey Howe had already been told, and was worried about the continued incarceration of Terry Waite. I suggested we should ask some further questions about the nature and planning of the mission, and set up a 9 a.m. meeting. By that time, Charles Powell had drafted a first reply, which my meeting amended to point out more strongly the virtual impossibility of rescue missions without intelligence on the whereabouts of the hostages; the grave risks for other hostages and communities in Lebanon if the prepositioning became known [as it certainly would]. I telephoned Geoffrey Howe in Leicester to give him a guarded account of the line taken, which he endorsed. We have also pointed out to the Americans that the Islamic conference starts in Kuwait tomorrow. I was later telephoned to say that the Americans had decided to put off any troop movements for the moment. So far, so good.

  26 JANUARY 1987

  I attended a meeting in Robert Armstrong’s office to discuss what should be said to the PAC about accounting for GCHQ’s finances. We agreed on a formula stating that there had been no changes in the arrangements or procedures which had been followed by successive administrations. But like avowal of SIS, the arguments are illogical, and often consist of not admitting what everyone knows to be true. But we are rapidly slipping down the American slope, particularly in relation to Parliament, and ministers could be faced with demands for an intelligence select committee (though the PM will resist it strongly). By 2015, there was, of course, a joint parliamentary intelligence and security committee, chaired, for a time, by Malcolm Rifkind.

  27 JANUARY 1987

  I held a meeting on Terry Waite, hostages etc. to prepare for the PM’s meeting with Geoffrey Howe and George Younger. Still no firm news of Terry Waite, but reports from Washington suggest that the idea of a rescue mission has died, at least temporarily.

  I chaired a lunchtime meeting at Chatham House, at which Dr Alex Pravda launched a five-year study programme on Soviet foreign policy. It would be interesting to look at the product of this programme, which must have coincided with the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

  30 JANUARY 1987

  The new Dutch ambassador, Hans Jonkman, called. When I asked him whether he already knew any of his diplomatic colleagues in London
, he said that he had been in New York with Luc de Nanteuil. Having asked me how well I knew him (and clearly ready to be indiscreet, which I encouraged), he said that, having worked closely with de Nanteuil for about six months, he had said to him: ‘We have now worked together for quite a time. Would you call me Hans; and may I call you Luc?’ To which de Nanteuil had replied: ‘Pourquoi?’

  2 FEBRUARY 1987

  I lunched at the Mansion House for the annual ECGD gathering, hosted by Paul Channon, looking rather battered after his daughter’s death and the Guinness affair. He had been a delightful guest when we were in Riyadh, and wrote me a wonderful spoof thank-you letter, based on the Yes, Minister film about a reception in an Arab capital, thanking us for the opportunity to meet General Gordon’s grandson, though he had been a bit surprised, since he had always understood that General Gordon never married. I also taught him, during the visit, how to count from one to ten in Arabic. On my first appearance in his office at the DTI, the gathering group of DTI officials were astonished to hear their minister faithfully repeating the numbers to me as I entered the room.

  Geoffrey Howe attended a disastrous meeting of the new Government Accommodation Committee, at which he received no support for the long-standing decision that the FCO should occupy the capital’s old public offices. Both the DES (Department of Education and Science) and the DHSS (Department of Health and Social Security) want space in it, and the PM has evidently seen her chance of getting her pound of flesh, having capitulated on the ODA’s move to Richmond Terrace. She really can be very vindictive at times – in which context we have now received a rather gloomy acceptance of Robin McLaren’s new job. This relates to reports that Robin had made some disloyal comments on the Falklands War during his time in Hong Kong.

  3 FEBRUARY 1987

  My bilateral with Geoffrey Howe this afternoon was entirely taken up with a long, and rather bad-tempered, argument about Whitehall accommodation, on which Geoffrey found himself isolated yesterday. He clearly thinks that he will have to give up part of Richmond Terrace or the main old public offices, for at least a team from the DES and DHSS. I argued fiercely that it was inefficient and extravagant to change long-laid plans.

  Later this evening, I went briefly to a delayed New Year party given by the special advisers (John Houston and Adam Fergusson), at which Geoffrey Howe asked me if I had recovered from my bad temper. I said that it was the first grumpy meeting we had had, and was sure it would be the last. When I later told Geoffrey that Virginia had given me a trampoline for Christmas, he said that it should be good for shaking down my bad temper.

  4 FEBRUARY 1987

  Gordon Manzie and Crispin Tickell called at 9.30 a.m. to discuss tactics on accommodation, on which Gordon was extremely critical of his Secretary of State, Nicholas Ridley, who he said did not understand the subject, and was simply pandering to the PM’s prejudice against the FCO.

  A later meeting was interrupted by a long and angry telephone call from Tim Renton about my questioning (with Geoffrey Howe’s support) his air ticket to return from Prague for a constituency dinner.

  5 FEBRUARY 1987

  I was told that Sir David Nicholas had paid a very warm tribute to the FCO at a launch party held by ITN, at which Norman Tebbit was heard to say loudly that he was glad to hear that the Foreign Office had done something useful for once. Gordon Manzie told me that any solution to the accommodation problems which appeared to make the FCO suffer would be very popular in Whitehall.

  6 FEBRUARY 1987

  I discussed with Charles Powell today the very different attitudes of the PM and Geoffrey Howe towards the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), on which Margaret Thatcher predictably takes a much more bullish view in the face of recent indications that the Americans may be ready to break away from the narrow interpretation of the ABM Treaty. I have advised strongly that Geoffrey should reveal his hand to the PM, even at the risk of a difference of opinion.

  9 FEBRUARY 1987

  I went to Brooks’s this evening for a dinner for permanent secretaries and their wives. Sad that Ken Stowe, who has now worked for Norman Fowler for five and a half years at the DHSS, enjoys his job so little.

  17 FEBRUARY 1987

  Today I gave the memorial address for Teddy Youde in Westminster Abbey. Some very complimentary remarks afterwards, including from Margaret Thatcher, who greeted me at the end. Alec Home (who had given the address at Macmillan’s memorial service a week ago) told me that he thought composing and giving addresses of this sort added years to one’s life. Jim Callaghan (who was in his element, surrounded by Cardiff constituents) later telephoned me in glowing terms, and asked for six copies of my text.

  20 FEBRUARY 1987

  I lunched today with Robert Andrew, following up Geoffrey Howe’s request to interest myself in Irish affairs, given his nervousness about the implications of David Goodall’s departure – David having taken on Ireland in his DUS portfolio (unlike his predecessors, including myself). Robert confirmed to me that Tom King is the most difficult of the three secretaries of state he has worked for, and is neurotic about the FCO – and particularly about FCO attendance at meetings.

  23 FEBRUARY 1987

  Robin McLaren called, having started today on his Hong Kong duties. When I told him that the Prime Minister had had strong reservations about his appointment, he volunteered that he knew there had been a Security Service investigation; that he much resented the long gap before he was first given the opportunity to comment on the allegations; but that the PM, to his surprise, had come up to him in Peking and had said: ‘You don’t need to worry about all those stories; I think you are doing a first-rate job.’

  24 FEBRUARY 1987

  Lynda Chalker called today to moan about her relationship with Tim Eggar, who is obviously irritating all his colleagues by interfering in their business.

  I accompanied Geoffrey Howe and others this evening to an IPU (Inter-Parliamentary Union) dinner in the House of Commons, sitting between David Crouch and Peter Temple-Morris – a dinner arranged to thank Geoffrey for his, and the office’s, support. I was invited to say a few words, and expressed appreciation for Geoffrey’s encouragement of closer links between officials and Members of Parliament.

  25 FEBRUARY 1987

  The administration produced today a list of potential successors to myself, to which I added the name of David Gillmore (rather surprisingly omitted by the department).

  Paul Nitze and Richard Perle called on the PM this morning as part of their consultations on SDI. Geoffrey Howe had persuaded the PM that he should be present, but Percy Cradock later told me that there had been quite a sharp exchange between Geoffrey and the PM during the meeting (which will get straight back to Washington – unhelpfully). The trouble is that the PM believes that only she understands the subject, or knows how to play it.

  Charles Powell later told me that the last half hour of the call had been virtually devoted to this sharp exchange. Geoffrey had later reverted to the subject at Cabinet, and had been rudely slapped down by the PM. Charles commented that I would not recognise Cabinet from my days in the mid-1970s, since no one now dares to speak up to, or contradict, Margaret Thatcher. The trouble is that eight years of experience in No. 10 merely increases her self-confidence and autocracy.

  26 FEBRUARY 1987

  I held a meeting with heads of department this morning, at which there were some fairly sharp comments about the lack of improvement in terms of service, and a clear feeling that ministers were interfering too much, but not achieving any real improvements. A fairly draining session. Sherard asked me afterwards if he could get me either a whisky or a Mars bar!

  27 FEBRUARY 1987

  I had left my programme free today in case (surprise, surprise!) I was after all invited to join the PM’s Soviet seminar; needless to say, I wasn’t. I had to deal with a sudden crisis which has blown up involving a Mexican diplomat who had presented himself to the police as a material witness to the murder of a prostitute, following
its coverage on Crimewatch. We had some difficulty restraining Tim Eggar from giving public assurances that in similar circumstances we would waive diplomatic immunity. Apparently, he said this to the Mexican chargé, but the latter did not write it down!

  2 MARCH 1987

  Brian Fall, the Secretary of State’s private secretary, called at 10.15 a.m. to discuss the handling of a very full record which the Americans have given Michael Pakenham, in strict confidence, of the PM’s talks with Nitze and Perle – revealing the full extent of the PM’s argument with Geoffrey Howe. I am havering whether to show it to Geoffrey Howe, but will probably not; he must himself know what happened at the meeting, and will probably only fret if he knows that a full record exists. There is nothing of substance in it which posts do not already know, but it is fairly humiliating that the PM should treat him this way.

  6 MARCH 1987

  In an attempt to take a more strategic approach to foreign policy objectives and priorities, planning staff drew up a 100-page paper two years ago, which was never used. It did not take into account the increasing tendency to give high priority to questions that have been blown up by the media, or by parliamentary sensationalism (like the misbehaviour of diplomats in London).