Peter Carrington an Honorouble man: Christopher Lee
Peter Carrington, old Etonian, hereditary peer and decorated war hero, was a man of laid-back charm and great diplomatic skill. A minister in every Conservative government from Churchill to Thatcher, he was at the centre of major events, from Bloody Sunday and the deal on Rhodesia heralding black majority rule, to the Falklands war, which led to his resignation. Laughter sustained him through the long official life. It rendered his gentlemanly code of conduct bearable, indeed enjoyable, rather than a priggish imposition.
Love & War
In 1939, he joined the family regiment, the second battalion the Grenadier Guards, where his commanding officer told him he must not marry until he was 25, must not wear a grey top hat before the June race meeting at Epsom, and must hunt two days a week in Leicestershire.
He nevertheless obtained permission to get married at the age of 22 to Iona McClean. They were very happy, except when parted by the war, when they wrote every day to each other. Lee quotes the whole of one letter in which Carrington tries to cheer her up, and notices also how much more difficult life is for some of his comrades:
“I have seen people out here who never have a letter or anything from someone they really care about. Nor have they anything to come back to after the war. I know I have & am very lucky.”
Like other officers, he was understandably shocked to find that many of his guardsmen had joined up in the 1930s for the guarantee of a square meal. He saw the European Union as the way to avoid another catastrophic conflict.
He won the Military Cross for bravery fighting the Nazis during the Arnhem operation.
The End of Imperialism
The 1922 Committee wanted blood, and roughed Carrington up when he appeared before it, at the same time taking revenge on him for his leading role in bringing black majority role to Rhodesia, which a considerable number of backbenchers regarded as an act of treachery. The press was up in arms too, and because Carrington was not in the Commons, and had indeed never been in the Commons, he could not defend himself properly.
During his stint as the Australian High Commissioner, Carrington welcomed Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1958, followed shortly afterwards by the Queen Mother.
House of Lords vs. Commons
Carrington’s real failure was that he did not understand the House of Common - his lack of real interest in the House of Commons and the constituency side of politics was perhaps partly prompted by his hatred of bad manners. He had a fastidious distaste for the rough and tumble of politics and was distressed by the vitriol that was flung at him following the Rhodesia settlement.
Thatcher & Carrington, an unusual pairing
Carrington recalled: ‘I sometimes thought that she admired nobody from a similar background to hers who had not done as well as her. Equally, she admired nobody from an establishment background, since they were born with a silver spoon in their mouth. ‘
Even so, Carrington became one of her two most loyal lieutenants (the other being Willie Whitelaw), though he had been surprised to get the job of Foreign Secretary in the first place.
He thought, however, that he had the advantage over Thatcher of knowing about foreign affairs. His whole background, from a small child holidaying in France, speaking French, writing long and researched essays at Eton on foreign affairs and fighting through Europe during the Second World War, had given him an almost perfect grounding in his subject. Thatcher, on the other hand, knew next to nothing.
Carrington said: ‘I think she had hardly ever been outside the country. From my point of view, this was a considerable advantage, for she could hardly contradict me when I told her where Rhodesia was.’
In the early days of working with Thatcher, Carrington believed her most important failing was a total lack of a sense of humour.
In all the time he knew her, he only once made her laugh. When foreign leaders came to see her, she would start speaking immediately and never let anyone, however important, get a word in.
Carrington would pass notes to her saying, for example: ‘He has come 500 miles, don’t you think you could let him say something?’
Thatcher would take no notice.
One day, Chairman Hua of China arrived and Thatcher made the mistake of asking him, as they were about to sit, what he thought of the world situation. Fifty minutes later, Hua was still telling her exactly what he thought. Thatcher was extremely irritated and started tapping the table with her ring – a regular sign that she was displeased. The Chairman droned on.
Carrington was amused by this and passed her a note which read: ‘You’re talking too much as usual.’ Thatcher burst out laughing, much to the puzzlement of her guest.
In Carrington’s opinion, Thatcher’s lack of humour was in part because she was extremely wary of being laughed at. He and some of his colleagues played on this weakness. Carrington, Lord Hailsham, Willie Whitelaw and Christopher Soames would deliberately pass each other notes in Cabinet meetings, knowing full well that Thatcher would be unnerved because she instinctively thought the notes were about her.
The Israel Question
The charm did not always work abroad either. Many Americans deeply distrusted Carrington, regarding him as anti-Israel and an author of the Venice Declaration.
Carrington saw a more aggressive side to Thatcher ahead of her first meeting with Ronald Reagan. She was worried her Foreign Secretary would upset UK-US relations because of his sympathy towards Palestine. Carrington had hardly got into the room when Thatcher went on the attack over his Middle East policy. Carrington replied that he thought this was government policy. She then said: ‘If you go on like that we shall lose the next General Election. Not only will we lose the next Election but I shall lose my seat at Finchley.’ Carrington told her: ‘If you think British foreign policy should be organised and run on the basis that you might lose your seat at Finchley, you can get another Foreign Secretary.’
Faulklands
Despite rising tensions over the islands, he left Britain for Israel because the Israeli government felt the British – and particularly Carrington – were hostile. More importantly, he had been told by MI6 there would be no Argentine attack until all diplomatic procedures had been exhausted.
The Argentinians invaded the islands on April 2, 1982, while Carrington was on a diplomatic trip to Israel, leading to the 74-day conflict and his resignation on a ‘point of honour’.
He had failed to convince his Cabinet colleagues, most particularly the Prime Minister, of the immediate need to resolve the future of the islanders. As a result, Argentina caught Britain unawares when it invaded in April 1982. Carrington recalled meeting the Prime Minister, with Iona and Denis Thatcher in attendance, where there was ‘a thermonuclear explosion’. ‘Typical of you and the Foreign Office. You would give the British Empire away to a lot of bloody foreigners,’ he remembered Thatcher fulminating. Finally, Denis said: ‘I think you’re being a little extravagant, my dear.’
Carrington believed he had to resign. In his mind, to assume responsibility for a department meant that when something went wrong, he had also to assume the responsibility for that failure. Though as I shall reveal here, three decades on there is astonishing new evidence that Carrington was not to blame for the debacle.
He became exasperated with being remembered as the last Minister to resign on a ‘point of honour’. He certainly felt he had done so much more for his country.
The departure of Carrington from British politics was the symbolic exodus of the last generation to be imbued with a natural sense of public service and duty.
Conservative loose their Mojo
Carrington mourned the Conservative Party that could no longer produce ‘big beasts’, as he called them. Where were the Hailshams, the Macmillans, the Douglas-Homes, the Butlers? Kenneth Clarke and Michael Heseltine were the last of them, he said.
He thought no one had stood out in David Cameron’s Cabinet, apart from the Prime Minister himself – who he thought could have achieved more – and George Osborne, who he considered an interesting man and a good Chancellor. His mood was not that of a dozing nonagenarian wallowing in political nostalgia.
Most of all, Carrington mourned what he regarded as the passing of a sense of duty and the responsibility of unearned privilege.
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