We have been en route to the Persian gulf for about four and a half hours, and we should be landing in about forty-five minutes.
I’m very excited. I’ve never flown first-class before, and it’s quite different. They give you free champagne all the way and a decent meal instead of the usual monosodium glutamate plus colouring.
Also, it’s nice being a VIP — special lounge, on the plane last, general red-carpet treatment.
We’re going there to ratify the contract for one of the biggest export orders Britain has ever obtained in the Middle East.
But when I say ‘we’ I don’t just mean me and Bernard and Humphrey. In fact, I asked for an assurance in advance that we couldn’t be accused of wasting a lot of government money on the trip. Humphrey assured me that we were taking the smallest possible delegation. ‘Pared to the bone’ was the phrase he used, I distinctly remember. But now I realise that there may have been some ulterior motive in keeping me in the VIP lounge till the last possible minute.
When I actually got onto the plane I was aghast. It is entirely full of civil servants. In fact it transpires that the plane had to be specially chartered because there are so many of us going.
I immediately challenged Humphrey about the extravagance of chartering an aircraft. He looked at me as though I were mad, and said that it would be infinitely more expensive for all of us to go on a scheduled flight.
I’m perfectly sure that’s true. My argument is with the size of the party. ‘Who are all these people?’ I asked.
‘Our little delegation.’
‘But you just said the delegation has been pared to the bone.’
He insisted that it was. I asked him, again, to tell me who they all are. And he told me. There’s a small delegation from the FCO because, although it’s a DAA mission, the FCO doesn’t like any of us to go abroad except under their supervision. I can’t really understand that, foreign policy is not at issue on this trip, all we are doing is ratifying a contract that has already been fully negotiated between the Government of Qumran and British Electronic Systems Ltd.
Anyway, apart from the FCO delegation, there is one from the Department of Trade, and one from Industry. Also a small group from Energy, because we’re going to an oil sheikhdom. (If you ask me, that’s completely irrelevant — I reckon the Department of Energy would still demand the right to send a delegation if we were going to Switzerland — they’d probably argue that chocolate gives you energy!) Then there’s a Dep. Sec. leading a team from the Cabinet Office, a group from the COI.[44] And finally, the whole of the DAA mission: my press office, half my private office, liaison with other departments, secretaries, those from the legal department who did the contract, those who supervised the contract… the list is endless.
One thing’s certain: it’s certainly not been pared to the bone. I reminded Humphrey (who is sitting next to me but has nodded off after going at the free champagne like a pig with his snout in the trough) that when we were going to meet the Qumranis in Middlesbrough there were only going to be seven people coming with us.
‘Yes Minister,’ he had nodded understandingly. ‘But Teesside is perhaps not quite so diplomatically significant as Qumran.’
‘Teesside returns four MPs,’ I remarked.
‘Qumran controls Shell and BP.’
Then, suddenly, a most interesting question occurred to me.
‘Why are you here?’ I asked.
‘Purely my sense of duty free,’ is what I thought he had replied. I interrupted gleefully. ‘Duty free?’
He held up his hand, asking to be allowed to finish what he was saying. ‘Duty, free from any personal considerations.’
Then, changing the subject suspiciously quickly, he handed me a document headed Final Communiqué, and asked me to approve it.
I was still silently fuming about over a hundred Civil Service freeloaders on this trip. The whole lot of them with their trip paid for, and getting paid for coming. Whereas when I’d asked if Annie could come too I’d been told that a special dispensation would be needed from the King of Qumran before she could attend any public functions with me — and that, in any case, I’d have to pay for her fares, hotel bill, everything.
These bloody civil servants have got it all completely sewn up to their own advantage. This trip is costing me hundreds of pounds because Annie really wanted to come. She’s sitting opposite, chatting to Bernard, looking as though she’s having a thoroughly good time. That’s nice, anyway.
Anyway, I digress. I suddenly realised what was in my hand. Humphrey had written a final communiqué before the meeting. I told him he couldn’t possibly do that.
‘On the contrary, Minister, you can’t write the communiqué after the meeting. We have had to get agreement from half a dozen other departments, from the EEC Commission, from Washington, from the Qumrani Embassy — you can’t do that in a few hours in the middle of the desert.’
So I glanced at it. Then I pointed out that it was useless, hypothetical, sheer guesswork — it may bear no relation to what we actually say.
Sir Humphrey smiled calmly. ‘No communiqué ever bears any relation to what you actually say.’
‘So why do we have one?’
‘It’s just a sort of exit visa. Gets you past the press corps.’ Oh, I forgot to mention, the back third of this mighty aeroplane is stuffed with drunken hacks from Fleet Street, all on freebies too. Everyone except my wife, for whom I have to pay! ‘The journalists need it,’ Sir Humphrey was saying, ‘to justify their huge expenses for a futile non-event.’
I wasn’t sure that I liked my trade mission to Qumran being described as a futile non-event. He obviously saw my face fall, for he added: ‘I mean, a great triumph for you. Which is why it’s a futile non-event for the press.’
He’s right about that. Journalists hate reporting successes. ‘Yes, what they really want is for me to get drunk at the official reception.’
‘Not much hope of that.’
I asked why not, and then realised I’d asked a rather self-incriminating question. But Humphrey seemed not to notice. Instead, he replied gloomily, ‘Qumran is dry.’
‘Well, it is in the desert, isn’t it?’ I said and then I suddenly grasped what he meant. Islamic Law! Why hadn’t I realised? Why hadn’t I asked? Why hadn’t he told me?
It seems that we can get a drink or two at our own Embassy. But the official reception and dinner are at the Palace. For five solid hours. Five hours without a single drinkie.
I asked Humphrey if we could manage with hip flasks.
He shook his head. ‘Too risky. We have to grin and bear it.’
So I sat here and read the communiqué which was full of the usual guff about bonds between our two countries, common interests, frank and useful conversations and all that crap. Humphrey was reading the FT.[45] I was wondering what we would do if the talks were so far removed from what it says in the communiqué that we couldn’t sign it. Suppose there were to be a diplomatic incident at the reception. I’d have to contact London somehow. I’d need some way of directly communicating with the Foreign Secretary, for instance, or even the PM.
And then the idea flashed into my mind.
‘Humphrey,’ I suggested tentatively, ‘can’t we set up a security communications room next door to the reception? At the Sheikh’s Palace, I mean? With emergency telephones and Telex lines to Downing Street. Then we could fill it with cases of booze that we’ll smuggle in from the Embassy. We could liven up our orange juice and nobody would ever know.’
He gazed at me in astonishment. ‘Minister!’
I was about to apologise for going too far, when he went on, ‘That is a stroke of genius.’
I thanked him modestly, and asked if we could really do it.
Musing on it for a moment, he said that a special communications room would only be justified if there were a major crisis.
I pointed out that five hours without a drink is a major crisis.
We decided that, as the pound
is under pressure at the moment, a communications room could be justified.
Humphrey has promised his enthusiastic support for the project.
[It seems that this diplomatically dangerous prank was put into effect immediately on arrival in Qumran. Certainly, British Embassy files show that instructions for installing a British diplomatic communications room were given on the day the Trade Mission arrived in Qumran. Prince Mohammed gave his immediate permission and a telephone hot line to Downing Street was swiftly installed, plus a scrambler, a couple of Telexes and so forth.
Photo by courtesy of FCO, Middle East Desk
This temporary communications centre was situated in a small ante-room near to one of the Palace’s main reception areas. The following day the British party arrived at the Palace. James Hacker was accompanied by his wife Annie. The Qumranis had found it difficult to refuse permission as Her Majesty the Queen had previously been received at the Palace and thus the precedent had been set for admitting special women on special occasions.
Shortly after the reception began, at which orange juice was being served, Hacker was presented with a gold and silver rosewater jar, as a token of the esteem in which the Qumrani government held the British — Ed.]
May 17th
Yesterday we went to the teetotal reception at Prince Mohammed’s palace, and today I’ve got the most frightful hangover.
Unfortunately I don’t remember the end of the reception awfully clearly, though I do have a hazy memory of Sir Humphrey telling some Arab that I’d suddenly been taken ill and had to be rushed off to bed. Actually that was the truth, if not the whole truth.
It was a very large reception. The British delegation was a bloody sight too big to start with. And then there were an enormous number of Arabs there too.
The evening more or less started with the presentation to me of a splendid gift accompanied by diplomatic speeches about what a pleasure it is to commemorate this day. Subsequently, chatting with one of the Arab guests it transpired that apparently it’s a magnificent example of seventeenth-century Islamic Art, or so he said.
I asked what it was for originally. He said it was a rosewater jar. I said I supposed that that meant it was for rosewater, and the conversation was already getting rather bogged down along these lines when Bernard arrived at my elbow with the first of the evening’s urgent and imaginative messages. Though I must admit that, at first, I didn’t quite follow what he was saying.
‘Excuse me, Minister, there is an urgent call for you in our communications room. A Mr Haig.’
I thought he meant General Haig. But no.
‘I actually mean Mr Haig, Minister — you know, with the dimples.’
I nodded in a worried sort of way, said ‘Ah yes’ importantly, excused myself and hurried away to the communications room.
I must say Humphrey had seen to it that someone had set the whole thing up beautifully. Phones, Telex, a couple of our security chaps with walkie-talkies, cipher machines, the works.
And just in case the place was bugged by our hosts I was careful not to ask for a drink but to ask for the message from Mr Haig. Immediately one of our chaps poured some Scotch into my orange juice. It looked browner, but no one could really tell.
SIR BERNARD WOOLLEY RECALLS:[46]
The official reception at the Palace of Qumran was an evening that I shall never forget. Firstly, there was the extraordinary strain of covering up for Hacker’s increasing drunkenness. And not only Hacker, in fact: several members of the British delegation were in on the secret and it was noticeable that their glasses of orange juice became more and more golden brown as the evening wore on.
But that evening also saw the start of a most unfortunate chain of events that might have led to an early end of my career.
Mrs Hacker was the only woman present. They’d made her a sort of honorary man for the evening. And while Hacker was off getting one of his refills, she remarked that the rosewater jar would look awfully good on the corner table of her hall in London.
It fell to me to explain to her that it was a gift to the Minister.
At first she didn’t understand, and said that it was his hall too. I had to explain that it was a gift to the Minister qua Minister, and that she would not be allowed to keep it. I was naturally mindful of the near-scandal caused by the Tony Crosland coffee-pot incident, which had occurred only a few years earlier.
She wanted to know if they were supposed to give it back. Clearly not. I explained that it would have been a frightfully insulting thing to do. So she observed, rather sensibly, that if she couldn’t keep it and couldn’t give it back, she couldn’t see what she could do.
I explained that official gifts become the property of the government, and are stored in some basement somewhere in Whitehall.
She couldn’t see any sense in that. I couldn’t either, except that clearly it is not in the public interest for Ministers to be allowed to receive valuable gifts from anybody. I explained that one might keep a gift valued up to approximately fifty pounds.
She asked me how you found out the value. I said that you get a valuation. And then she flattered me in a way that I found irresistible. She asked me to get a valuation, said that it would be ‘wonderful’ if it were less than fifty pounds, because it was ‘awfully pretty’, and then told me that I was absolutely wonderful and she didn’t know what they would do without me.
Regrettably, I fell for it, and promised that I would see what I could do.
Meanwhile I was being sent on errands by Hacker. He returned from one of his many trips to the temporary Communications Centre which we’d set up, telling me loudly that there was a message for me from Mr John Walker. From the Scotch Office. Aware that we could easily be overheard, I asked if he meant the Scottish Office.
As I left very much in need of some whisky, Mrs Hacker asked if there was a message for her.
‘Of course there is, darling,’ the Minister replied hospitably. ‘Bernard will collect it for you if you give him your glass.’ I shot him a meaningful look and he continued, ‘if you give him your glass he’ll get you some orange juice too.’
I stayed close to the Minister’s side for most of the evening which was just as well because he continually made tactless remarks. At one point he was looking for Sir Humphrey and I led him across to where Sir Humphrey and a man named Ross (from the FCO) were talking to Prince Mohammed.
Unfortunately both Ross and Sir Humphrey looked like Qumranis when approached from behind, as they were both dressed in full Arab robes and headdresses. In spite of Prince Mohammed’s presence, Hacker was unable to disguise his shock as Sir Humphrey turned. He asked Humphrey why on earth he was dressed up like that.
Prince Mohammed and Sir Humphrey Appleby — kindly lent by the Trustees of the Archives of the Anglo-Arabian Friendship League
Sir Humphrey explained that this was a traditional Foreign Office courtesy to our hosts. Ross confirmed that this was spot on, and Prince Mohammed said that indeed he regarded it as a most warm and gracious compliment. Nonetheless Hacker took Sir Humphrey aside and, in a voice that had not been lowered sufficiently, said: ‘I can’t believe my eyes. What have you come as? Ali Baba?’
I really did find it most awfully funny. Old Humphrey began to explain that when in Rome… and so forth. Hacker wasn’t having any truck with that.
‘This is not Rome, Humphrey,’ he said severely. ‘You look ridiculous.’ This was undeniably true, but Humphrey found it rather wounding to be told. Hacker didn’t let it go at that, either. ‘If you were in Fiji, would you wear a grass skirt?’
Humphrey replied pompously that the Foreign Office took the view that, as the Arab nations are very sensitive people, we should show them whose side we’re on.
Hacker remarked: ‘It may come as a surprise to the Foreign Office, but you are supposed to be on our side.’
I decided that their conversation should continue in private, so I interrupted them and told Sir Humphrey that the Soviet Embassy was on the
line — a Mr Smirnoff. And then I told Hacker, who was looking distinctly thirsty, that there was a message for him from the British Embassy Compound. The school. A delegation of Teachers.
He brightened up immediately, and, hurrying off, made some dreadful pun about going to greet the Teachers at once, before the Bell’s goes.
Prince Mohammed sidled up to me, and observed softly that we were all receiving a great many urgent messages. There was no twinkle in his eye, no hint that he had spotted that all the British orange juice was turning steadily browner — and yet, I wondered if he realised what was going on. To this day, of course, I still don’t know.
Unwilling to prolong the conversation, I edged away. And I found myself face to face with a smiling Arab who had been close to me earlier in the evening when I was talking to Annie Hacker about the rosewater jar. This next conversation, with its fateful consequences, is the first reason why this whole evening is etched forever on my memory.
Although dressed in traditional Arab style, the smiling Arab spoke perfect English and clearly knew the West only too well.
‘Excuse me, Effendi,’ he began, ‘but I could not help overhearing your conversation about valuing the gift. Perhaps I can help.’
I was surprised. And grateful. And I asked if he had any idea how much it was worth.
He smiled. ‘Of course. An original seventeenth-century rosewater jar is very valuable.’
‘Oh dear,’ I said, thinking of Annie Hacker’s disappointment.
‘You are not pleased?’ Naturally, he was a little surprised.
I hastened to explain. ‘Yes — and no. I mean if it is too valuable, the Minister is not allowed to keep it. So I was hoping it wasn’t.’
He understood immediately, and smiled even more. ‘Ah yes. Well, as I was saying, an original seventeenth-century rosewater jar is very valuable but this copy, though excellently done, is not of the same order.’
‘Oh good. How much?’
He was a very shrewd fellow. He eyed me for a moment, and then said, ‘I should be interested to hear your guess.’
The Complete Yes Minister Page 40