12 DECEMBER 1990
Douglas Hurd held a ministerial meeting this morning, with his new parliamentary private secretary, David Martin, attending for the first time. Tim Yeo has now been promoted to the Department of Environment.
Paul Zuckerman brought his mother to the office today to see the Goetze murals in the main corridor (which George Brown had wanted to be painted over, since he thought their imperialist message was bad for young diplomats entering the modern service). Goetze was Lady Zuckerman’s great uncle, and she remembers visiting his studio in St John’s Wood as a girl. He was a vastly rich artist, who spent seven years painting the Foreign Office murals, without a penny in payment. She told me that the Cabinet were so alarmed by reports of nudes in the murals that they insisted on crossing Downing Street to view them!
Unfortunately, Lord Caithness’s office was locked, so I could not show her the ministerial room occupied by her father, Lord Reading. And Douglas Hogg was holding a meeting, so I could not show her the room occupied by her grandfather, as Secretary of State for India.
13 DECEMBER 1990
I discussed with Douglas Hurd today Alan Clark’s gaffe over NATO, having made speeches in Oman, and now an interview in The Guardian, saying that NATO is no longer necessary, and that the United Kingdom should leave Europe – an outrageous and simultaneous contradiction of Douglas’s speech on security policy in Berlin this week. Tom King has told Michael Quinlan that he will speak sternly to Clark; but both Michael and Douglas Hurd doubt whether he will.
I later heard from Michael Quinlan, in strict confidence, that Alan Clark is due to get a privy counsellorship in the New Year honours, which will merely confuse everyone even further as to what our security policy really is. Douglas Hurd has agreed to talk to the PM about it.
I discussed with John Boyd and others today whether we are not now paying too much attention to people’s wishes. Diplomatic service regulation no. 4 does, after all, require members of the service to go where they are sent; but there is a marked difference between the way junior and senior members of the service are treated. This was, of course, before the later rule that all members of the service are required to apply for their next posting.
15 DECEMBER 1990
Prospects of war in the Gulf look rather worse, with the Iraqis and the Americans having failed to fix a time for respective visits of Baker and Tariq Aziz.
The European Council in Rome seems to have gone well, with the other eleven obviously trying to make John Major’s first council a success. He took quite a striking line that the young of Britain (i.e. the under-47s) are keen to make a success of our Community membership. His performance has, if anything, been enhanced by an extraordinary outburst from Delors, threatening to create a ‘political crisis’ in Britain.
16 DECEMBER 1990
Robin Butler showed me today an extraordinary letter from Mrs Thatcher, complaining in strident terms about a letter ‘declassifying’ her under the Official Secrets Act, and claiming that she has never had any consideration from the Cabinet Secretary. As Robin and Gill have gone out of their way to welcome the Thatchers to their home in Dulwich, Robin is really very hurt. As he said, presumably a case of ‘kicking the cat’. He warned me to be careful in the FCO’s dealings with her (of which there have been none yet, thank God).
Tim Simmons theoretically started today as my private secretary, but spent most of it with the department preparing papers for the Foreign Affairs Council this week.
18 DECEMBER 1990
I discussed with Douglas Hurd today whether we should close the embassy in Baghdad in mid-January. Both Hurd and Hogg think we should, though I am in favour of keeping a small core staff, if we can find volunteers.
20 DECEMBER 1990
News broke this morning of Shevardnadze’s rather Geoffrey Howe-like resignation speech to the Congress of People’s Deputies, with rather sinister implications for the stability of the Soviet Union, which seems to be slipping fast into political and economic disintegration. Shevardnadze’s departure will be sad for Douglas Hurd; and if Primakov succeeds him, this could have very unfortunate effects on Soviet policy towards Saddam Hussein.
21 DECEMBER 1990
Still no news of Baker/Aziz exchange of visits. Prospects for war look distinctly worse, though the US General has made an astonishing public statement that American troops won’t be ready to fight until mid-February, and that a war could last three to six months.
1991
23 DECEMBER 1990–6 JANUARY 1991: CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR HOLIDAYS
7 JANUARY 1991
Jim Baker was in town today, and I joined Douglas Hurd, Patrick Fairweather and Richard Gozney at a working lunch, with Bob Kimmitt, Henry Catto and Ray Seitz. Bob Kimmitt raised with me privately the awkwardness caused for him with his colleagues, both in the embassy here and in Washington, by the very restrictive handling of Gulf matters, and seeking guidance as to who should be the first point of contact in London (on which I tried to steer him towards Antony Acland in the first instance).
A good discussion over lunch, with Baker preparing an astonishing itinerary of about ten capitals in four days, ending in London again on Sunday for a meeting with John Major.
8 JANUARY 1991
Douglas Hogg’s private secretary drew my attention last night to a piece in the Mail on Sunday quoting two Foreign Office officials and foreign ambassadors making very derogatory remarks about Douglas Hogg’s performance and behaviour. I used Patrick Fairweather’s early morning meeting to read the riot act.
At my bilateral with Douglas Hurd this afternoon, he asked me what people really thought of Douglas Hogg. I said that he certainly had his faults, and tended to pay more attention to a brisk, business-like approach than to mastering his briefs. Douglas (who knew Hogg from the Home Office) clearly understands the problem.
A massive exercise was set in hand today to assess the likely terrorist threat to Middle East posts if war breaks out in the Gulf, with the possibility of closing our posts in Khartoum and Sanaa altogether. Douglas Hurd is very reluctant to see any posts other than Baghdad closed, and I assured him that no decisions had yet been taken. But we shall probably have to scale down several posts on a temporary basis.
Henry Catto asked to call on me privately this morning, to air his resentment at being excluded from Gulf meetings, including particularly Mrs Thatcher’s meeting with Cheney, and Douglas Hurd’s tête-à-tête with Baker yesterday (and my talk with Kimmitt). I pointed out that several of these cases were at American request, though Bob Kimmitt seems (as Douglas Hurd commented to me this morning) to have given Henry the opposite impression. Richard Gozney has confirmed that it was at Baker’s insistence that his meeting with Douglas was kept private.
The situation in the Soviet Union looks pretty ugly, with reports today of Mrs Prunskienė’s resignation in Lithuania, and of Soviet paratroopers being sent to enforce conscription in the Baltic Republics.
10 JANUARY 1991
Pérez de Cuéllar decided today to visit Baghdad in a last attempt to get Saddam Hussein to withdraw, and will see Community foreign ministers in Geneva en route.
11 JANUARY 1991
Horrific pictures from Vilnius tonight; it may be coincidental, but there are extraordinary echoes of 1956, with the Russians using a Middle East crisis to suppress dissent in Hungary.
14 JANUARY 1991
Douglas Hurd cut short his visit to Ankara to join Douglas Hogg at the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels to discuss Iraq and Lithuania (which turned very nasty over the weekend, with Gorbachev claiming grotesquely that Soviet troops had acted without orders from Moscow).
John Major flew to Paris for lunch with Mitterrand after his talks with Baker in Alconbury yesterday, a meeting originally designed to deal with European issues, but which turned out to be largely on the Gulf. The French have launched a new initiative in the Security Council this afternoon, without any prior warning to colleagues in Brussels – to the fury of the Saudis and others.
Why do the French need to issue bilateral statements with the Germans on Lithuania, while the twelve are actually meeting in political cooperation?
15 JANUARY 1991
The Prime Minister reacted angrily today to a French plan, produced last night with very little warning (though in retrospect Mitterrand dropped some heavy hints at lunch yesterday), and given no warning at all in political cooperation. The Saudis and the Gulf rulers seem to be as fed up with the French as the Prime Minister is. The United States ambassador in Abu Dhabi is reported to have told the UAE authorities that he hoped they would remember French behaviour when it came to future defence contracts.
Today is the deadline for Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. But there are no signs of Iraqi movement, and even the French now seem to have given up the idea of sending a mission to Baghdad.
I went to Francis Maude’s New Year party this evening, at which John Major appeared, fresh from the Gulf debate in the House of Commons, where Andrew Faulds made a very eccentric speech, accusing all and sundry of corruption and undemocratic behaviour.
16 JANUARY 1991
The Gulf War broke out just before midnight tonight. Richard Gozney had told me this morning that the Secretary of State would be told in advance, but that others would be given only a few minutes’ warning of the outbreak of fighting.
Douglas Hurd asked to see me in the House of Commons at 1 p.m., primarily to tell me that the PM had decided not to include senior officials in the War Cabinet. He was obviously slightly embarrassed at passing on this message, and said he assumed it was John Major’s preference for small meetings. Robin Butler told me later that he was cross about the decision, which he attributed (almost certainly correctly) to Charles Powell. I pointed out to Douglas that I was not at all put out, but that I might have been able to save him the bother of having to debrief to all of us after the meetings.
17 JANUARY 1991
The first day of fighting in the Gulf, with an extraordinary lack of public reaction round the Middle East, and a rather dangerously euphoric impression given by the media that all Allied air raids had been effective, with very few losses. The office has a curious air of calm, with Douglas Hurd in Brussels and Douglas Hogg in Paris.
We are still facing some difficulty in reconciling the department’s inclination to advise caution to airlines and communities, and to slim down posts, with Douglas Hurd’s strong tendency to bluff it out – perhaps because, as a former Home Secretary and Northern Ireland Secretary, he realises that terrorism can strike anywhere.
18 JANUARY 1991
News came through early this morning of Iraqi missile attacks against Tel Aviv, initially thought to be carrying chemical weapons, but this was later denied. I pointed out, at Douglas Hurd’s ministerial meeting this morning, the urgent need for ministers to make it clear that religious and cultural sites in Iraq are not targeted. An FCO amendment to include this point in the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday was cut out by Charles Powell, who telephoned the Israeli minister in the embassy here, without telling us he was doing so.
21 JANUARY 1991
Another weekend of war, with reports last night [later found to be false] of scud missiles landing on Bahrain.
The Prime Minister has received an astonishingly starchy message from Mitterrand expressing ‘strong resentment’ at what the PM and the British press have said about last-minute French moves in the Security Council last week. Peter Carrington telephoned me to say that he is on Newsnight tonight to discuss European responses to the Gulf War, and what on earth can he say that will not be regarded as totally offensive? I got the department to give him some facts and figures, but he remained totally unconvinced that any of our allies had done anything!
22 JANUARY 1991
I gave lunch to my Finnish opposite number, Åke Wihtol. We discussed the Baltics, where further trouble in Latvia has resulted in several deaths, with Gorbachev still trying to shuffle off responsibility. I also put up a slightly embarrassing marker that we would be asking the Finns, among others, for financial contributions to our Gulf expenditure; our costs for ammunition alone in the past four days total £10 million. Michael Quinlan is seriously worried as to how HMG is going to foot the bill.
24 JANUARY 1991
Douglas Hurd to Paris this afternoon to see Dumas, from whom an extraordinarily offensive letter was delivered this morning, complaining about British comments on the last-minute French attempt to stop the war.
29 JANUARY 1991
As usual, news of the change of US ambassador here broke in the press before we had received any official notification from Washington. The embassy called at noon to request agrement for Ray Seitz – an excellent appointment, and probably the first career appointment in London ever?
A long and fierce manuscript letter from Antony Acland today, complaining at his exclusion from correspondence between Charles Powell and the White House. To my surprise, Richard Gozney got Charles to agree to telegraph all but the most sensitive accounts to Antony.
30 JANUARY 1991
I went at lunchtime to Chatham House to hear Tristan Garel-Jones talk about his first six months in the FCO. Michael Franklin, in the chair, hissed at me afterwards: ‘I don’t think six months was long enough.’
Saddam Hussein now seems to be trying to provoke a land battle by incursions into Saudi Arabia. More of his aircraft have flown to Iran, though the Americans managed to shoot one of them down en route yesterday.
31 JANUARY 1991
I am still pressing for the release of photographs of Najaf and Karbala to disprove Iraqi allegations of Allied bombing of the shrines. The military are still resisting (with some logic). With such large Shia populations in the Gulf area, this is one subject which could really inflame passions.
Douglas Hurd had a successful visit to Bonn yesterday, with Kohl in an ebullient and expansive mood towards Britain, agreeing to £275 million financial contribution for us. David Martin tells me he has had some difficulty persuading people that the FCO have not been slow in pressing for burden-sharing, but has pointed out (as have I) that both Mrs Thatcher and John Major have been very reluctant to be seen passing round the begging bowl. Our drafts to No. 10 on the subject have all been watered down personally by the Prime Minister.
3 FEBRUARY 1991
Denis Greenhill tackled me at the Swiss Red Cross concert this evening about an extraordinary message he had received from Lord Selkirk to say that his dotty brother, the Duke of Hamilton, was on his way to Israel (sic) to assassinate Saddam Hussein. It is not clear what our ambassador in Tel Aviv, Mark Elliott, is supposed to do about it.
4 FEBRUARY 1991
I tried unsuccessfully to telephone Bob Kimmitt to pursue our attempts to pick up part of the Japanese $9 billion for burden-sharing. Jim Baker told Douglas Hurd at the weekend very firmly that it was all for the Americans, and that Congress would not understand anything less.
The Saudis took exception to Douglas Hurd’s speech at Blaby over the weekend, and threatened to block his planned visit. Fahd was said to be outraged by his suggestion that the oil producers should share their wealth more equitably, and by the implication that Western troops would remain after the war. Happily, Douglas dealt very skilfully with both points in his lunchtime interview yesterday, and pacified Prince Saud with a telephone call from Brussels last night.
Christopher MacRae called before departing for Lagos. Not an easy job, with the Nigerian Foreign Ministry operating (or not, as the case may be) out of Abuja, and bitterly resenting anyone who bypasses them, e.g. by going direct to the presidency. This led to a row during Lynda Chalker’s recent visit, and the cancellation of her call on Babangida (for which he later apologised by telephone).
5 FEBRUARY 1991
I succeeded in contacting Bob Kimmitt today. It looks as though some compromise can be worked out: we get 8 per cent of the $9 billion this financial year, if the Japanese can be persuaded to top up the extra for the United States next year.
John Major
is showing welcome signs of a readiness to telephone his opposite numbers – something that successive private secretaries at No. 10 have tried to achieve. In one call to the Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke opened by saying that he had sworn not to discuss cricket – Britain are being lacerated in the Test – to which John Major replied that all our best cricketers have been taken away to fight in the Gulf!
In a telephone call to Mitterrand, John Major referred to his meeting with Bernard Dorin, to which Mitterrand had replied that he was a very ‘unusual’ man. Mitterrand had found that diplomats were either conformist or, more rarely, lively; Dorin was in the second category. Dorin himself had told Patrick Fairweather that he found the French embassy a ‘nest of Anglophilia’, and he intended to do something about it.
Behind Diplomatic Lines Page 27