The Downing Street Years (12 page)

The previous summit had been held in Bonn in 1978 when the
doctrine of ‘fine tuning demand’ had still been fashionable. Germany had then been expected to act, as the jargon had it, as the ‘locomotive’ for growth, pulling the world out of recession. As Chancellor Schmidt was to tell the summit leaders at Tokyo, the main result had been to put up German inflation: he would not go down that path again. At Bonn there had been no new heads of government present and the old nostrums prevailed. At Tokyo, by contrast, there were three newcomers — the Japanese Prime Minister and Conference Chairman, Mr Ohira, the new Prime Minister of Canada, Joe Clark, and myself. Apart from me, the strongest advocates of free market economics were Helmut Schmidt and, to an even greater extent, Count Otto von Lambsdorff, his Finance minister.

On leaving the plane at Tokyo airport, I stepped into a huge crowd of reporters (some two thousand reporters attended these summits then, and more now). They had turned out to see that extraordinary, almost unprecedented, phenomenon — a woman prime minister. The weather was extremely hot and humid. There was very tight security. I was glad when we arrived at the hotel where the great majority of foreign delegates, with the exception of the President of the United States, were staying. Soon after my arrival, I went to see President Carter at the United States Embassy where we talked over our approach to the issues which would arise, especially energy consumption, which posed a particular problem — and one with important political implications — for the US. Mrs Carter and Amy joined us at the end of the meeting. In spite of press criticism, the Carters obviously enjoyed having their daughter travelling with them — and why not, I thought.

It was impossible not to like Jimmy Carter. He was a deeply committed Christian and a man of obvious sincerity. He was also a man of marked intellectual ability with a grasp, rare among politicians, of science and the scientific method. But he had come into office as the beneficiary of Watergate rather than because he had persuaded Americans of the Tightness of his analysis of the world around them.

And, indeed, that analysis was badly flawed. He had an unsure handle on economics and was therefore inclined to drift into a futile
ad hoc
interventionism when problems arose. His windfall profits tax and controls on energy prices, for instance, only transformed the OPEC-induced price rises, which they were intended to cure, into unpopular queues at filling stations. In foreign affairs, he was over-influenced by the doctrines then gaining ground in the Democratic Party that the threat from communism had been exaggerated and
that US intervention in support of right-wing dictators was almost as culpable. Hence he found himself surprised and embarrassed by such events as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Iran’s seizure of American diplomats as hostages. And in general he had no large vision of America’s future so that, in the face of adversity, he was reduced to preaching the austere doctrine of limits to growth that was unpalatable, even alien, to the American imagination.

In addition to these political flaws, he was in some ways personally ill-suited to the presidency, agonizing over big decisions and too concerned with detail. Finally, he violated Napoleon’s rule that generals should be lucky. His presidency was dogged with bad luck from OPEC to Afghanistan. What it served to demonstrate, however, was that in leading a great nation decency and assiduousness are not enough. Having said which, I repeat that I liked Jimmy Carter; he was a good friend to me and to Britain; and if he had come to power in the different circumstances of the post-Cold War world, his talents might have been more apposite.

That evening the European members of the summit met together for dinner, hosted by President Giscard. The Community had, of course, already agreed its own approach to energy at Strasbourg. The main issue now was how this would fit in with that which the three non-EC governments at the G7 wished to pursue.

The following morning, after the inevitable photographs, the first session began in the Conference Room on the second floor of the Akasaka Palace. Delegations sat around an oblong table and were arranged in alphabetical order: it was always useful that this placed us next to the United States. The precise arrangements for the arrival of the leaders reflected formal considerations of precedence, heads of state arriving after heads of government, and the order in each category determined by length of time in office. Precedence meant most to the French and least to the Americans: in fact, neither Jimmy Carter nor Ronald Reagan took much notice of it at all. As the rest of us sat there we would speculate as to who would manage to arrive last.

The meeting began, as usual, with a short general speech by each head of government. Chancellor Schmidt spoke before me in the first session, and after me in the second. We found ourselves stressing exactly the same points — the importance of the battle against inflation and the crucial role of the price mechanism in limiting energy consumption. My interventions appeared to be well received — not least by the Germans, as Count Lambsdorff subsequently told us. It was perhaps the nearest we ever came to an Anglo-German entente. I noted that many of our present difficulties stemmed from the pursuit
of Keynesian policies with their emphasis on the deficit financing of public expenditure and I stressed the need to control the money supply in order to defeat inflation. There followed, after Mr Ohira and Chancellor Schmidt had taken a similar line, an extraordinary intervention by President Giscard in which he mounted a spirited defence of Lord Keynes and clearly rejected the basic free market approach as unnecessarily deflationary. Sig. Andreotti — Italy’s Prime Minister then and again in my last days as Prime Minister — endorsed the French view. It was a revealing expression of the fundamental philosophical differences which divide the Community.

It was also revealing about the personalities of President Giscard and Prime Minister Andreotti. President Giscard d’Estaing was never someone to whom I warmed. I had the strong impression that the feeling was mutual. This was more surprising than it seems, for I have a soft spot for French charm and, after all, President Giscard was seen as a man of the Right. But he was a difficult interlocutor, speaking in paragraphs of perfectly crafted prose which seemed to brook no interruption. Moreover, his politics were very different from mine: though he had the manners of an aristocrat, he had the mind-set of a technocrat. He saw politics as an élite sport to be carried on for the benefit of the people but not really with their participation. There might be something to be said for this if technocrats really were cool intellectual guardians above the passions and interests of the rest of us. But President Giscard was as likely as anyone to be swept away by intellectual and political fashion; he simply expressed his passions coldly.

Prime Minister Andreotti was no more on my wavelength than the French President. Even more than the latter, this apparently indispensable participant in Italian governments represented an approach to politics which I could not share. He seemed to have a positive aversion to principle, even a conviction that a man of principle was doomed to be a figure of fun. He saw politics as an eighteenth-century general saw war: a vast and elaborate set of parade ground manoeuvres by armies that would never actually engage in conflict but instead declare victory, surrender or compromise as their apparent strength dictated in order to collaborate on the real business of sharing the spoils. A talent for striking political deals rather than a conviction of political truths might be required by Italy’s system and it was certainly regarded as
de rigueur
in the Community, but I could not help but find something distasteful about those who practised it.

For all their hospitality, it would be difficult to claim too much for the quality of Japan’s chairmanship of the proceedings. At one stage
I intervened to clarify for the sake of the officials — the ‘sherpas’ as they are known — precisely which of the two alternative draft communiqués we were discussing. While we were entertained that evening at a banquet given by the Emperor of Japan, the sherpas began their work. At about two o’clock in the morning, still in my evening dress, I went to see how the communiqué drafters were getting on with their work. I found them refining their earlier draft in the light of our discussions and setting out alternative forms of words where decisions would be required from the summit the following day. I hoped we would be as businesslike as they evidently were.

The following day we met once again at the Akasaka Palace to go through the communiqué, always a tedious and lengthy process. There was some disagreement between the Americans and the Europeans about the base year from which to set our different targets for the reduction of oil imports. But for me perhaps the most revealing discussion concerned the Japanese target. Until almost the last moment it was far from clear whether Mr Ohira’s advisers would allow him to give a figure at all. Since I was quite convinced that the market itself would achieve the necessary limitation of oil consumption, regardless of what we announced, it all seemed rather academic to me. When in the end the Japanese did announce their figures no one had any idea what sort of reduction they constituted, if any; but President Carter warmly congratulated them all the same.

And so the communiqué was issued and the customary press conference held. The most important decision made had nothing to do with checking oil consumption. It was that, despite the inclinations of several G7 governments, we were not going to fall into the trap of trying to achieve a co-ordinated reflation of demand. It was a useful signal for the future.

From Tokyo I flew to Canberra, arriving the following morning. This was my third visit to Australia, though it was to be only a brief one. There was time to see my daughter, Carol, who was working as a journalist there, but my main purpose was to talk to Malcolm Fraser, the Australian Prime Minister. I briefed him on what had taken place at Tokyo. But even more important, we discussed the forthcoming Commonwealth Conference in Lusaka at which Rhodesia would inevitably be the main issue. Over the next eight months, Rhodesia was to take up a great deal of my time.

Rhodesia had been a long-standing source of grief to successive British governments, and an acute problem since Ian Smith’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965. It had caused particular difficulties for the Conservative Party, a large section of which believed that the economic sanctions imposed against the illegal regime were futile and damaging and insisted on voting against them when they came up for annual renewal. Both the Conservative and Labour front benches had long been committed to seek a settlement on the basis of the so-called ‘six principles’ whose fundamental purpose was to lay down the conditions for a transition to black majority rule, while upholding the rights of the white minority and ensuring true democracy, the rule of law and an end to discrimination. But this degree of common ground between the leaders of both parties was not necessarily shared by their supporters.

The elections of April 1979 in Rhodesia fundamentally changed the whole position. Under the new constitution, worked out under the ‘internal settlement’ with Ian Smith, Bishop Muzorewa was elected as head of a black majority government, in a 64 per cent turn-out of a black majority electorate. The ‘Patriotic Front’ parties — the guerillas of Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo — had not, of course, taken part in the elections. Viscount Boyd of Merton — a former Conservative Colonial Secretary — had attended as an observer and reported back to me, as Leader of the Opposition, that the elections had been fairly conducted. It was generally considered that all of the six principles had now been fulfilled and there was wide expectation that we would recognize the new government when we took office.

However, I was well aware that what the people of Rhodesia needed above all was peace and stability. It was the war, relentlessly carried on by the guerillas, which had forced the white minority government to make concessions: that war had to be ended. To bring peace we had either to win international acceptance for the new regime or bring about the changes which would win such acceptance.

The first and most immediate problem was the attitude of the neighbouring ‘front line’ African states. They must, if at all possible, be won over. We sent Lord Harlech, another former Conservative minister and an ex-Ambassador to Washington, for talks with the Presidents of Zambia, Tanzania, Botswana, Malawi and Angola. He also went to Mozambique and Nigeria. I was not at all keen at this stage that he
should even talk to the leaders of the Patriotic Front, Mr Mugabe and Mr Nkomo: their forces had carried out atrocities which disgusted everyone and I was as keen to avoid dealings with terrorists abroad as I would be at home. However, unpleasant realities had to be faced. Peter Carrington’s view was that it was essential to secure the widest possible recognition for a Rhodesian regime, since that country held the key to the whole South African region. He turned out to be right.

Accordingly, Lord Harlech did see the Patriotic Front leaders as well as Bishop Muzorewa and others. His mission at least made clear how large were the obstacles to achieving an end to the war. In July the Organization of African Unity (OAU) endorsed the Patriotic Front as the sole legitimate authentic representative of the people of Zimbabwe. Nigeria, with which Britain had important economic ties, was bitterly hostile to the Muzorewa Government. Black African states insisted on viewing Bishop Muzorewa’s Government as nothing more than a façade for continued white minority rule. The fact that this greatly underrated the change which the internal settlement had effected did nothing to reduce the consequences of their attitude for Rhodesia.

Although we did not intend to continue the joint Anglo-American approach pursued by Labour, which had got nowhere, the attitude of the United States was of vital importance. President Carter was under strong political pressure from US black and liberal opinion. The Administration would soon have to say whether Bishop Muzorewa’s Government met the conditions set by Congress, without which recognition and the lifting of sanctions by the US would not be possible. It was likely that the conclusion would be that it did not meet those conditions.