The Economist

74 The EconomistJuly 21 st 2018

C

LEARLYhehadtogo. Althoughleaving

the foreign secretary’s grand office the

summit of his political ambitions was the

saddest day of his life there was no alter-

native. Argentina’s surprise invasion of the

Falkland Islandsin April 1982 had humiliat-

ed Britain. The disgrace had to be purged

and the person to purge it was the minister

in charge. That was him.

The intelligence had been wrong. But

Lord Carrington did not feel he had left un-

done anything he ought to have done. He

believed in trying to see the view of the

other side courteously nudgingthem on if

necessary sharing a winkand a joke to get

across any sticky patches. Talking even

banging on a bit could find solutions. In

the case of the Falklands he thought a

leaseback plan might work. Fortifying the

islands struck him as injudicious. But all

this had sent wrong signals to the Argen-

tines. And so he surrendered hisseals ofof-

fice to the queen atWindsor the last minis-

terial resignation on a matter ofprinciple.

An additional sorrow was that he was

notatMargaret Thatcher’s side in the Com-

mons to take his share of the flak. For his

House was the Lords and always had

been. He was the first foreign secretary for

75 years never to have held elected office.

(Aseat on Buckinghamshire CountyCoun-

cil did not quite count.) He would have rel-

ished the challenge of running but as a

hereditary peer that path was closed. His

first governmentjob as an under-secretary

in the Ministry of Agriculture in 1951  was

announced to him bya man on a bicycle in

the middle of a partridge shoot. He en-

joyed the gentleman farmer’s life but was

ready for politics even in the less impor-

tant second chamber.

And he had tried to resign from that

post too again for good reason: a kerfuffle

over a piece of land in Dorset Crichel

Down which the government had requisi-

tioned and then transferred ignoring the

owners’ rights. An inquiry found against

the ministry and he prepared to go. But

Churchill then prime minister told him

not to. In 1974  when the Torieslostthe elec-

tion he considered leaving yetagain.

Was he beingover-dramatic? No; he did

not go in for that. A very stiff upper lip was

the rule. He was brought up under disci-

pline from the need to arrive on time at

family dinner (his dinner jacket stiff shirt

and collaralreadylaid outbythe footman)

to organising his work at Eton (where he

was dim at everything but not in the least

unhappy) to endless drills in the Grena-

dier Guards. Through it all he never belly-

ached. A spy scandal at the Admiralty

when he was First Lord in the early 1960 s

was “unpleasant”. It was also “rather dis-

agreeable” to drive his tank in 1944 on to a

bridge at Nijmegen which was thought to

be mined in the face of German fire even

if it earned him the Military Cross—which

he did not mention in his memoirs.

Diplomat in Wonderland

War was a leveller and that greatly ap-

pealed to him. Though he spoke in a patri-

cian drawl one forefinger thoughtfully pa-

trolling his chin he was no snob. He loved

brash informal Australia where he was

high commissioner. His family’s nobility

was recent afterall a reward from William

Pitt at the end of the 18 th century. He took

up that dash of Toryism but his deeper

creed was his family’s Whiggism and Lib-

eralism: tolerance reasonableness prag-

matism. Pragmaticallyhe preached the vir-

tues of embracing Europe which he had

seen rise out of ruins and the political as

well as the militaryconcordatenshrined in

NATO which he headed in the 1980 s. Rea-

sonably he thought that Britain should be

run by the best-trained and most sensible

people. Democracy in the unbridled

sense worried him a bit.

Once in politics himself he kept the

bear-pit at arm’s length. Over his 30 years’

service he ran some difficult departments:

Defence after 1970  ata time ofsharp cuts in

spending and Energyfrom 1974  duringthe

three-day week and the miners’ strike. He

stayed cool to any sort of ideology. That

was sometimes not to Margaret’s liking; it

took nifty footwork to convince her that

the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

was in fact “stickingup forBritain”. But his

“wetness” made him the perfect diplomat.

Generally he got on well with people.

Every prime minister he worked for he

liked especially Macmillan of whom he

could do a pretty good imitation. (Later he

named his dogs after them; but he adored

his dogs.) Most foreign leaders fell for his

charm if only for a time. He kept intact his

sense of the ridiculousness of the world;

his favourite book was “Alice in Wonder-

land”. Thathumourfortified him even dur-

ing the most arduous talks of all those that

produced the Lancaster House agreement

of 1979  which paved the wayfor black rule

in an independent Zimbabwe. They took

14 weeks. He was accused of selling out

white Rhodesians but found their attitude

untenable. Robert Mugabe seemed intelli-

gentand amenable and there wasno alter-

native. He had few post facto regrets.

Did he have more over the Falklands

sacrificing a job he was so good at? No. He

regretted only the many lives lost in that

war. When journalists sought him out in

retirement at his Georgian house in Ble-

dlow in Buckinghamshire (with its loving-

ly restored garden and agreeable propor-

tions) they would inevitably raise the

subject ofhis shoulderingofblame. “It’s so

boring” he would sigh. But so rare. 7

A question of honour

Peter 6th Lord Carrington foreign secretaryand servant ofsixprime ministers

died on July 9 th aged 99

Obituary Lord Carrington