1 00:00:02,080 --> 00:00:06,960 This is the secret world of Whitehall. It's dominated by 2 00:00:06,960 --> 00:00:11,280 three great offices of state that deal with money, power and crime. 3 00:00:11,280 --> 00:00:15,520 In this three-part series, I'm talking to ministers 4 00:00:15,520 --> 00:00:20,040 past and present and to normally camera-shy Whitehall mandarins 5 00:00:20,040 --> 00:00:23,360 and telling the story of the great offices from the inside. 6 00:00:23,360 --> 00:00:26,360 Tonight, the Foreign Office. 7 00:00:26,360 --> 00:00:30,200 Many behind-the-scenes battles have been fought here, battles against 8 00:00:30,200 --> 00:00:35,440 prime ministers and between Foreign Office mandarins and ministers. 9 00:00:35,440 --> 00:00:38,480 'The Foreign Office regards the arrival of a new minister 10 00:00:38,480 --> 00:00:40,520 'like an oyster regards the arrival' 11 00:00:40,520 --> 00:00:43,440 of a grain of sand - the intrusion of an irritant 12 00:00:43,440 --> 00:00:45,840 with a very low statistical probability 13 00:00:45,840 --> 00:00:47,480 of ever producing a pearl. 14 00:00:47,480 --> 00:00:50,880 'Mrs Thatcher? Oh, she didn't like the Foreign Office at all. 15 00:00:50,880 --> 00:00:52,560 'Famously, she said,' 16 00:00:52,560 --> 00:00:55,760 "We have a Department of Agriculture to look after farmers, 17 00:00:55,760 --> 00:00:59,400 "a Department of Defence to look after the soldiers, 18 00:00:59,400 --> 00:01:02,640 "and the Foreign Office to look after the foreigners." 19 00:01:17,400 --> 00:01:21,400 The Foreign Office is the grandest of the three great offices, 20 00:01:21,400 --> 00:01:24,000 and has long been a Palace of Dreams. 21 00:01:25,520 --> 00:01:29,720 It was built at the height of our Victorian imperial power, 22 00:01:29,720 --> 00:01:33,800 specifically to impress foreigners. Its grand staircase offers 23 00:01:33,800 --> 00:01:37,760 a daunting introduction to the place for every new Foreign Secretary. 24 00:01:37,760 --> 00:01:42,560 It's quite intimidating. On my first week here, I had to pinch myself 25 00:01:42,560 --> 00:01:46,880 when I went into my office, and at some level you still feel that. 26 00:01:46,880 --> 00:01:50,680 What's interesting about the diplomats, kings, presidents 27 00:01:50,680 --> 00:01:53,640 who come here is that they're obviously struck by 28 00:01:53,640 --> 00:01:57,400 the grandeur of it, but they really like it, they really like it. 29 00:01:57,400 --> 00:01:59,320 They come into my room and say, 30 00:01:59,320 --> 00:02:01,200 "I've been here before in 1984 31 00:02:01,200 --> 00:02:04,360 "under Geoffrey Howe, and I'm really pleased to come back." 32 00:02:04,360 --> 00:02:08,240 So there's a sense that they're having to perform on the big stage. 33 00:02:08,240 --> 00:02:12,440 This is the Foreign Secretary's room, from where the Liberal 34 00:02:12,440 --> 00:02:15,720 Sir Edward Grey looked out on the eve of the First World War. 35 00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:18,680 When you stand and look out of the window where Grey said, 36 00:02:18,680 --> 00:02:21,040 "The lanterns are going out all over Europe, 37 00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:23,440 "and they may not be lit again in my lifetime," 38 00:02:23,440 --> 00:02:25,920 you have a very strong sense that this is a country 39 00:02:25,920 --> 00:02:27,560 that has helped shape history. 40 00:02:27,560 --> 00:02:31,200 Many of the problems in the world 41 00:02:31,200 --> 00:02:35,080 started or had real links to this building. 42 00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:38,880 Yesterday, I met the President of Afghanistan. 43 00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:44,360 The Durand Line, 2,600 kilometres between Afghanistan and Pakistan, 44 00:02:44,360 --> 00:02:46,600 was drawn by a man from this building. 45 00:02:46,600 --> 00:02:49,440 It's still not agreed. 46 00:02:49,440 --> 00:02:54,520 The countries named on that dome from the League of Nations 47 00:02:54,520 --> 00:02:58,400 didn't work. The Locarno Rooms over there that were so-called after 48 00:02:58,400 --> 00:03:02,720 the Treaties of Locarno in 1925, they were meant to foster amity and peace 49 00:03:02,720 --> 00:03:07,520 between nations of Europe in the interwar period - a terrible failure. 50 00:03:07,520 --> 00:03:10,520 So you have a sense of humility in this building, as well as 51 00:03:10,520 --> 00:03:14,080 a sense of grandeur, and I think that's probably quite important. 52 00:03:14,080 --> 00:03:17,960 The Victorian Lord Palmerston, who served for 15 years as 53 00:03:17,960 --> 00:03:21,720 Foreign Secretary, had the Foreign Office built in the style 54 00:03:21,720 --> 00:03:26,680 of a Renaissance palace to proclaim Britain's status in the world. 55 00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:29,640 And today, even though we've lost an empire, 56 00:03:29,640 --> 00:03:32,520 the Foreign Office sees itself as the institution that 57 00:03:32,520 --> 00:03:36,280 allows Britain to punch above its weight on the international stage. 58 00:03:36,280 --> 00:03:41,920 It has a network of over 250 embassies and consulates, 59 00:03:41,920 --> 00:03:44,760 and Britain is a permanent member of the UN Security Council 60 00:03:44,760 --> 00:03:50,040 with a seat at the top table of the European Union, the G8 and NATO. 61 00:03:52,560 --> 00:03:55,560 And we have the military and intelligence muscle 62 00:03:55,560 --> 00:03:57,720 to back our diplomacy. 63 00:04:01,920 --> 00:04:05,240 As the self-proclaimed standard bearer of Whitehall, 64 00:04:05,240 --> 00:04:08,800 the Foreign Office has always prided itself on recruiting 65 00:04:08,800 --> 00:04:11,560 the brightest and best. Inside, 66 00:04:11,560 --> 00:04:14,120 with conscious echoes of imperial Rome, 67 00:04:14,120 --> 00:04:18,560 the faces on the statues of the men in togas aren't Romans 68 00:04:18,560 --> 00:04:20,600 but Victorian men from the ministry. 69 00:04:25,520 --> 00:04:28,040 You were clear that it was an elite service 70 00:04:28,040 --> 00:04:31,200 and that it had a different examination 71 00:04:31,200 --> 00:04:33,560 and the people were grand. 72 00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:37,440 It was awesome, the actual building, 73 00:04:37,440 --> 00:04:41,800 which was then dark and rather dirty and very post-war - 74 00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:43,320 we're talking about 1952. 75 00:04:43,320 --> 00:04:46,160 But it was awesome. 76 00:04:50,520 --> 00:04:53,240 I think I was rather terrified of the Foreign Office 77 00:04:53,240 --> 00:04:55,160 when I first went there. 78 00:04:55,160 --> 00:04:58,920 Anyone above the age of about 40 was still wearing a bowler hat 79 00:04:58,920 --> 00:05:02,720 every day, a black jacket and pinstripe trousers, 80 00:05:02,720 --> 00:05:07,040 and even at my insignificant level, we were expected to wear 81 00:05:07,040 --> 00:05:10,200 stiff white collars to be laundered every day. 82 00:05:10,200 --> 00:05:13,480 And the old system of the Foreign Office still prevailed. 83 00:05:15,040 --> 00:05:17,280 The most junior officers, desk officers, 84 00:05:17,280 --> 00:05:20,280 sat there in groups of three or four in front of 85 00:05:20,280 --> 00:05:25,040 coal fires which were topped up by messengers every hour or two. 86 00:05:29,680 --> 00:05:34,120 The Foreign Office was very masculine, extremely few women. 87 00:05:34,120 --> 00:05:36,360 We had an awful lot of sporting metaphors 88 00:05:36,360 --> 00:05:38,200 when I joined the Foreign Office. 89 00:05:38,200 --> 00:05:42,040 We kept straight bats on sticky wickets against pretty fast bowling, 90 00:05:42,040 --> 00:05:44,600 and we went home at close of play. 91 00:05:48,960 --> 00:05:51,480 Yes! 92 00:05:53,040 --> 00:05:56,000 Foreign Office people always had a special something, 93 00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:59,360 and they were almost the last generation for whom the word "duty" 94 00:05:59,360 --> 00:06:01,520 could be used without people smirking. 95 00:06:01,520 --> 00:06:06,360 At the top end, they recruited from very clever people, very competitive. 96 00:06:06,360 --> 00:06:09,960 It was a remarkable accolade, if you were a 22 or 23-year-old, 97 00:06:09,960 --> 00:06:12,920 to be offered a place in the Diplomatic Service, you see, 98 00:06:12,920 --> 00:06:15,920 and it still is, they still recruit wonderfully well. 99 00:06:15,920 --> 00:06:19,200 In contrast to the domestic civil service, 100 00:06:19,200 --> 00:06:20,960 people in the Diplomatic Service 101 00:06:20,960 --> 00:06:24,600 have, as the Scots would say, a very fine conceit of themselves, 102 00:06:24,600 --> 00:06:30,000 and...certainly if they were suffering from any self doubt, 103 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:31,720 they didn't show it. 104 00:06:31,720 --> 00:06:35,720 You mean that they were rather superior...? Well, they could be. 105 00:06:35,720 --> 00:06:40,600 I mean, I actually got on with them absolutely fine, but one or two 106 00:06:40,600 --> 00:06:45,720 predecessors had a difficult time in the Foreign Office, and if you're 107 00:06:45,720 --> 00:06:50,000 not up to..."up to snuff", as they would say, you'd get spat out. 108 00:06:51,640 --> 00:06:54,400 Well...where is the staircase? 109 00:06:56,400 --> 00:07:00,080 'Robin Cook met his top officials on the day he was appointed 110 00:07:00,080 --> 00:07:02,520 'New Labour's first Foreign Secretary.' 111 00:07:04,560 --> 00:07:06,880 What they'd like to do, Secretary of State, 112 00:07:06,880 --> 00:07:09,800 is just pause here for a second. Yes. 113 00:07:09,800 --> 00:07:13,640 Shouldn't I have a globe to hold up or something? 114 00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:15,720 Like the Budget box? 115 00:07:15,720 --> 00:07:18,840 'After 18 years in opposition, Cook was determined not to 116 00:07:18,840 --> 00:07:23,360 'become the creature of silky smooth Foreign Office mandarins.' 117 00:07:23,360 --> 00:07:25,440 It's not a bad place you've got here. 118 00:07:25,440 --> 00:07:28,920 Well, not bad for the son of a chemistry teacher. 119 00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:32,160 Well, I think I'll take the jacket off and get down to business. 120 00:07:32,480 --> 00:07:35,760 'This was built to impress foreigners. 121 00:07:35,760 --> 00:07:38,400 'I must confess, particularly in the early days, 122 00:07:38,400 --> 00:07:40,040 'it quite intimidated me. 123 00:07:40,040 --> 00:07:42,080 'I said, after my first fortnight,' 124 00:07:42,080 --> 00:07:43,720 that I wasn't quite clear 125 00:07:43,720 --> 00:07:47,240 whether I had a Rolls-Royce of a support staff, which was 126 00:07:47,240 --> 00:07:50,800 looking after me exceptionally well, or whether I'd been kidnapped 127 00:07:50,800 --> 00:07:52,280 and taken into custody, 128 00:07:52,280 --> 00:07:56,120 and the dividing line between these two concepts is actually pretty fine. 129 00:07:56,120 --> 00:07:59,320 In the Foreign Office, there was an ethos that 130 00:07:59,320 --> 00:08:01,600 foreign policy was somehow separate, 131 00:08:01,600 --> 00:08:05,880 not something which politicians should be taking decisions. 132 00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:11,480 There was an area of policy which was sort of over and above politics. 133 00:08:11,480 --> 00:08:15,720 Well, that's hogwash, but that was felt by some people. 134 00:08:15,720 --> 00:08:18,600 Over the years, a belief has grown up 135 00:08:18,600 --> 00:08:21,720 that whichever politician is nominally in charge, 136 00:08:21,720 --> 00:08:24,360 Foreign Office mandarins always pursue 137 00:08:24,360 --> 00:08:27,720 their own enduring set of policies. 138 00:08:27,720 --> 00:08:29,320 But senior diplomats dispute 139 00:08:29,320 --> 00:08:34,120 whether the Foreign Office does seek to make ministers its mouthpiece. 140 00:08:34,120 --> 00:08:37,800 'We don't set out to run the ministers who are put 141 00:08:37,800 --> 00:08:40,160 'in charge of this department.' 142 00:08:40,160 --> 00:08:45,440 These people are elected to run the government, and it would be absurd, 143 00:08:45,440 --> 00:08:50,120 I think it would be a denial of the profession of public service, 144 00:08:50,120 --> 00:08:52,680 to try and capture a minister in that way. 145 00:08:52,680 --> 00:08:55,080 That's the stuff of the music halls, 146 00:08:55,080 --> 00:08:57,520 the Sir Humphrey and the Yes Minister stuff. 147 00:08:57,520 --> 00:08:58,960 We don't do that. 148 00:08:58,960 --> 00:09:02,840 The Foreign Office regards the arrival of each new minister 149 00:09:02,840 --> 00:09:06,360 like an oyster regards the arrival of a grain of sand - 150 00:09:06,360 --> 00:09:10,440 the intrusion of an irritant with a very low statistical probability of 151 00:09:10,440 --> 00:09:12,480 ever producing a pearl. 152 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:17,040 For the top mandarins who come to work in the grandest part 153 00:09:17,040 --> 00:09:20,640 of the Foreign Office, the celebratory murals are 154 00:09:20,640 --> 00:09:25,440 a daily reminder of the time when the British Lion strutted the globe. 155 00:09:25,440 --> 00:09:29,360 But just over 50 years ago came a prime example of how their sense of 156 00:09:29,360 --> 00:09:33,720 effortless superiority was to be tested to destruction. 157 00:09:41,400 --> 00:09:46,200 The Suez Crisis of 1956 split the country down the middle. 158 00:09:46,200 --> 00:09:49,000 Its chief architect was Sir Anthony Eden, who'd been 159 00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:54,120 Foreign Secretary for 12 years before becoming Prime Minister. 160 00:09:54,120 --> 00:09:58,160 Suez was a cautionary tale of what can happen when a Prime Minister 161 00:09:58,160 --> 00:10:02,640 takes over foreign policy himself to the exclusion of the Foreign Office. 162 00:10:02,640 --> 00:10:05,600 Eden had identified his enemy number one 163 00:10:05,600 --> 00:10:08,520 as an Arab strongman. 164 00:10:08,520 --> 00:10:11,720 The Egyptian president Colonel Nasser 165 00:10:11,720 --> 00:10:15,320 was a charismatic nationalist and anti-colonialist. 166 00:10:15,320 --> 00:10:17,400 He'd taken back into Egyptian hands 167 00:10:17,400 --> 00:10:21,360 the Suez Canal, the jugular vein of the British Empire, 168 00:10:21,360 --> 00:10:23,640 from the Anglo-French company that ran it. 169 00:10:23,640 --> 00:10:26,440 REPORTER: It was Colonel Nasser, Egypt's dictator, 170 00:10:26,440 --> 00:10:29,240 who seized the canal over two months ago. 171 00:10:31,680 --> 00:10:35,200 His army has recently been strengthened by the provision of 172 00:10:35,200 --> 00:10:38,160 arms and equipment from behind the Iron Curtain. 173 00:10:41,400 --> 00:10:44,000 The Foreign Secretary, Selwyn Lloyd, 174 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:47,960 was widely regarded as a creature of the Prime Minister. 175 00:10:47,960 --> 00:10:51,920 Eden and Lloyd met with their French opposite numbers to work out how to 176 00:10:51,920 --> 00:10:54,520 deal with the Egyptian president. 177 00:10:54,520 --> 00:10:58,680 Together, they hatched a plan to snatch back the Suez Canal 178 00:10:58,680 --> 00:11:01,680 and to overthrow Colonel Nasser. 179 00:11:01,680 --> 00:11:05,560 Their allies in the top-secret plot were the Israelis. 180 00:11:07,240 --> 00:11:11,800 To work out the final details, Selwyn Lloyd was dispatched on 181 00:11:11,800 --> 00:11:13,440 a cloak and dagger mission. 182 00:11:13,440 --> 00:11:18,200 He was driven to Sevres, a Paris suburb, and, wearing a disguise, 183 00:11:18,200 --> 00:11:21,200 the British Foreign Secretary met his French and Israeli 184 00:11:21,200 --> 00:11:24,000 opposite numbers and their military chiefs. 185 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:26,800 D'abord, il a fait mauvaise impression... 186 00:11:26,800 --> 00:11:29,280 TRANSLATOR: 'He didn't make a good impression 187 00:11:29,280 --> 00:11:33,360 'on those who knew him because he had a false moustache on. 188 00:11:33,360 --> 00:11:37,160 'It was ridiculous, and we wanted to laugh as he took it off.' 189 00:11:40,560 --> 00:11:44,200 But the agreement Selwyn Lloyd reached with his co-conspirators 190 00:11:44,200 --> 00:11:45,960 was no joke. 191 00:11:45,960 --> 00:11:50,680 The plot was to bring down an Arab leader by invading his country. 192 00:11:50,680 --> 00:11:54,400 The French record of the top-secret meeting shows it was agreed that 193 00:11:54,400 --> 00:11:58,200 the Israelis would invade Egypt and Britain and France 194 00:11:58,200 --> 00:12:00,400 would then intervene. 195 00:12:03,360 --> 00:12:05,400 The plan went ahead. 196 00:12:05,400 --> 00:12:08,080 British paratroopers were landed at Port Said. 197 00:12:08,080 --> 00:12:11,840 The pretext was that British and French troops were going into Egypt 198 00:12:11,840 --> 00:12:14,080 as peacekeepers. 199 00:12:14,080 --> 00:12:16,960 In fact, the plan was to seize back the Suez Canal. 200 00:12:16,960 --> 00:12:20,920 But the invasion caused the gravest consternation in the Foreign Office 201 00:12:20,920 --> 00:12:24,000 amongst its senior officials, almost all of whom had been 202 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:27,120 deliberately kept out of the loop by Eden and Selwyn Lloyd. 203 00:12:27,120 --> 00:12:29,160 'The Suez crisis was fascinating, 204 00:12:29,160 --> 00:12:32,840 'because that generation of senior figures in the Foreign Office felt, 205 00:12:32,840 --> 00:12:34,480 with a couple of exceptions - 206 00:12:34,480 --> 00:12:36,800 one of whom was the permanent secretary - 207 00:12:36,800 --> 00:12:38,320 they thought it was madness, 208 00:12:38,320 --> 00:12:41,240 and many of them were excluded from the inner councils - 209 00:12:41,240 --> 00:12:44,280 Eden wouldn't listen to the Foreign Office's legal adviser, 210 00:12:44,280 --> 00:12:47,800 because he knew he was going to tell him it was illegal and unwise. 211 00:12:47,800 --> 00:12:51,120 And it's a sign of insecurity, and a form of mania, too, 212 00:12:51,120 --> 00:12:54,320 if you don't listen to the old pros in the Foreign Office. 213 00:12:54,320 --> 00:12:58,240 Because Eden was presented - within a few days of the nationalisation of 214 00:12:58,240 --> 00:13:00,480 the Suez Canal Company by Colonel Nasser - 215 00:13:00,480 --> 00:13:03,080 with a Joint Intelligence Committee assessment, 216 00:13:03,080 --> 00:13:06,040 which was remarkably prescient about what would happen 217 00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:09,560 if we tried to go alone, or even with the French, without the Americans. 218 00:13:09,560 --> 00:13:12,720 The United States was not consulted in any way 219 00:13:12,720 --> 00:13:14,920 about any phase of these actions, 220 00:13:14,920 --> 00:13:17,400 nor were we informed of them in advance. 221 00:13:17,400 --> 00:13:21,760 We believe these actions to have been taken in error, 222 00:13:21,760 --> 00:13:26,680 for we do not accept the use of force as a wise or proper instrument 223 00:13:26,680 --> 00:13:29,320 for the settlement of international disputes. 224 00:13:29,320 --> 00:13:32,280 Eden, who had lied to the Commons about Suez, 225 00:13:32,280 --> 00:13:34,880 felt increasingly under siege. 226 00:13:34,880 --> 00:13:38,480 He'd ordered all documents about the plot to be destroyed, 227 00:13:38,480 --> 00:13:40,640 and when the White House threatened 228 00:13:40,640 --> 00:13:44,160 to pull the plug on the pound sterling, Eden gave up the ghost. 229 00:13:44,160 --> 00:13:45,680 Goodbye. 230 00:13:49,400 --> 00:13:53,360 Eden resigned on health grounds after pulling our troops 231 00:13:53,360 --> 00:13:54,960 out from Suez. 232 00:13:54,960 --> 00:13:58,080 Selwyn Lloyd returned to the Foreign Office 233 00:13:58,080 --> 00:14:02,120 through an arc of raised eyebrows but was later to be moved on. 234 00:14:05,040 --> 00:14:09,640 Sir, I'm from the BBC. It sounds as though you had a wonderful send-off. 235 00:14:09,640 --> 00:14:12,000 Have you any specific reactions now that you 236 00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:14,680 leave the Foreign Office after such a long tenure of office? 237 00:14:14,680 --> 00:14:17,400 Well, I leave the Foreign Office with great regret. 238 00:14:17,400 --> 00:14:21,840 I've been there for seven-and-a-half years out of the last nine years, 239 00:14:21,840 --> 00:14:25,080 and the Foreign Service is a wonderful service, 240 00:14:25,080 --> 00:14:28,440 and no body of men and women could have served a Foreign Secretary 241 00:14:28,440 --> 00:14:31,720 with greater loyalty, willingness nor efficiency than the way 242 00:14:31,720 --> 00:14:34,080 in which I have been served, and I am very sorry to go. 243 00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:36,680 Well, may we wish you a very happy birthday, sir? 244 00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:38,800 I understand it is your birthday today. 245 00:14:38,800 --> 00:14:40,760 Thank you very much. 246 00:14:40,760 --> 00:14:44,680 The senior mandarins bidding farewell to Selwyn Lloyd had almost 247 00:14:44,680 --> 00:14:48,560 to a man been sidelined over Suez, and their opposition to the whole 248 00:14:48,560 --> 00:14:52,240 venture ignored by the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister. 249 00:14:52,240 --> 00:14:55,160 Goodbye! Goodbye. 250 00:14:55,160 --> 00:14:58,080 So the Foreign Office, though very battered because of 251 00:14:58,080 --> 00:14:59,880 Britain's influence in the world, 252 00:14:59,880 --> 00:15:03,080 particularly the Middle East having this terrible setback, 253 00:15:03,080 --> 00:15:06,920 and the Anglo-American alliance being put under immense pressure, 254 00:15:06,920 --> 00:15:08,560 to put it mildly, 255 00:15:08,560 --> 00:15:12,080 felt that they had tried to speak truth unto power. 256 00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:16,480 And it was a terrible scar, Suez, and indeed it affected the conduct 257 00:15:16,480 --> 00:15:19,480 of British foreign policy for a generation afterwards. 258 00:15:19,480 --> 00:15:24,040 Nasser's triumph showed that the age of 259 00:15:24,040 --> 00:15:28,520 Palmerston-style gunboat diplomacy was long gone. 260 00:15:28,520 --> 00:15:31,280 Well, the meaning of Suez is... 261 00:15:31,280 --> 00:15:35,360 that there is an end to the mess of the 19th century. 262 00:15:36,480 --> 00:15:40,880 The Suez story was a disaster which left a very long shadow. 263 00:15:40,880 --> 00:15:42,960 The feeling that we had dropped from 264 00:15:42,960 --> 00:15:46,480 being a great power to a very minor power 265 00:15:46,480 --> 00:15:48,760 was a tremendous shock to Whitehall, 266 00:15:48,760 --> 00:15:51,520 and particularly to the Foreign Office. 267 00:15:52,640 --> 00:15:58,600 Suez caused a period of agonising reappraisal for the Foreign Office. 268 00:15:58,600 --> 00:16:01,640 Our mighty empire was vanishing as in a dream, 269 00:16:01,640 --> 00:16:05,040 and Britain had to find new territory to operate in. 270 00:16:08,200 --> 00:16:11,720 The Elysee Palace in Paris. Having long stood proudly 271 00:16:11,720 --> 00:16:13,680 in splendid isolation from Europe, 272 00:16:13,680 --> 00:16:16,640 Britain had applied to join the Common Market, 273 00:16:16,640 --> 00:16:21,120 but the French had kept saying, "Non". 274 00:16:21,120 --> 00:16:23,640 But in 1971, the Prime Minister, Ted Heath, 275 00:16:23,640 --> 00:16:25,800 continued the negotiations for entry 276 00:16:25,800 --> 00:16:29,400 he'd begun ten years earlier as a Foreign Office minister. 277 00:16:29,400 --> 00:16:33,040 With the full-hearted support of the Foreign Office, Heath went into 278 00:16:33,040 --> 00:16:37,200 two days of tete-a-tete talks with President Pompidou. 279 00:16:37,200 --> 00:16:40,920 'The press, by this time, were absolutely convinced that nothing was 280 00:16:40,920 --> 00:16:44,640 'going to happen, the whole thing was a breakdown, and so we went in, 281 00:16:44,640 --> 00:16:48,520 'and there they all were, all the British press looking rather fed-up, 282 00:16:48,520 --> 00:16:50,640 'and we sat in two glorious chairs.' 283 00:16:50,640 --> 00:16:52,920 And then President Pompidou said, 284 00:16:52,920 --> 00:16:56,880 "Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have settled everything." 285 00:16:56,880 --> 00:16:59,960 And the whole press... absolutely startled! 286 00:17:02,360 --> 00:17:05,840 'It was wonderful to see them all. 287 00:17:05,840 --> 00:17:09,680 Even our own people, our own civil servants were...shaken by the fact 288 00:17:09,680 --> 00:17:11,560 that we had complete success. 289 00:17:12,520 --> 00:17:14,520 Government organised fireworks 290 00:17:14,520 --> 00:17:16,880 celebrated Britain's entry into Europe. 291 00:17:21,040 --> 00:17:24,520 The life of the Foreign Office changed dramatically, 292 00:17:24,520 --> 00:17:27,480 Brussels became the most frequent destination for 293 00:17:27,480 --> 00:17:31,480 ministers and mandarins. But how would Britain adapt to the rules 294 00:17:31,480 --> 00:17:35,520 of the European club which they had joined as Johnny-come-latelies? 295 00:17:35,520 --> 00:17:39,240 British Foreign Secretaries were to discover they had a rather 296 00:17:39,240 --> 00:17:42,520 different image in Europe from at home. 297 00:17:42,520 --> 00:17:46,200 'One of the difficulties of the British Foreign Secretary, 298 00:17:46,200 --> 00:17:49,200 'when he gets into his plane to go to Brussels or Paris, 299 00:17:49,200 --> 00:17:53,160 he goes in the view of the British media as, on the whole, 300 00:17:53,160 --> 00:17:57,960 a weak fellow, feeble, wet, bound to compromise, bound to give way, 301 00:17:57,960 --> 00:18:00,360 'and who is at the top of a department which is 302 00:18:00,360 --> 00:18:04,120 'tumbling over itself to compromise and sacrifice British interests. 303 00:18:04,120 --> 00:18:06,520 'He'll be outwitted by those clever foreigners. 304 00:18:06,520 --> 00:18:11,080 'His plane arrives an hour later in Brussels, and he emerges 305 00:18:11,080 --> 00:18:13,160 'with quite a different reputation, 306 00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:16,480 'as somebody much better briefed than anybody else, devious, 307 00:18:16,480 --> 00:18:21,320 'intelligent and completely ruthless in the pursuit of British interests. 308 00:18:21,320 --> 00:18:24,200 'So the Foreign Secretary suffers 309 00:18:24,200 --> 00:18:28,520 'both from the image of the Foreign Office at home and from the image of 310 00:18:28,520 --> 00:18:31,640 'Britain abroad, which are completely opposite.' 311 00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:34,800 'Each month, foreign ministers from the 27 EU countries 312 00:18:34,800 --> 00:18:38,000 'meet to try to agree common policies. 313 00:18:43,560 --> 00:18:46,880 'The meetings are fuelled by regular infusions of caffeine, 314 00:18:46,880 --> 00:18:50,720 'and ministers often seem to feel that an agreement is only worthwhile 315 00:18:50,720 --> 00:18:53,800 'if it's reached in the small hours. 316 00:18:53,800 --> 00:18:56,880 'The meetings offer Foreign Office diplomats the chance to 317 00:18:56,880 --> 00:19:00,240 'deploy their deal-making skills and then to compose a communique 318 00:19:00,240 --> 00:19:05,560 'for the media on what the Council of Ministers had actually agreed.' 319 00:19:05,560 --> 00:19:08,040 The communiques, of course, 320 00:19:08,040 --> 00:19:11,120 they drove you really up the pole, 321 00:19:11,120 --> 00:19:15,120 because there's nothing that bureaucrats like better 322 00:19:15,120 --> 00:19:17,440 than drafting. 323 00:19:17,440 --> 00:19:19,000 And when you get, 324 00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:24,480 as we were then, 12 members of the community drafting a communique, 325 00:19:24,480 --> 00:19:29,280 every comma, every apostrophe was queried, 326 00:19:29,280 --> 00:19:34,680 the translation between English and French, the nuances. 327 00:19:34,680 --> 00:19:36,680 It went on and on and on and on. 328 00:19:36,680 --> 00:19:38,880 We could use the verb "agree", could we? 329 00:19:38,880 --> 00:19:42,480 "Decide." I would like to use the word "agree" rather than "decide". 330 00:19:42,480 --> 00:19:44,720 I hope we don't have to...well... 331 00:19:44,720 --> 00:19:47,280 They might prefer "agree". 332 00:19:47,280 --> 00:19:49,760 I mean, "agree" is better, it's a treaty word. 333 00:19:49,760 --> 00:19:51,880 They say they want "decide". Hmm, well. 334 00:19:51,880 --> 00:19:55,720 I don't think we ought to accept that "decision" is definitely dead. 335 00:19:55,720 --> 00:19:59,520 No, I don't. Eight people said this morning that they would prefer... 336 00:19:59,520 --> 00:20:03,120 Exactly. .."declaration" to "decision", 337 00:20:03,120 --> 00:20:06,320 but I'm not certain that that was bottom line for... No. 338 00:20:09,440 --> 00:20:12,880 For all their skills at finding just the right form of words, 339 00:20:12,880 --> 00:20:15,520 Foreign Office mandarins have over the years 340 00:20:15,520 --> 00:20:19,040 been attacked as a gentleman's club, 341 00:20:19,040 --> 00:20:24,440 a self-perpetuating elite drawn from far too narrow a social base. 342 00:20:25,960 --> 00:20:28,680 New Labour's first Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, 343 00:20:28,680 --> 00:20:32,400 wanted to challenge what he saw as a cosy club. 344 00:20:32,400 --> 00:20:36,080 He decided to use the Foreign Office's historic chambers 345 00:20:36,080 --> 00:20:40,560 as recruiting offices to transform its traditionally stuffy image into 346 00:20:40,560 --> 00:20:44,160 one more representative of modern Britain. 347 00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:47,600 One of the reasons why we end up with recruits who are mostly from 348 00:20:47,600 --> 00:20:51,400 public schools and Oxbridge is because other people aren't applying. 349 00:20:55,640 --> 00:20:59,400 Wow! I don't think I've seen this room so full. 350 00:20:59,400 --> 00:21:03,040 'Potential recruits were invited into Cook's inner sanctum.' 351 00:21:03,040 --> 00:21:06,560 So, Mr Robin, do you like your new office? Yeah, I like my office. 352 00:21:06,560 --> 00:21:09,400 I'm trying to change the paintings - 353 00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:13,840 that fellow over there I felt, he's not the modern image I would like. 354 00:21:13,840 --> 00:21:17,600 My problem is finding something to replace it 355 00:21:17,600 --> 00:21:20,480 because you need something that big, that shape, 356 00:21:20,480 --> 00:21:23,320 and the trouble is, all the paintings that are that big 357 00:21:23,320 --> 00:21:27,160 are backward-looking, ideologically unsound. We're working at it. 358 00:21:28,680 --> 00:21:30,520 Cook had the painting removed 359 00:21:30,520 --> 00:21:33,720 and replaced for a time with an antique mirror. 360 00:21:33,720 --> 00:21:39,960 But he too was to be unceremoniously removed by the Prime Minister. 361 00:21:39,960 --> 00:21:43,680 Some years later, Tony Blair shook up the traditionally male 362 00:21:43,680 --> 00:21:46,800 Foreign Office by appointing Margaret Beckett as 363 00:21:46,800 --> 00:21:50,040 the first ever female foreign secretary, to her astonishment. 364 00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:52,120 'What did you say when he gave you the job?' 365 00:21:52,120 --> 00:21:55,280 Nothing repeatable on a family show! 366 00:21:55,280 --> 00:21:59,160 I heard you used the "F" word, you were quite surprised. 367 00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:03,280 And I heard from Jack Straw that's exactly what HE said when HE was 368 00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:06,520 asked to be Foreign Secretary, so it's a track record! 369 00:22:06,520 --> 00:22:10,120 I can't quite remember, is the answer. I mean, 370 00:22:10,120 --> 00:22:12,840 I may have said, you know, "Oh, dot, dot, dot..." 371 00:22:12,840 --> 00:22:15,240 The "F" word?. No, I don't think it was. 372 00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:17,080 I think it was... 373 00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:18,800 the "C" word. 374 00:22:18,800 --> 00:22:23,120 No, not...! I said "Oh, Christ" or something, or, "Oh, cripes." 375 00:22:23,120 --> 00:22:24,560 Something like that. 376 00:22:24,560 --> 00:22:29,760 The question was, what is the point of the FCO now? 377 00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:33,080 The answer is, there has never been 378 00:22:33,080 --> 00:22:35,880 a more important time for foreign policy. 379 00:22:35,880 --> 00:22:39,800 Never been a greater need for a dedicated foreign service 380 00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:42,520 of the highest quality. 381 00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:44,280 We are lucky in ours. 382 00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:45,800 Let's keep it that way. 383 00:22:47,320 --> 00:22:50,800 'But among her dedicated, high-quality officials, 384 00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:55,240 'there were some who were less than elated by their female boss.' 385 00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:59,200 Obviously, for them, it was new territory. 386 00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:02,720 They'd had Jack for so long and they were used to Jack. 387 00:23:04,240 --> 00:23:08,120 'The people around me were very supportive. 388 00:23:08,120 --> 00:23:11,920 'Equally though, I got the impression that across the Foreign Office, 389 00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:15,760 'there were those who thought there was something profoundly wrong 390 00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:18,320 'about having a woman as Foreign Secretary. 391 00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:21,800 'I found it a bit difficult to believe in this day and age. 392 00:23:21,800 --> 00:23:23,600 'But there you go.' 393 00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:30,080 From within the Foreign Office, some officials used 394 00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:34,920 the cloak of anonymity to brief the press against Margaret Beckett. 395 00:23:34,920 --> 00:23:37,920 I thought it was a bit contemptible. 396 00:23:37,920 --> 00:23:43,320 But I thought they'd have to get used to it. Get used to you? Mmm. 397 00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:45,760 There was a quote in one of the pieces I read, 398 00:23:45,760 --> 00:23:49,400 which allegedly came from a foreign office official, that 399 00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:53,800 you were inaudible, invisible, and incompetent as Foreign Secretary. 400 00:23:53,800 --> 00:23:57,360 I thought that was a very clever phrase from a very stupid man. 401 00:23:57,360 --> 00:24:01,240 Do you know who it was? No idea, don't care. 402 00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:03,120 I don't think highly enough of him, 403 00:24:03,120 --> 00:24:06,000 whoever he is, to want to know who he is. 404 00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:08,720 David Milliband took the place of Margaret Beckett 405 00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:11,080 when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister. 406 00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:13,680 Brown wanted his youthful political rival 407 00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:18,840 to bring a modern management style to the old Palace of dreams. 408 00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:21,560 We are a permanent member of the Security Council, 409 00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:23,680 a leading member of the European Union, 410 00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:26,680 we've got to be a country that behaves in a serious way 411 00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:30,960 and we, I think, have to take seriously that responsibility. 412 00:24:30,960 --> 00:24:34,800 I suppose the building brings that out. There's a danger of faded glory, 413 00:24:34,800 --> 00:24:39,880 and we work very hard to make sure we don't fall into that trap. 414 00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:42,920 The trap...the faded glory comes, I think, in two forms. 415 00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:46,520 One, that you're not a serious player, or secondly, that you 416 00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:51,280 try to behave in the way your predecessors did 50 or 100 years ago. 417 00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:55,120 And if I behaved like that, I wouldn't be taken seriously either. 418 00:24:56,640 --> 00:24:59,920 The thoroughly modern Milliband produced this booklet, 419 00:24:59,920 --> 00:25:03,280 which was distributed to all our diplomatic posts abroad. 420 00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:09,600 It included peel-off stickers to encourage good work by staff. 421 00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:14,200 And Milliband became the first Foreign Secretary 422 00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:17,880 with his own video blog on the Web. 423 00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:23,240 Hello and welcome to the FCO's new blog pages. 424 00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:26,960 These blog pages, where ministers and officials of the Foreign Office, 425 00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:30,560 ambassadors, but also young entrants into the Foreign Service, 426 00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:35,680 will be talking about priorities, the ideas, the values that underpin 427 00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:37,200 British foreign policies, 428 00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:39,000 are intended to open up 429 00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:42,080 what too often has been a secret garden of diplomacy. 430 00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:47,840 The most exotic plant in the secret garden of diplomacy is MI6, 431 00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:51,040 the secret intelligence service. 432 00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:54,920 MI6 comes under the authority of the Foreign Secretary and sends 433 00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:58,520 our spies around the world, often under diplomatic cover. 434 00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:01,920 Until recently, the Foreign Office wasn't prepared publicly 435 00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:06,440 even to acknowledge the existence of its secret intelligence service. 436 00:26:06,440 --> 00:26:10,920 Too great an openness about a secret service lands you into an awful lot 437 00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:15,800 of trouble, and as we've tried to be more and more open about MI6, 438 00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:18,360 so we land ourselves in more and more trouble. 439 00:26:18,360 --> 00:26:20,520 In my day it was simple - it didn't exist. 440 00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:23,280 Of course, everybody knew it existed, it was absurd! 441 00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:28,200 But it's...quite often those absurdities are quite helpful. 442 00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:32,360 And how did you refer to MI6 in the Foreign Office? 443 00:26:32,360 --> 00:26:35,360 Well, formally and publicly, I never referred to it. 444 00:26:35,360 --> 00:26:37,520 No, but within the Foreign Office? 445 00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:39,040 I'm sure that's secret. 446 00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:44,240 I thought the phrase is "the friends." 447 00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:46,520 "What do 'our friends' say?" 448 00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:50,440 My lips are sealed. Some things you take to the grave with you. 449 00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:53,920 The panoply of protection that goes with Intelligence 450 00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:58,240 has an insidious power 451 00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:03,120 because this has been secretly obtained and you mustn't leave 452 00:27:03,120 --> 00:27:07,000 this paper lying around. There's a man standing beside you with 453 00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:10,360 a locked box, he's going to take it away as soon as you've read it. 454 00:27:10,360 --> 00:27:13,200 You attach slightly more importance to it, probably, 455 00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:17,240 than if you'd read exactly the same thing in the newspaper that morning. 456 00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:19,040 And sometimes, it seemed to me that 457 00:27:19,040 --> 00:27:23,240 you could have read exactly the same thing in the newspaper that morning. 458 00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:28,640 But it's exciting and it's...it has this extra dimension of secrecy. 459 00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:32,520 So I think sometimes ministers, particularly, 460 00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:34,960 attach more importance to 461 00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:41,480 Intelligence that has come covertly than they should. 462 00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:46,040 Intelligence failures very often come, not because you can't see 463 00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:49,680 what's happening, but because you misinterpret the intentions, 464 00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:52,000 and when you misinterpret the intentions, 465 00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,160 it's known as the Wykehamist fallacy. 466 00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:56,280 You read their intentions as if 467 00:27:56,280 --> 00:28:00,120 they'd been educated at Winchester, you know, and they haven't been, 468 00:28:00,120 --> 00:28:01,560 they're a bunch of thugs. 469 00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:05,520 And actually their intentions aren't our sort of intentions 470 00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:08,160 and they may not be bluffing, they may be out to do 471 00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:10,080 something catastrophically dangerous. 472 00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:14,160 The Foreign Office is also responsible for GCHQ, 473 00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:17,160 which runs a worldwide eavesdropping network 474 00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:21,120 to intercept the communications of Britain's enemies. 475 00:28:21,120 --> 00:28:23,280 But while it's natural to seek to find out 476 00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:24,800 what one's enemies are up to, 477 00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:27,000 what about our friends in Europe? 478 00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:30,320 It's been reported that successive British Prime Ministers 479 00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:31,680 and foreign secretaries 480 00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:34,960 have had the advantage of secret intelligence reports 481 00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:40,280 on our European partners, when negotiating with them in the EU. 482 00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:43,520 Did MI6 provide you with intelligence 483 00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:47,080 on our European allies and what they were doing? 484 00:28:47,080 --> 00:28:50,520 Well, I don't believe you should spy on your European allies, 485 00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:51,960 I'm quite clear about that. 486 00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:54,920 Europe is a different relationship to most other ones 487 00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:57,720 and I think you don't spy on your friends. 488 00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:00,400 Well, I must say, I used to go to Paris, 489 00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:03,760 I used to discuss all sorts of things with my French colleagues. 490 00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:06,000 I can't believe they would ever spy on me 491 00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:08,240 under any circumstances, I simply can't. 492 00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:10,120 They wouldn't do that, would they? 493 00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:11,840 But would you spy on them? 494 00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:15,360 That's a separate question. You'll have to ask, you know, whoever. 495 00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:22,640 Does MI6, SIS, spy on our partners in Europe? 496 00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:27,160 One never comments on intelligence matters. 497 00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:33,360 Does MI6 spy on our own European allies? 498 00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:36,000 I'm never going to go into detail about what we do 499 00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:37,240 or what we don't do. 500 00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:40,240 Nobody ever goes that. But I'm just telling you that 501 00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:46,480 what MI6 does, as MI5 does and GCHQ does, is ensure that it works 502 00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:48,040 in the national interest 503 00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:52,720 and that all its operations are lawful and ethical. 504 00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:56,240 That's always a very sensitive thing and I can't talk much about it, 505 00:29:56,240 --> 00:30:00,400 even now. But... 506 00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:02,960 how shall I put it? I wasn't left in ignorance. 507 00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:05,200 You weren't left in ignorance because MI6 508 00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:07,120 was spying on our European allies? 509 00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:09,640 Well, I had a whole... you know, 510 00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:12,520 whole flow of information coming in all the time 511 00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:14,800 which they could supplement, 512 00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:17,600 but I really don't want to say more than that. Why not? 513 00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:21,240 Because there are ways and means of doing things, 514 00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:24,480 which continue no doubt, though I have no knowledge of that, 515 00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:28,280 and anyway, which I'm not really supposed to... 516 00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:29,920 don't want to talk about. 517 00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:34,760 The absolutely key relationship 518 00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:38,360 for the Foreign Office is with the Prime Minister of the day. 519 00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:40,680 The Foreign Office looms physically 520 00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:43,800 over 10 Downing Street, but Prime Ministers often want 521 00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:48,720 to be their own foreign secretaries and cut a dash on the world stage. 522 00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:50,880 This has led to a number of battles royal, 523 00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:53,640 with No.10 often accusing the Foreign Office 524 00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:58,240 of being temperamentally inclined to kowtow to foreigners. 525 00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:02,480 The toughest negotiations any Foreign Secretary has 526 00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:05,000 are always with his own Prime Minister. 527 00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:08,920 For the Foreign Secretary to be effective, he has to have the backing 528 00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:11,760 of the Prime Minister and his cabinet colleagues. 529 00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:13,880 Otherwise, he's ineffective. 530 00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:17,160 And the worst thing any Foreign Secretary can do, really, 531 00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:18,800 is say to his other colleagues, 532 00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:20,560 "Well, of course I agree with you, 533 00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:23,160 "but she - meaning Mrs Thatcher - won't." 534 00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:25,960 Or alternatively, some other Prime Minister won't. 535 00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:27,760 That's the worst thing you can do. 536 00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:31,160 When Margaret Thatcher came to office, in her early days, 537 00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:32,720 like most Prime Ministers, 538 00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:37,080 she said she would concentrate her energies on the home front. 539 00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:40,440 The Foreign Office had no idea what was about to hit them. 540 00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:42,200 Good Afternoon. 541 00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:44,960 Margaret Thatcher had not the slightest experience 542 00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:48,320 of the Foreign Office when she went to No.10 and didn't regret it. 543 00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:50,760 Mrs Thatcher's view of the Foreign Office was 544 00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:53,280 never a very generous one. 545 00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:56,200 I think it's one of the curious shortcomings 546 00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:59,000 about her qualifications for the job, actually. 547 00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:00,800 That unlike most Prime Ministers, 548 00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:03,480 she'd never held any of the great offices of state. 549 00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:05,920 She would love to have been Chancellor, 550 00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:09,160 so she had a love/hate relationship with the Treasury. 551 00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:12,400 She knew it and wanted it, but never had it. 552 00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:15,080 She never had that sort of love/hate relationship 553 00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:17,720 with the Foreign Office, she was always wary of it. 554 00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:20,560 She didn't like the Foreign Office. Famously she said, 555 00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:23,680 "We have a Department of Agriculture to look after farmers, 556 00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:26,440 "a Department of Defence to look after the soldiers, 557 00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:29,360 "and the Foreign Office to look after the foreigners." 558 00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:32,680 Mrs Thatcher quickly began to relish her role on the world stage 559 00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:34,160 and liked to quote the line 560 00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:37,160 that when it came to standing up for British interests, 561 00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:41,200 the Foreign Office was just a hotbed of cold feet. 562 00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:45,360 The Foreign Office thought I didn't have much skill at diplomacy, 563 00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:48,440 certainly diplomacy wasn't my forte. 564 00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:52,120 It was a policy that was right for Britain which was my forte 565 00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:55,440 and certainly I spoke with a directness, 566 00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:57,000 a truth and a strength, 567 00:32:57,000 --> 00:32:59,120 to which they were not used 568 00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:01,880 and they might even, some of them, have been shocked. 569 00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:05,760 After all, their whole culture 570 00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:11,040 was not sense of purpose, sense of direction, 571 00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:13,160 it was compromise, 572 00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:17,480 it was negotiation, it was diplomacy. 573 00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:22,040 Compromise was a dirty word in Mrs Thatcher's political lexicon. 574 00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:29,000 She felt that we, because we spent so long studying foreigners 575 00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:32,760 and learning their languages and living in their countries, 576 00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:34,800 that from time to time we forgot 577 00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:37,440 who paid us and where our interests were. 578 00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:39,480 She used to hate that expression, 579 00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:42,400 "Let's find a form of words, Prime Minister." 580 00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:45,320 That sort of implied to her, 581 00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:48,120 papering over our differences and distinctions 582 00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:51,040 and trying to obscure concessions. 583 00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:54,200 No, she wanted it black and white and she liked to confront 584 00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:56,560 people and issues very directly. 585 00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:00,600 The Argentine invasion of the Falklands, 586 00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:03,640 ordered by General Galtieri's military junta, 587 00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:07,520 played to Mrs Thatcher's black and white world view. 588 00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:10,400 The Falklands had long been British territory, 589 00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:13,720 which the Argentines passionately believed belonged to them. 590 00:34:13,720 --> 00:34:16,640 But the junta's military occupation of the islands 591 00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:19,680 came as a complete surprise to the Foreign Office. 592 00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:24,000 It was a failure of our diplomatic and intelligence services. 593 00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:27,480 The Foreign Office was accused of having signalled to the junta 594 00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:31,200 that Britain no longer cared about the Falklands. 595 00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:34,400 Lord Carrington, who was Mrs Thatcher's Foreign Secretary, 596 00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:36,960 felt compelled to resign. 597 00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:40,240 I mean, this was an appalling humiliation for the British 598 00:34:40,240 --> 00:34:43,480 and there was a deep sense of outrage in the country. 599 00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:45,000 I felt that somebody 600 00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,840 had better take the blame for what had happened 601 00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:49,400 and we ought to clear the deck 602 00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:52,080 so that we didn't have a sort of internal dispute 603 00:34:52,080 --> 00:34:54,200 about who was responsible. 604 00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:57,720 So it cleared the air. I think it was absolutely right to resign. 605 00:34:57,720 --> 00:35:00,040 I've just taken over from Lord Carrington, 606 00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:02,080 who was a very fine Foreign Secretary, 607 00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:05,440 very fine indeed. And of course my first concern 608 00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:07,560 is the affair of the Falkland Islands 609 00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:11,840 and I've already started on work on that this evening. 610 00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:15,640 Francis Pym, an Old Etonian like Lord Carrington, 611 00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:16,920 was a political rival, 612 00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:19,400 whom Mrs Thatcher had felt forced to appoint 613 00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:21,640 to try to steady the ship. 614 00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:24,160 But she was almost immediately at odds with him. 615 00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:28,000 Knowing her political survival was at stake, Mrs Thatcher was convinced 616 00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:32,160 that force was the only language the junta would understand. 617 00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:34,280 But she was dismayed when Francis Pym 618 00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:37,440 and his top Foreign Office officials warned her strongly 619 00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:40,880 about the grave dangers of military action. 620 00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:46,800 Well, I do think it's spineless when you put all the difficulties. 621 00:35:46,800 --> 00:35:50,760 They wanted us to negotiate. You can't negotiate away an invasion, 622 00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:52,240 you can't negotiate away 623 00:35:52,240 --> 00:35:54,920 that the freedom of your people has been taken. 624 00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:57,560 Taken by a cruel dictator. 625 00:35:57,560 --> 00:36:01,840 You've got to stand up and you've got to have the spine to do it. 626 00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:07,440 Mrs Thatcher dispatched a naval task force 627 00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:11,880 to sail the 8000 miles to the South Atlantic. 628 00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:14,320 It was part of a twin-track approach. 629 00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:19,240 The prospect of war, coupled with diplomatic efforts to prevent it, 630 00:36:19,240 --> 00:36:21,760 led by her Foreign Secretary. 631 00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:23,720 For all his somewhat fey manner, 632 00:36:23,720 --> 00:36:27,560 Francis Pym had won a Military Cross during the Second World War, 633 00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:30,360 though some saw his diplomatic efforts 634 00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:32,800 as little more than appeasement. 635 00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:37,640 I thought it was my duty as Foreign Secretary to go to the 636 00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:42,360 ultimate limits in trying to find a way of not having to go to war. 637 00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:47,640 I had three years of war in a tank in a desert and in Italy of many, 638 00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:49,920 many battles I was involved in. 639 00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:52,440 And anybody who'd been through that experience 640 00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:54,800 would want to avoid it if they possibly could. 641 00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:58,320 I'm not in the business of appeasement. 642 00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:00,480 Appeasement is wrong. 643 00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:03,160 It only encourages dictators. 644 00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:06,040 Dictators have to be beaten. 645 00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:08,800 Appeasement is no part 646 00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:10,680 of my psyche. 647 00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:14,400 Mrs Thatcher thought the Foreign Office were a bunch of appeasers - 648 00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:18,480 always wanting to negotiate away sovereignty and all the rest of it. 649 00:37:18,480 --> 00:37:20,760 And there's two ways of looking at that. 650 00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:24,000 One of the great reasons for having a top flight diplomatic 651 00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:27,480 service and a really good Foreign Office, is that you avoid war. 652 00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:29,120 One of the prime requirements 653 00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:33,040 of any country, let alone an open society like us, is to avoid war. 654 00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:37,280 And if you avoid war, you save blood and you save treasure 655 00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:39,760 and you pay for yourself many times over 656 00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:41,840 by just preventing one conflict. 657 00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:45,760 And so their entire bias is to solve international disputes 658 00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:50,680 through talk and reason rather than war, except as a very last resort. 659 00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:53,360 And that can be seen, if you're a Prime Minister 660 00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:56,360 who thinks in terms of primary colours, as appeasement. 661 00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:58,400 But it isn't necessarily. 662 00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:01,600 And in retirement, she said some terrible things about them. 663 00:38:01,600 --> 00:38:05,240 About, my job was to "buy a backbone and put it into the Foreign Office" 664 00:38:05,240 --> 00:38:06,280 or words like that. 665 00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:13,400 Mrs Thatcher unleashed the task force after diplomacy had failed. 666 00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:17,840 Our ships were bombed as we prepared to land. 667 00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:21,160 The battle for the Falklands would turn out to be a damned 668 00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:23,200 close-run thing. 669 00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:30,360 But in the end, we won a famous victory. 670 00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:39,960 Mrs Thatcher took the salute at the victory parade. 671 00:38:39,960 --> 00:38:44,000 And she remarked privately, "In the Falklands, I thought I was fighting 672 00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:48,800 two enemies at the same time - the Argies and the Foreign Office." 673 00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:54,920 Margaret Thatcher felt she'd taught the Diplomatic Service a lesson 674 00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:57,840 in what could be achieved by standing up for Britain. 675 00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:00,080 And she now decided that if the depictions 676 00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:02,920 of Britain's glorious past in the Foreign Office 677 00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:04,560 could be seen more clearly, 678 00:39:04,560 --> 00:39:08,040 it might inject some backbone into its diplomats. 679 00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:11,640 She sanctioned extensive restoration works. 680 00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:13,520 When the elaborate work 681 00:39:13,520 --> 00:39:17,240 on the Foreign Office had been finished, I was Foreign Secretary 682 00:39:17,240 --> 00:39:21,520 and we gave a party in the Locarno Room, which is full of splendid gold. 683 00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:25,680 And I stood at the top of the stairs and I was slightly alarmed 684 00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:29,880 when I saw the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, approaching. 685 00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:31,720 Of course, she'd been asked. 686 00:39:31,720 --> 00:39:35,080 Because I never quite knew, because of these mixed feelings 687 00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:38,560 she had about the Foreign Office, she might well say... 688 00:39:38,560 --> 00:39:41,640 she was capable of saying, "What a terrible waste of money! 689 00:39:41,640 --> 00:39:44,600 "This money could have been better spent elsewhere." 690 00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:46,840 But she was beaming and she said... 691 00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:50,480 she always spoke to me as if I was going to disagree with what she said. 692 00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:52,640 She said, "You see Douglas, you know, 693 00:39:52,640 --> 00:39:53,960 "you've got to remember, 694 00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:56,800 "you've got to keep these places in really good state. 695 00:39:56,800 --> 00:39:58,320 "It's terribly important". 696 00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:00,840 And she swept on very happy and I was happy too. 697 00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:05,000 Officials were determined to keep the newly refurbished Foreign Office 698 00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:09,280 up to snuff. Tons of accumulated pigeon droppings 699 00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:11,400 had been cleared from the office roofs, 700 00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:14,840 and they brought in an avian predator. 701 00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:25,840 She's a North American Harris Hawk, 702 00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:28,880 lives in sort of Arizona, around that sort of area. 703 00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:32,000 This is Jess, she's a four-year-old one, 704 00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:35,840 and we just use her for, like, the pigeon control. 705 00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:38,520 The hawk's instincts seem to mirror 706 00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:41,880 Margaret Thatcher's own style of diplomacy. 707 00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:43,600 My job is to come every other day 708 00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:46,360 to make the pigeons think that she's a resident hawk. 709 00:40:47,720 --> 00:40:50,440 Can you just stand back a second? Thank you, Madam. 710 00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:55,840 Sometimes her own Foreign Secretary would be in the Iron Lady's sights. 711 00:40:55,840 --> 00:41:00,240 Tensions between the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister are not unknown. 712 00:41:00,240 --> 00:41:03,600 They're always bound to develop with the passage of time as prime 713 00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:06,240 ministers become more confident of their own view 714 00:41:06,240 --> 00:41:09,480 and more experienced in the world they're trying to deal with. 715 00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:12,400 And it becomes all the more important for Prime Minister 716 00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:15,680 and Foreign Minister to retain a close working relationship 717 00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:17,320 to hammer out such differences 718 00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:19,160 in advance rather than in public. 719 00:41:19,160 --> 00:41:22,320 We have achieved that, because we have been able, 720 00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:24,040 during the two terms in office, 721 00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:26,200 to move Britain from the sidelines 722 00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:28,760 to the centre of the European Community. 723 00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:31,800 Mrs Thatcher's relationship with her Foreign Secretary 724 00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:34,120 grew steadily worse over the years. 725 00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:36,720 I think they were a rather effective duo, in a way, 726 00:41:36,720 --> 00:41:39,320 provided neither tried to play the other's role. 727 00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:40,520 Trouble is, of course, 728 00:41:40,520 --> 00:41:43,600 both of them often wanted to play the other's role, as well. 729 00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:45,200 I used to sit there 730 00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:47,920 in bilateral meetings which the Foreign Secretary 731 00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:51,120 and Prime Minister had once a week if they were both in London. 732 00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:53,920 I used to feel I was almost like a marriage counsellor 733 00:41:53,920 --> 00:41:56,080 seeing this relationship breaking down 734 00:41:56,080 --> 00:41:58,560 and being helpless to do much about it. 735 00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:01,920 Charles Powell had been a high-flying young diplomat 736 00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:04,560 when he was sent to No.10 on a short secondment 737 00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:07,520 as Mrs Thatcher's foreign affairs adviser. 738 00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:10,440 But he quickly became indispensable to her, 739 00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:14,920 particularly over Europe, where she was much more Euro sceptic 740 00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:17,800 than the Foreign Office, and there was a major battle 741 00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:22,200 over a speech that Mrs Thatcher was to make in Belgium. 742 00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:26,320 The College of Europe in Bruges had long been pestering 743 00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:28,760 for Margaret Thatcher to give a speech there 744 00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:32,320 and they said that every other head of Government in Europe had done it 745 00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:33,440 and she should do it. 746 00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:36,840 So the Foreign Office recommended it and I used to say to them, 747 00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:39,960 "Look, I wouldn't. I don't know what will come out of this 748 00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:41,760 "if you give her this opportunity, 749 00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:43,920 "you may not be happy with the outcome." 750 00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:47,000 "No, no, only Britain has not given this speech. 751 00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:48,720 "She really has to do it." 752 00:42:48,720 --> 00:42:51,200 So all right, we ended up we were going to do it. 753 00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:54,680 From his office in No.10, 754 00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:56,880 Charles Powell worked on the first draft 755 00:42:56,880 --> 00:42:58,680 of Mrs Thatcher's Bruges speech, 756 00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:04,480 and with her approval, sent it over to the Foreign Office for comment. 757 00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:07,880 What was the reaction when the first draft of the speech 758 00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:11,240 was sent to the Foreign Office? Horror. Horror? Yes. 759 00:43:11,240 --> 00:43:14,600 I would resist "horror". The Foreign Office is never horrified - 760 00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:17,760 the Foreign Office reacted with reasoned argument. 761 00:43:17,760 --> 00:43:21,080 Horror...? Well, horror because she was taking 762 00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:23,760 such a forceful view about how 763 00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:26,040 power should be exercised in Europe. 764 00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:29,160 But part of it was weariness - "Oh, God, here she goes again. 765 00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:32,560 "All our careful work in keeping things on an even keel" - 766 00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:34,760 a favourite Foreign Office expression - 767 00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:37,600 "with our European partners is going to be put at risk, 768 00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:40,080 "because she's determined to stir things up 769 00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:42,080 "and put a different point of view." 770 00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:45,040 Partly, "Oh, God, we don't say things this way, 771 00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:49,200 "this is not our style of explaining Britain's European policy." 772 00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:51,440 I remember thinking it wouldn't do. 773 00:43:51,440 --> 00:43:54,680 I thought the tone was unnecessarily critical 774 00:43:54,680 --> 00:43:56,440 and self-defeating. 775 00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:58,160 Foreign Office attempts 776 00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:01,160 to delete what they saw as inflammatory passages 777 00:44:01,160 --> 00:44:06,720 and substitute more emollient language were rejected by No.10. 778 00:44:06,720 --> 00:44:10,400 My anxiety was that certain passages which 779 00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:11,920 had been, I thought, 780 00:44:11,920 --> 00:44:14,280 too abrasive and striking the wrong note - 781 00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:16,160 which we thought we'd had changed - 782 00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:19,040 had reappeared, if anything in a stronger form. 783 00:44:19,040 --> 00:44:21,360 We have not successfully rolled back 784 00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:24,000 the frontiers of the State in Britain 785 00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:27,320 only to see them reimposed at European level, 786 00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:29,120 with a European superstate 787 00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:32,040 exercising a new dominance from Brussels. 788 00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:37,160 Geoffrey Howe's view of the speech and the attitudes towards Europe - 789 00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:39,480 he thought it revealed, he said, 790 00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:43,120 "I thought it was a little bit like being married to a clergyman 791 00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:46,400 "who suddenly proclaimed his disbelief in God." 792 00:44:47,360 --> 00:44:51,240 I should think it probably took him five years to think of that phrase. 793 00:44:51,240 --> 00:44:53,840 She said of you that "He fell into the habit that 794 00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:56,040 "the Foreign Office seems to cultivate 795 00:44:56,040 --> 00:44:59,720 "of subordinating national interests to negotiating tactics. 796 00:44:59,720 --> 00:45:03,360 "In the end, his vision became finding a form of words." 797 00:45:03,360 --> 00:45:06,840 Yes. A grotesque parody and a remarkable insight into 798 00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:08,560 her own LACK of insight. 799 00:45:08,560 --> 00:45:09,960 COCKERELL LAUGHS 800 00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:14,400 She talked about your insatiable appetite for compromise, 801 00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:20,000 and that would sometimes lead her to lash out at you in front of others. 802 00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:21,560 Yes, that's certainly right. 803 00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:23,200 But one could hardly accuse HER 804 00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:25,840 of having an insatiable appetite for compromise. 805 00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:27,760 It needed someone around to moderate 806 00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:29,800 that lack of appetite for compromise. 807 00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:33,240 Charles Powell's power at No.10 had grown so much 808 00:45:33,240 --> 00:45:37,440 that he was increasingly referred to as "the real Foreign Secretary". 809 00:45:37,440 --> 00:45:40,320 And senior mandarins felt that one of their own 810 00:45:40,320 --> 00:45:41,720 had gone over to the enemy. 811 00:45:41,720 --> 00:45:45,240 This made life difficult for Powell's younger brother Jonathan, 812 00:45:45,240 --> 00:45:47,440 who pronounced his name "Pow-ell", 813 00:45:47,440 --> 00:45:50,560 and was a fast rising young diplomat in the Foreign Office. 814 00:45:50,560 --> 00:45:53,840 Well, I had a unique view of No.10 when I was in the Foreign Office 815 00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:57,120 because my brother was Mrs Thatcher's foreign policy adviser 816 00:45:57,120 --> 00:46:00,560 and had been there for many years, so I was seen with some suspicion 817 00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:04,080 as somehow related to Charles and therefore responsible for him. 818 00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:06,600 At the Permanent Secretary's morning meetings 819 00:46:06,600 --> 00:46:09,480 people would be sniggering about some terrible thing 820 00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:11,840 that Charles had done to the Foreign Office, 821 00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:14,440 and then all looking at me as if I was responsible. 822 00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:17,200 So I did have this erm... this feeling. 823 00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:20,360 And I remember Douglas Hurd interviewed me for the job of 824 00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:23,320 one of the assistant private secretaries at one stage, 825 00:46:23,320 --> 00:46:25,880 and at the end he said, "I'm not sure I can do that - 826 00:46:25,880 --> 00:46:28,160 "there'll be a Pow-ell/Poe-ell problem." 827 00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:30,560 Because my brother calls himself "Poe-ell". 828 00:46:30,560 --> 00:46:33,400 So I always sort of felt put in a bit of a disadvantage 829 00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:35,320 in the Foreign Office because 830 00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:38,480 Charles was there running foreign policy from No.10. 831 00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:42,080 I'd poisoned the trail for him, had I? 832 00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:43,480 Well, I mean, it seems to me 833 00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:46,720 he was lucky to have been turned down - he clearly got a better job 834 00:46:46,720 --> 00:46:50,160 as a result of it, so I don't think he need feel too badly about that. 835 00:46:50,160 --> 00:46:53,480 Ironically, Jonathan Powell was recruited by another 836 00:46:53,480 --> 00:46:56,880 destiny Prime Minister, and was the Powell behind the throne 837 00:46:56,880 --> 00:46:59,600 throughout Tony Blair's years in No.10. 838 00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:03,240 JONATHAN POWELL: When Tony Blair came to office, as with Thatcher, 839 00:47:03,240 --> 00:47:06,880 they were interested in domestic rather than foreign policy. 840 00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:09,400 It's when they realise what they've got to do 841 00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:13,600 in terms of foreign policy, how much of the responsibility lies on them - 842 00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:16,800 that's when they get fascinated by it. 843 00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:21,960 And were you aware of how the Foreign Office saw Tony Blair 844 00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:25,720 in terms of what was said to be a marginalising of the Foreign Office, 845 00:47:25,720 --> 00:47:29,160 because he would take over foreign policy himself? 846 00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:32,840 Well, yes, I knew precisely what they thought. When my brother was there 847 00:47:32,840 --> 00:47:36,320 they felt that Thatcher had been marginalising the Foreign Office 848 00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:37,720 and foreign policy. 849 00:47:37,720 --> 00:47:41,400 And when we were there, they thought the same thing. 850 00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:43,840 There's always a sense in the Foreign Office 851 00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:45,720 that No.10 is trying to trump them, 852 00:47:45,720 --> 00:47:48,840 trying to run foreign policy and it should be left to them. 853 00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:51,320 But for the Prime Minister 854 00:47:51,320 --> 00:47:54,520 it is somehow easier to make things happen in foreign policy. 855 00:47:54,520 --> 00:47:57,840 You can by saying or doing something change things in a way that 856 00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:01,360 takes a much longer time in domestic policy. In health or education 857 00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:03,880 there's a long hard grind to make things change. 858 00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:07,400 Foreign policy - by attending a conference or agreeing an EU budget, 859 00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:09,760 you can make a bold stroke much more easily. 860 00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:19,240 But it was on the question of the use of military force 861 00:48:19,240 --> 00:48:24,240 that Blair made his boldest strokes and battled with the Foreign Office. 862 00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:27,400 Tony Blair went along with the US view 863 00:48:27,400 --> 00:48:31,880 that Saddam Hussein was the West's enemy number one in the Middle East. 864 00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:36,360 Saddam was accused of having weapons of mass destruction 865 00:48:36,360 --> 00:48:39,560 that were an immediate threat to Britain. 866 00:48:39,560 --> 00:48:41,880 Secret plans were drawn up by Britain and America 867 00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:44,960 to overthrow Saddam by force. 868 00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:50,080 Two months before the invasion of Iraq, Tony Blair arrived 869 00:48:50,080 --> 00:48:52,920 to address a unique meeting in London. 870 00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:57,040 All 150 senior British ambassadors from across the world had been 871 00:48:57,040 --> 00:49:00,000 summoned to attend the meeting, and Tony Blair began 872 00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:02,440 with a tongue-in-cheek compliment to them. 873 00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:03,880 Thank you very much indeed. 874 00:49:03,880 --> 00:49:07,320 It's my great pleasure to come along this afternoon and to begin by 875 00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:10,160 saying a word of thanks as Prime Minister 876 00:49:10,160 --> 00:49:15,160 for all the help that the Foreign Office...um... 877 00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:17,240 give Prime Ministers over the years. 878 00:49:17,240 --> 00:49:19,960 The wonderful advice, 879 00:49:19,960 --> 00:49:22,920 the unstinting spirit of cooperation and help 880 00:49:22,920 --> 00:49:26,360 which has seen me through many difficult situations. 881 00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:28,920 Among the ambassadors at the meeting 882 00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:32,800 was the distinguished career diplomat Sir Ivor Roberts. 883 00:49:32,800 --> 00:49:36,520 It was extraordinary to be at this meeting of ambassadors - 884 00:49:36,520 --> 00:49:39,760 the first time that such a meeting had been convened 885 00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:44,160 of every ambassador and high commissioner in the globe, 886 00:49:44,160 --> 00:49:47,960 brought back to the Foreign Office for a meeting 887 00:49:47,960 --> 00:49:51,800 addressed by the Prime Minister, addressed by the Foreign Secretary. 888 00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:55,960 And there was this enormous elephant in the room that wasn't 889 00:49:55,960 --> 00:49:58,360 addressed, which was the Iraq war. 890 00:49:58,360 --> 00:49:59,920 Absolutely extraordinary. 891 00:49:59,920 --> 00:50:02,880 One of the most fundamental foreign policy decisions, 892 00:50:02,880 --> 00:50:07,520 certainly in my professional career, 893 00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:10,160 and on a par with Suez, 894 00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:12,880 wasn't open for discussion. 895 00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:15,920 And meanwhile we spent an inordinate amount of time 896 00:50:15,920 --> 00:50:20,520 on management process and management speak. 897 00:50:20,520 --> 00:50:24,600 The phrases that were regularly trotted out of 898 00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:31,760 synergies, value for money, silo building, empowerment, push-back... 899 00:50:31,760 --> 00:50:35,320 These are all candidates for a game of bullshit bingo, 900 00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:41,600 and they're not worthy terms, I think, for use in modern diplomacy. 901 00:50:41,600 --> 00:50:46,080 Sir Ivor Roberts said that there was this great meeting of ambassadors 902 00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:49,720 before the war in Iraq was declared, and it was all 903 00:50:49,720 --> 00:50:53,600 Wall Street management speak and all the ambassadors were there and 904 00:50:53,600 --> 00:50:59,080 none of them were asked their view about the forthcoming war in Iraq. 905 00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:01,440 I'm not really in a position to comment on it, 906 00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:03,000 but I do think it's a good thing 907 00:51:03,000 --> 00:51:06,080 if the Foreign Office thinks a bit more about management. 908 00:51:06,080 --> 00:51:08,720 It's been quite antediluvian in the past. 909 00:51:08,720 --> 00:51:11,720 Inside the Foreign Office, there were real questions 910 00:51:11,720 --> 00:51:15,720 about whether No.10 was keeping the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw 911 00:51:15,720 --> 00:51:18,080 and his officials in the loop over Iraq. 912 00:51:18,080 --> 00:51:22,440 How much had Tony Blair involved the Foreign Office in the policy, 913 00:51:22,440 --> 00:51:24,840 and Jack Straw, in the run-up to war? 914 00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:28,480 I think the Foreign Office felt, and I'm pretty sure they were right, 915 00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:32,600 that even if they were as explicit as they could be in their anxieties 916 00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:35,720 about the run-up to the war, and the legal position, 917 00:51:35,720 --> 00:51:38,320 that Tony Blair was going to do it anyway. 918 00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:42,840 They had become really quite considerably marginalised 919 00:51:42,840 --> 00:51:46,240 compared to the great department of state they'd once been. 920 00:51:46,240 --> 00:51:50,480 They hadn't got the self-confidence that they once had, 921 00:51:50,480 --> 00:51:54,240 and I think the run-up to the Iraq war 922 00:51:54,240 --> 00:51:57,200 was another blow to them. 923 00:51:57,200 --> 00:51:59,840 I suppose what some of the Foreign Office feel 924 00:51:59,840 --> 00:52:02,400 is that they were kind of cut out of the loop, 925 00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:04,240 and big decisions would be taken 926 00:52:04,240 --> 00:52:08,000 despite what the Foreign Office felt or thought about it. 927 00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:10,720 Well, you have a discussion about foreign policy... 928 00:52:10,720 --> 00:52:13,960 They weren't cut out, they were always informed meticulously 929 00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:17,400 by letters which have made their way into newspapers all too often. 930 00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:19,280 But letters were written from No.10 931 00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:21,720 informing them exactly of the discussions - 932 00:52:21,720 --> 00:52:24,640 but they weren't the ones who got to make the decisions. 933 00:52:24,640 --> 00:52:26,760 They would be made by the Prime Minister 934 00:52:26,760 --> 00:52:29,360 on advice from the Foreign Office and elsewhere. 935 00:52:29,360 --> 00:52:31,920 It isn't necessarily going to be what they want. 936 00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:37,680 A million people took to the streets to try to prevent war in Iraq. 937 00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:42,360 Their route was to take them past the Foreign Office and No.10. 938 00:52:42,360 --> 00:52:45,800 PROTESTOR: We don't want your slaughter in the Middle East, 939 00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:48,360 we don't want your blood for oil... 940 00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:52,400 Only one senior Foreign Office mandarin had resigned over Iraq, 941 00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:56,680 and Jack Straw publicly supported Tony Blair's position on the war. 942 00:52:56,680 --> 00:52:59,600 I like Jack Straw, I've known him for over 30 years, 943 00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:00,760 and I don't know, 944 00:53:00,760 --> 00:53:03,080 but I have a suspicion that one day 945 00:53:03,080 --> 00:53:05,160 he will come out after time has elapsed 946 00:53:05,160 --> 00:53:07,640 and say he didn't really believe in that war. 947 00:53:07,640 --> 00:53:11,360 Certainly without a specific UN authorisation, which we didn't get. 948 00:53:11,360 --> 00:53:14,720 He strove mightily to get it till the very last minute. 949 00:53:14,720 --> 00:53:18,840 I'm sorry to disappoint Peter Hennessy, 950 00:53:18,840 --> 00:53:22,600 but I'm comfortable about the decisions I took, 951 00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:26,640 and I was responsible for them. And I could have stopped the war. 952 00:53:26,640 --> 00:53:28,520 You could have stopped the war? How? 953 00:53:28,520 --> 00:53:30,920 I could have stopped Britain's involvement. 954 00:53:30,920 --> 00:53:35,040 If I'd said to the House of Commons, "I don't think we should go to war", 955 00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:37,720 there's no way they would have voted for it. 956 00:53:37,720 --> 00:53:40,520 If I'd left the Government, that would have been it. 957 00:53:40,520 --> 00:53:42,640 Were you ever tempted to do that? 958 00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:45,200 Not at... No, I mean what... 959 00:53:45,200 --> 00:53:49,320 It doesn't quite work that way because what happened was that 960 00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:52,040 in the weeks... What I was anxious to try and do 961 00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:55,000 in the weeks leading up to March 962 00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:58,640 was to ensure that the United Kingdom could go down a different path. 963 00:53:58,640 --> 00:54:01,720 And so was Tony. Although I think that he was 964 00:54:01,720 --> 00:54:04,920 always more ready to embrace the idea of military action. 965 00:54:22,240 --> 00:54:25,440 For the second time in 50 years the Foreign Office, 966 00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:28,960 whose prime duty is to use diplomacy to prevent war, had 967 00:54:28,960 --> 00:54:33,800 had been sidelined by No.10 over a British invasion in the Middle East. 968 00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:37,320 A Prime Minister had used what many people saw as a concocted case 969 00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:38,480 for going to war, 970 00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:41,920 and our diplomats, who'd long prided themselves on their 971 00:54:41,920 --> 00:54:47,400 expertise in Arab affairs, had once again been powerless to prevent war. 972 00:54:48,800 --> 00:54:52,760 There was nobody left who had personal memories of Suez, 973 00:54:52,760 --> 00:54:55,640 but I think for that generation in the Foreign Office, 974 00:54:55,640 --> 00:55:01,560 2003 was comparable to 1956 for two generations before. 975 00:55:01,560 --> 00:55:04,120 It was the great blot 976 00:55:04,120 --> 00:55:06,400 in their career life as officials, 977 00:55:06,400 --> 00:55:09,000 and it was something which they will never forget 978 00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:10,720 and will affect them profoundly 979 00:55:10,720 --> 00:55:12,880 to the end of their days in Crown Service. 980 00:55:14,200 --> 00:55:18,720 I really do think it was comparable to Suez for their generation. 981 00:55:24,320 --> 00:55:28,200 Lord Palmerston's palace was built to protect and promote 982 00:55:28,200 --> 00:55:31,320 Britain's interests across the globe. 983 00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:34,040 But in recent years the Foreign Office has suffered 984 00:55:34,040 --> 00:55:36,920 both from the No.10 takeover of foreign policy 985 00:55:36,920 --> 00:55:39,040 and from Treasury spending cuts, 986 00:55:39,040 --> 00:55:42,200 raising the question whether this great office of state 987 00:55:42,200 --> 00:55:44,600 is now more show than substance. 988 00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:48,240 LORD HURD: The whole weight of the Foreign Office has become less. 989 00:55:48,240 --> 00:55:52,680 I think that Tony Blair assisted in that process. 990 00:55:52,680 --> 00:55:54,720 I think we're 991 00:55:54,720 --> 00:55:58,960 diminishing our overall representation, 992 00:55:58,960 --> 00:56:04,080 I think that some particular closures of posts are unwise. 993 00:56:04,080 --> 00:56:07,000 And I have a feeling, as I've said in debate, 994 00:56:07,000 --> 00:56:09,080 that the Foreign Office itself, 995 00:56:09,080 --> 00:56:15,640 the process of advice in London, has become somewhat hollowed out. 996 00:56:15,640 --> 00:56:20,320 You don't have quite those reserves of experience and wisdom 997 00:56:20,320 --> 00:56:24,600 available to the Foreign Secretary which there used to be. 998 00:56:24,600 --> 00:56:26,760 Do you accept this idea that 999 00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:29,680 the Foreign Office has been "hollowed out"? 1000 00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:31,240 No, I think that's nonsense. 1001 00:56:31,240 --> 00:56:35,000 I think the Foreign Office is every bit as capable as it was, 1002 00:56:35,000 --> 00:56:37,720 every bit as well manned as it was. 1003 00:56:37,720 --> 00:56:40,520 I think that the nature of foreign policy has changed 1004 00:56:40,520 --> 00:56:43,400 and will carry on changing, and you will get more done 1005 00:56:43,400 --> 00:56:46,000 between leaders themselves, 1006 00:56:46,000 --> 00:56:49,240 and that will mean that there is less for ambassadors to do. 1007 00:56:49,240 --> 00:56:52,160 Communications change - old-fashioned telegrams 1008 00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:55,200 or before that letters were the key way of communicating, 1009 00:56:55,200 --> 00:56:58,440 and often would take weeks and months to come back to England. 1010 00:56:58,440 --> 00:57:02,200 Now, just as the 24-hour news, you have 24-hour diplomacy. 1011 00:57:02,200 --> 00:57:05,800 Well, the people who alerted me first, oddly enough, to the decline 1012 00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:08,280 in the relative position of the Foreign Office 1013 00:57:08,280 --> 00:57:10,280 in the constellation of departments, 1014 00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:13,040 were my friends in the Secret Intelligence Service. 1015 00:57:13,040 --> 00:57:14,560 MI6? Yup. 1016 00:57:14,560 --> 00:57:18,840 And they first alerted me by telling me how they were 1017 00:57:18,840 --> 00:57:22,600 really quite upset at the number of research analysts being cut back. 1018 00:57:22,600 --> 00:57:25,400 Because the first people the SIS would 1019 00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:26,960 try their special stuff on 1020 00:57:26,960 --> 00:57:29,720 were the research analysts of the Foreign Office, 1021 00:57:29,720 --> 00:57:31,680 to see what was new and what wasn't. 1022 00:57:31,680 --> 00:57:35,040 And they felt rather bereft, because they were being thinned out 1023 00:57:35,040 --> 00:57:37,160 because of budget cuts. 1024 00:57:37,160 --> 00:57:39,760 But one of them put it really rather wonderfully. 1025 00:57:39,760 --> 00:57:42,600 A veteran of the Cold War. He said to me, 1026 00:57:42,600 --> 00:57:46,120 "The two pillars that sustained my Secret Intelligence Service, 1027 00:57:46,120 --> 00:57:47,720 "for the bulk of my time, 1028 00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:49,000 "have both gone - 1029 00:57:49,000 --> 00:57:51,280 "the Soviet Union and the Foreign Office." 1030 00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:54,200 And that's when I realised how serious it was getting. 1031 00:57:55,600 --> 00:57:58,680 The Foreign Office never publicly expresses doubts 1032 00:57:58,680 --> 00:58:01,400 about its superior status. 1033 00:58:01,400 --> 00:58:04,280 Yet in recent times, it's often seemed to resemble 1034 00:58:04,280 --> 00:58:09,000 less a great office of state, and more a palace of dreams. 1035 00:58:12,560 --> 00:58:14,960 Next time, the Treasury. 1036 00:58:14,960 --> 00:58:17,280 The oldest of the three great offices, 1037 00:58:17,280 --> 00:58:19,800 it's the ministry of tax and tears. 1038 00:58:19,800 --> 00:58:23,600 In Whitehall, knowledge is power, and the Treasury likes to think 1039 00:58:23,600 --> 00:58:25,200 it knows most of all. 1040 00:58:25,200 --> 00:58:28,280 KENNETH CLARKE: The Treasury was a brilliant department, 1041 00:58:28,280 --> 00:58:30,280 the best department I ever served in. 1042 00:58:30,280 --> 00:58:32,040 It's like an Oxbridge college - 1043 00:58:32,040 --> 00:58:34,400 brilliant minds engaged in open debate, 1044 00:58:34,400 --> 00:58:36,920 and completely detached from the real world. 1045 00:58:52,240 --> 00:58:54,280 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 1046 00:58:54,280 --> 00:58:56,400 E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk