Robert Mugabe
John Major has blocked an idea from the Foreign Office to offer honorary membership of the MCC to Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, saying it was a “dodgy desert”, records published by the National Archives appear. The FCO praised Mugabe’s state tour of the UK in 1994, saying he was “cricket-loving”.
But the Prime Minister, a cricket fan and MCC member, refused. His handwriting on the Downing Street memo said: “I would leave. Not many MCC members like it + it’s an amazing desert. ”
One of Major’s private office staff responded to the Foreign Office: “I hope Mugabe’s staff did not catch up. The Zimbabwean high commission, however, was aware of the proposal and thought Mugabe would welcome it.
Hunger strike
Fear that asylum seekers may be holding hunger strikes as a complaint at the postponement of the death of No10 counselors could consider giving intravenous drips to those who have lost consciousness.
Lord McColl, consultant surgeon and John Private’s parliamentary private secretary in the Lords, has been contacted. He said: “The Home Office should be very clear that it will not allow the hunger strikers to die but this policy should not be published.”
Simon Walker, special adviser in policy unit No. 10, wrote to the office of the home secretary, Michael Howard: “… As they go down to the string one of them could die in an accident.
“A clear statement that we would rehydrate and feed in hunger strikers as soon as they lose consciousness could have another benefit in persuading them that it was not worth continuing. ‘dol…. We are not, after all, talking about feeding a force in suffragette style but about a much more relaxed and medically managed approach … ”
70th Margaret Thatcher
John Major has been warned it would be like a “snub” to refuse to go to a dinner at Claridges hosted by Margaret Thatcher, one of three parties to mark her 70th birthday.th birthday in 1995.
The dinner of one Major had already continued to host Thatcher, and it was on the eve of the Conservative party conference. Major private secretary Alex Allan wrote: “I tried to convince you that there was no need to accept it: you will be tired, you will have made Lady T proud by holding the dinner here ; the throwaway list is less appealing. ”
However, he said “the consensus was that you should go”; it would be very welcome “with the party in general”, and to say “it would be like a snub, despite your own dinner”. The Major agreed to attend. And, in an internal memo, Allan wrote: “The PM and Norma (groan!) Will go.
By dinner on October 16, the guest list had grown to 200, including The Queen and Michael Caine. With little love lost between them, Thatcher’s predecessor Edward Heath had a prior connection, and was not present.
Saudis Overthrowing
Edward Heath officials suspected that the Americans were plotting to overthrow the Saudi regime at the height of the 1973-74 oil crisis to prevent excessive price increases.
Cabinet secretary Sir John Hunt wrote to the prime minister’s office in January 1974 recommending that “it is time for an undisclosed attempt to smoke America’s intentions over oil supply and oil prices”.
Saudi Arabia, he said, was “a classic‘ takeover ’situation and I have recently drawn the prime minister’s attention to intelligence reports saying that Americans have contingent plans to deploy a force in the Middle East. , directly or by overthrowing existing governments. ”
Hunt was allowed to go out to Washington for secret talks with Henry Kissinger, the U.S. secretary of state. Hunt returned a cable in which Kissinger told him about Saudi Arabia and Iran: “An intellectual force in the latter option could not be ruled out. But the US had no plans for this. “
Atomic abduction
A Labor defense minister was refused “permission to view atomic papers” on the advice of a senior civil servant in 1978.
Dr John Gilbert, who was at the MoD for three years, received the support of the defense secretary for his application so that he could take part in discussions on “submarine combat and counter-mine measurement capabilities”.
However, Sir Frank Cooper, the department’s senior civil servant, wrote to No. 10 objecting to the permission, stating that he did not think there was “sufficient operational reason to prove this” and that “no This does not seem like an appropriate time to get elected soon. ”
Jim Callaghan’s chief private secretary, Bryan Cartledge, wrote back to the MoD saying: “The prime minister would prefer not to add to the list of those with atomic permission at this time. “