Tribute: Chris Moncrieff remembers Lord Carrington
5 min read
Chris Moncrieff looks back at the life of former Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington, whose career as a soldier, diplomat and politician “was distinguished from start to finish”
Lord Carrington epitomised Chaucer's "verray parfait gentil knight" He was a man of honour, integrity, courage, wisdom and humility and one of the most illustrious statesmen of his generation.
His sheer skill in dealing with seemingly intractable crises, the world-over, with total modesty and without pretension, was unequalled. And he was a stickler for protocol, demanding – and practising – the highest standards of conduct from public figures.
Lord Carrington is best remembered for his selfless resignation as Foreign Secretary, for failing to foresee the threat Argentina posed to the Falklands in 1982. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher pleaded with him to stay, but he was adamant that resignation was the only honourable course. He was philosophical about that, saying: "You have to get things into perspective. I lost my job. Others lost their lives."
His career as a diplomat, politician and soldier was distinguished from start to finish. Invariably he succeeded where others had failed. As Foreign Secretary he played a crucial role in persuading the warring factions in the former Rhodesia – now Zimbabwe – to agree to a ceasefire, a new constitution, elections and a return to legality – which both Labour and Tory Governments had failed to do over 14 years.
Peter Alexander Rupert Carington (the name is spelt with one ‘r’, the title with two) was born on June 6, 1919, the only son of the fifth Lord Carrington. He was educated at Eton and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was commissioned in the Grenadier Guards and served during the Second World War, rising to the rank of major and winning the Military Cross in the North-Western Europe campaign. He was a tank commander in 1944 and distinguished himself at Nijmegen Bridge in an action which some felt deserved a Victoria Cross.
During the early post-war years, Carrington was a Conservative whip and on the return of the Tories to power in 1951, he became parliamentary secretary for agriculture at 32. Later he became a junior defence minister. He was the last surviving member of the Churchill administration.
He then became British High Commissioner in Australia. He delighted Australians with his absence of stuffiness. "My real name is Smith," he would say, "and my ancestors were drapers from Nottingham." He abhorred "the palaver" about class, saying: “If you are a duke it does not mean you are an idiot, or if you went to Eton, that doesn't preclude you from being Prime Minister.”
On his return from Australia in 1959, he became first Lord of the Admiralty, and three years later assistant deputy leader of the Lords. Some 15 months after that he became Leader of the Upper House.
Lord Carrington freely admitted an uncomfortable relationship with Thatcher, but he bore her no malice. "We had our differences. But I never found that she resented those who disagreed with her. What she disliked were people who disagreed with her who had not done their homework."
After his Falklands resignation, he was offered a stint as Nato secretary-general at a particularly difficult time. "I was discouraged from seeing anyone from the Warsaw Pact. There was the occasion when a Hungarian diplomat, who came to deliver a Warsaw Pact communique, was stopped at the gate and had to hand it over through the grille. I thought that was ridiculous."
During his four years there, he dealt with the Reykjavik Summit, at which President Gorbachev almost persuaded President Reagan to scrap all nuclear weapons; and the US bombing of Tripoli without any advance Nato consultation.
He once said: "My regret is that I left Nato in 1988 before the Berlin Wall came down, and everything changed." He believed the collapse of Communism was related to the Soviet economy bankrupting itself by trying to keep up the arms race with the West.
But his greatest achievement at Nato was to prevent nuclear war. "We did it. We survived, and we helped pave the way for Gorbachev's perestroika,” he said.
In 1991 Lord Carrington became a European Community negotiator in the former Yugoslavia. He was gloomy about the prospects for a settlement as he undertook the thankless, task, of bringing the warring factions together. The hatred and greed for territory was centuries old and had been kept in check by the onset of Communism in Eastern Europe. It proved intractable.
Later, he took up a life peerage after the Labour government axed hereditary peers, becoming the oldest and longest serving member of the Lords.
Lord Carrington was pro-Europe and as recently as 2016 he put his name to a letter warning that pulling out of Europe would "give succour to the West's enemies".
A great and good man who tirelessly served his country impeccably and without flamboyance. Britain should be proud of him. "Nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility.” Lord Carrington could well have been the model for those memorable words of Shakespeare.
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