Brian Mulroney, myself, [and] Rajiv Gandhi; I think that was the real core [of the Commonwealth ]. That was the engine room, I reckon.
BOB HAWKEWe [ with Brian Mulroney and Rajiv Gandhi] went to the meeting in Canada [the 1987 Vancouver CHOGM] and I said to them there that sanctions weren’t working; they were just being busted.
More Bob Hawke Quotes
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And it did seem to me that one way that we could bring the apartheid regime down would be if we did mount an effective investment sanction.
BOB HAWKE -
You’ve got to remember the Cold War was a very real thing then, so the relationship with the United States was very, very important.
BOB HAWKE -
I rang my friend Jim Wolfensohn, who was then running a private commercial bank in New York. I said, “Come up to Vancouver”, and he did. I put my proposition to him. He said, “I think it could work.”
BOB HAWKE -
While society cannot provide employment for its members, the production/work/income nexus has to be abandoned as a justification for our present parsimony to the unemployed.
BOB HAWKE -
It was a remarkable relationship. Margaret [Thatcher] and I had a love/hate relationship. She was always defending the South African regime and we had some terrible fights, including an enormous one in Canada.
BOB HAWKE -
He said it was very uncomfortable and he often took it off, but of course, in the end, it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d been wearing three vests – he would have been gone.
BOB HAWKE -
I believe [ Rajiv Gandhi] had a real sense that he would be assassinated.
BOB HAWKE -
There was some suggestion that there was a rapprochement developing between China and the Soviets, but nothing could have been further from the truth.
BOB HAWKE -
I had a good personal relationship with Lee Kuan Yew and I used him, in the sense, that he… He made a statement in 1980, and he said in that statement that,
BOB HAWKE -
[John Howard] led the Government. They had the numbers, and just basically automatically went along with the Americans.
BOB HAWKE -
I got to know him well as Vice President to Ronald Reagan. And George rang me up and said, “Oh, Bob,” he said, “I’m having trouble with Brian [Mulroney].” He said, “He’s got a big wheat trade with Iraq, and he doesn’t want to upset that.” I said, “You leave it with me.”
BOB HAWKE -
Institutions do live on their history.
BOB HAWKE -
I hated [Robert Mugabe]. He’s one of the worst human beings I’ve ever met. He treated black and white with equal contempt. He was a horrible human being.
BOB HAWKE -
One other thing: at the meeting in Canada, [there was] the coup in Fiji. This comes to an important part of the Commonwealth: the role of the Queen [Elizabeth II]. I had absolutely just enormous respect for her as leader of the Commonwealth.
BOB HAWKE -
We had a very good relationship. Very good. I liked [Sonny Ramphal]. I thought he was a genuine man.
BOB HAWKE