I just loved him and he loved me… He was a most humble man, the most decent man I’ve ever met in my life and he always looked for the best in people to find positives and he said something to me that always remained with me.
BOB HAWKEGeoffrey [Howe] and I were mates, and he disagreed with [ Margaret Thatcher] position. So, we cooperated surreptitiously.
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 -
[John Howard] led the Government. They had the numbers, and just basically automatically went along with the Americans.
BOB HAWKE -
We [ 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.
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 -
The first meeting in 1983 was held in India and I was very off put by her. I just couldn’t abide her, basically.
BOB HAWKE -
I had no time for Indira Gandhi. She was too much in the Russian camp for my liking.
BOB HAWKE -
As far as we’re concerned, there was no sporting organisation [that] should have anything to do with the sport in South Africa.
BOB HAWKE -
Institutions do live on their history.
BOB HAWKE -
I respected [Margaret Thatcher] enormously. She had great integrity in that respect.
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 -
I find a fence a very uncomfortable place to squat my bottom.
BOB HAWKE -
We were great mates [with Rajiv Gandhi]: very, very, very close friends. In fact, on my visit to India as Prime Minister, we were going to his home for dinner.
BOB HAWKE -
There is no doubt that this government and this country are benefiting from the reforms that we brought in the 1980s, and that couldn’t have been done without the co-operation of the trade union movement.
BOB HAWKE -
The things which are most important don’t always scream the loudest.
BOB HAWKE -
Bill Heseltine had been at university with me, at the University of Western Australia. I knew him well.
BOB HAWKE