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Geoffrey [Howe] and I were mates, and he disagreed with [ Margaret Thatcher] position. So, we cooperated surreptitiously.

Bob Hawke

I said to my people, “We’re knocking apartheid off but we’ve got to be prepared to assist them.” And I sent senior people over there to assist the incoming South African regime to go about the economic plan.
BOB HAWKE

Commonwealth Economic People Plan Prepared Senior
[John Howard] led the Government. They had the numbers, and just basically automatically went along with the Americans.
BOB HAWKE

Automatically Basically Government Numbers
I find a fence a very uncomfortable place to squat my bottom.
BOB HAWKE

Fence Squat Uncomfortable
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

Commonwealth Country Defend Enormous Fighting Hate
Brian Mulroney, myself, [and] Rajiv Gandhi; I think that was the real core [of the Commonwealth ]. That was the engine room, I reckon.
BOB HAWKE

Commonwealth Real Rooms Thinking
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

Come Commercial Country Running Senior
I had no time for Indira Gandhi. She was too much in the Russian camp for my liking.
BOB HAWKE

Camps Fighter Freedom Liking Much Too
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 HAWKE

Believe Decent Love Religious
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

Australia Personal Relationship White Yew
[ Elizabeth II] has immersed herself, in the sense [that] she can speak intelligently about any and all members of the Commonwealth and she has played a role.
BOB HAWKE

Commonwealth Elizabeth Immersed Members Roles Speak
Bill Heseltine had been at university with me, at the University of Western Australia. I knew him well.
BOB HAWKE

Bills Country University Wells
And that’s what brought the regime down. The last South African Finance Minister, Barend du Plessis, went on record as saying that it was the investment sanctions that put the final nail in the coffin of apartheid.
BOB HAWKE

Final Finance Investment Record Regime Sanction
The things which are most important don’t always scream the loudest.
BOB HAWKE

Important Loudest Scream
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

Country Home Minister People Prime Two Visit
There is a reciprocal respect for [ Elizabeth II], for her interest in the Commonwealth. The members of the Commonwealth recognise that here is a genuine interest from the top. So, that’s one reason. I’m not putting it necessarily in order of importance.
BOB HAWKE

Commonwealth Genuine Member Order Reason Recognize
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

Anything Commonwealth Organisation Sporting Sports
It [also] lives on its history, now, to some extent: its achievements [ of the Commonwealth] in Rhodesia and South Africa, which were enormous. And they’ll live on that for some time,
BOB HAWKE

Achievement Achievements Commonwealth Country South Thinking Time
You could talk to her about any of the fifty-one countries of the Commonwealth and you could have an intelligent conversation with her about the economics, the politics. She really immersed herself in the Commonwealth.
BOB HAWKE

Commonwealth Conversation Economics Impressed
Peoples have come to experience that political structures and divisions of power are not immutable.
BOB HAWKE

Distribution Diversion Heaven Men Political
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

Country Developing Nothing Soviet Truth
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

Benefiting Country Doubt Government Reform
[Malcolm Fraser] went straight from Melbourne Grammar to Oxford. And he would have been a very lonely person, and I think he probably met a lot of black students there who were also probably lonely.
BOB HAWKE

Grammar Lonely Oxford Race Straight Thinking
I think there are a number of reasons, not least of which is the personality of the Queen [ Elizabeth II]. It’s very easy to underrate her significance.
BOB HAWKE

Elizabeth Number Numbers Queens Thinking
I respected [Margaret Thatcher] enormously. She had great integrity in that respect.
BOB HAWKE

Enormously Great Integrity Respect
We had a very good relationship. Very good. I liked [Sonny Ramphal]. I thought he was a genuine man.
BOB HAWKE

Genuine Good Relationships Men
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

Basically First Meeting
Institutions do live on their history.
BOB HAWKE

History Institutions Live

Geoffrey [Howe] and I were mates, and he disagreed with [ Margaret Thatcher] position. So, we cooperated surreptitiously.

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Geoffrey [Howe] and I were mates, and he disagreed with [ Margaret Thatcher] position. So, we cooperated surreptitiously.

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Popular Authors

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