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We had a very good relationship. Very good. I liked [Sonny Ramphal]. I thought he was a genuine man.

Bob Hawke

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
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
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
It was Indira Gandhi who very much lined up with the Russians. And she was, you know, within the Commonwealth, basically one out on that.
BOB HAWKE

Commonwealth Country Firsts India People
She [ Elizabeth II] is, you know, “Do-what-you’re-told, Lady”. But in the Commonwealth, she is much more than just a figurehead.
BOB HAWKE

Commonwealth Lady Old
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

Country People President Trade Trouble Vice Wheat
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
[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
Institutions do live on their history.
BOB HAWKE

History Institutions Live
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
An assumption cannot be used to justify making second-class citizens of those who are unfortunate enough to constitute living proof of the inaccuracy of that assumption.
BOB HAWKE

Abonded Assumption Constitute Income Production Proof
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
George Bush Junior [George W Bush] was a religious fanatic, and Tony Blair wasn’t far behind in a way.
BOB HAWKE

Behind Fanatic Juniors Religious Way
The personality of the Queen [ Elizabeth II]… For instance, once she goes – if she’s ever going to die, it seems to be questionable – if Charles [of Wales] were there, whether there’d be the same sort of cement is very questionable, I think.
BOB HAWKE

Charles Elizabeth Personality Queens Question Think Thinking
I believe [ Rajiv Gandhi] had a real sense that he would be assassinated.
BOB HAWKE

Assassinated Belief Real
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

Cold Important Real Remember War

We had a very good relationship. Very good. I liked [Sonny Ramphal]. I thought he was a genuine man.

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We had a very good relationship. Very good. I liked [Sonny Ramphal]. I thought he was a genuine man.

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Popular Authors

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