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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

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
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

Course Mattered Uncomfortable
I respected [Margaret Thatcher] enormously. She had great integrity in that respect.
BOB HAWKE

Enormously Great Integrity Respect
I believe [ Rajiv Gandhi] had a real sense that he would be assassinated.
BOB HAWKE

Assassinated Belief Real
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
One of the features of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings was [that] she [ Elizabeth II] would have a meeting with each of them. You’d have an allotted time.
BOB HAWKE

Commonwealth Elizabeth Ii Feature Government Meetings
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
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

Bring Down Effective Investment Regime Sanction
I assumed the leadership within the Commonwealth for the fight against apartheid. I was very much assisted by Brian Mulroney, the Prime Minister of Canada, [and] Rajiv Gandhi, when he became the Prime Minister of India. And there were trade sanctions.
BOB HAWKE

Aparthed Canada Country Fighting Leadership People
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
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

Black Mets Mugabe White
By 1990, no Australian child will be living in poverty.
BOB HAWKE

Australian Children Poverty
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
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
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

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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