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Andrew Palmer, diplomat whose unstuffy charm ensured good relations with Fidel Castro and Pope John Paul II – obituary
Andrew Palmer, who has died at the age of 82, had a long and distinguished career in the Diplomatic Service and was Ambassador to Cuba in the days of Fidel Castro and to the Holy See when John Paul II was Pope.
They were two larger-than-life figures of their time. Palmer needed all his charm and skill to persuade Castro that Britain was not just the best friend of President Reagan, and the Pope that Britain was not intervening unjustly in the civil war in former Yugoslavia.
In his many travels around the world, Palmer was never without his binoculars and Nikon camera, becoming a renowned ornithologist and amateur photographer. His book of memoirs, A Diplomat and his Birds, intertwined his love of birds with his wide-ranging career. He was the most unstuffy and informal of diplomats who made friends wherever he went.
Andrew Eustace Palmer was born on September 30 1937, the son of Lt-Col Rodney Palmer MC and his wife Frances (née Gordon-Duff). He was educated at Winchester and Pembroke College, Cambridge. Palmer’s great-great-grandfather, George Palmer, was the founder of Huntley & Palmers, the Reading biscuit-makers.
After doing his National Service as a second lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade in Malaya during the Emergency, he joined the Foreign Office in 1961, and after a stint in the American Department was posted to Bolivia, where he learnt Spanish. There followed tours in Ottawa, Paris and Oslo, jobs in London and a sabbatical year at the Royal College of Defence Studies.
He was head of the Falkland Islands Department from 1982 to 1985, just after the successful recapture, and had the difficult task of rebuilding relations with Argentina.
He was appointed Ambassador to Cuba in 1986 after a year at the Harvard Center for International Affairs. There was a joke in Havana at the time: “What is the largest nation in the world? Cuba, which has its government in Moscow, its army in Africa and its people in Florida.”
Cuba had a population of only 10 million but had a disproportionate influence on world events and was seen by President Reagan as part of the “Evil Empire” and a strategic ally of the USSR. Yet Soviet support for Cuba waned with the coming to power of Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow, and the role of Cuba became diminished in Africa and Latin America. Palmer’s reports on the Castro regime and conditions in Cuba were particularly valued by the US administration, which had no diplomatic representation in Havana.
He got on well with Castro – he even felt his three-hour speeches passed quickly – and found the Cubans charming and welcoming despite the oppressiveness of the regime.
In 1988 Palmer played an important intermediary role in persuading the Cubans to remove their 30,000 troops from Angola in return for the US-led plan to get the South Africans to withdraw from the country and grant independence to Namibia. This effectively ended the civil war in Angola, which had begun in 1975 when Cuba launched a military operation to support a Moscow-sponsored Left-wing government.
After two years on secondment as Private Secretary to the Duke of Kent, Palmer was appointed Ambassador to the Holy See. It was a key job because of the enormous reach of the Pope to Catholic communities around the world and it traditionally went to a practising Protestant; Palmer’s forebears were Quakers.
The main task was to ensure that Pope John Paul II and his staff were sympathetic to British foreign policy. There were some tricky moments over Northern Ireland, and the ordination of women by the Church of England in 1994, as well as the Pope’s criticism of Western nations for failing to do more about famine in Ethiopia and hardship in Eastern Europe.
But Palmer’s warm and likeable approach, and his personal friendship with the Pope, usually won through. The Pope always greeted his wife Davina with: “And how is your dear Queen?”
Palmer had an infectious enthusiasm and sense of humour; staff loved working for him, and he was not above the occasional practical joke. Knowing that a fellow British ambassador had a full house over Easter, he telephoned and said in a suitable accent that he was the Private Secretary to Princess Margaret.
He said that HRH was planning to visit with some friends over Easter, and “would it be convenient to stay at the Residence?” The ambassador hesitated, at which point the “Private Secretary” said he would put the princess herself on the line. Palmer’s imitation of the royal voice did not fool the ambassador for long; it was April 1.
On retirement from the Diplomatic Service, Palmer took on the organisation of the 1998 Bilderberg Meeting in Ayrshire under the eye of Lord Carrington, a good friend and close neighbour in Buckinghamshire.
The confidential nature of the annual Bilderberg Meetings, which bring together more than 100 political and industrial figures from Europe and North America, arouses great curiosity in the press as to what these people are up to. Palmer dismissed one headline about the menus being confidential – “Movers and Shakers Settling Down for Kippergate Conspiracy” – as no more than an Ayrshire breakfast.
On another occasion, a photograph of “Five World Leaders” on the steps of the Turnberry Hotel had the caption “Are They Plotting to Rule the World?” The “Five World Leaders” were Lord Carrington, Leon Brittan, the hotel manager, a security guard, and Palmer.
He had a long association with Reading University and was a generous benefactor. He was a member of the Council for 12 years and was a Visiting Fellow for the Masters in International Relations; he regaled his students with anecdotes of the diplomatic life he had so much enjoyed, and his classes were always full.
Andrew Palmer, who was a member of MCC, was appointed CVO in 1981 and CMG in 1987. He married Davina Barclay, the daughter of Sir Roderick and Lady Barclay, in 1962; she survives him with their daughter and two sons.
Andrew Palmer, born September 30 1937, died November 13 2019