U.K. MP best known for resigning over Falklands
Lord Carrington died Monday at age 99.
Lord Carrington, a versatile British politician who held senior posts under Conservative prime ministers from Winston Churchill to Margaret Thatcher and who was secretary-general of NATO in the last years of the Cold War, died Monday. He was 99.
His death was confirmed by Prime Minister Theresa May. She did not say where he died.
The best-remembered act of Lord Carrington’s long political career was a resignation. His decision in 1982 to step down as foreign secretary because he had failed to anticipate what he described as the “humiliating affront” of Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands, is frequently cited as a rare example of an honourable ministerial departure.
Lord Carrington, the sixth baron of Carrington, was the longest-serving member of the House of Lords and a descendant of textile merchants, bankers and members of Parliament dating to the 18th century. He attended Eton and Sandhurst, was a decorated officer in the Second World War and could have spent the rest of his days in baronial splendour on his family’s Buckinghamshire estate.
Instead, he plunged into postwar politics, diplomacy and public service. In a career that spanned nearly five decades, Lord Carrington was parliamentary secretary of agriculture, first lord of the admiralty and, in a succession of cabinet posts, secretary of defence, energy and foreign affairs. He was the ambassador to Australia, represented Britain in formative talks for what became the European Union and helped negotiate the in- dependence of Zimbabwe. He also led unsuccessful peace talks among the warring states of Yugoslavia.
In politics, he was chairof the Conservative Party for two years and served in the governments of Harold Macmillan, Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Edward Heath, as well as those of Churchill and Thatcher. He was sometimes mentioned as a possible prime minister.
As secretary-general of NATO from1984 to1988, he presided over the16-nation Atlantic alliance at a time of rising tensions in the final years of the Cold War.
With the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact alliance decaying but still strong, he envisioned a need for new arms-control agreements and renewed commitments by Western Europe and the United States to the common defence.
David Lidington, the Conservative politician for the area including Lord Carrington’s family home, described him on Twitter as the last surviving member of the postwar Churchill government, with a career “given to public service.”
Peter Alexander Rupert Carington was born on his family’s estate near Aylesbury, England, on June 6, 1919. The hereditary title had two “Rs.”