Peter Carrington(1919-2018)
Lord Peter Carrington was born in 1919. He was educated at Eton and
Sandhurst and was inducted into the House of Lords in 1940 as a
hereditary peer. He served in World War II. After the war, he got
active in politics, serving as a junior minister in the Ministry of
Agriculture, then the Ministry of Defense in the government of Winston
Churchill. He was High Commissioner to Australia from 1954 to 1959.
Upon his return to Britain, he was named First Lord of the Admiralty by
Prime Minister Harold MacMillan. In 1963, he was appointed Leader of
the House of Lords, a position he held until the Conservative Party
lost the election of 1964. Six years later, when the Conservatives won
the 1970 election, Lord Carrington was appointed Minister of Defence.
He was also briefly Party Chairman. He was moved to the Ministry of
Energy in 1973 and held that position until the Tories lost the 1974
General Election. When Margaret Thatcher led the Conservative Party
back to power in 1979, Lord Carrington was appointed Foreign Secretary.
As Foreign Secretary, he guided Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to legal
independence and chaired the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference
in which all the factions in Rhodesia agreed to a new constitution and
free elections. Zimbabwe gained its independence in April 1980. Two
years later, when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, Lord
Carrington blamed himself for the breakdown in diplomatic negotiations
and failing to predict the Argentine invasion. He resigned as Foreign
Secretary in April 1982. To make up for his resignation, Margaret
Thatcher secured the position of Secretary General of NATO for him; he
served in that capacity from 1984 to 1988. He continues to be a member
of the House of Lords.
