Peter Carrington

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.