Biography
Harris was Director of the Conservative Research Department from 1985 to 1988 and a member of the Prime Minister's Policy Unit from 1989 to 1990. He helped draft the Conservative Party manifesto for the 1987 general election.
It was initially thought that Margaret Thatcher's record in government should be recorded by Harris and John O'Sullivan in a political biography covering her premiership titled Undefeated. [1]
Thatcher hired Harris to write most of her memoir The Downing Street Years . In that memoir Thatcher wrote that Harris was "My indispensable sherpa in the enterprise of writing this book" and that "Without his advice and help at every stage, I doubt that we could have reached the summit". [2] Harris also helped Thatcher write her book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World and has written the biography Not for Turning: The Life of Margaret Thatcher.
Harris courted controversy when he wrote a pamphlet (A Tale of Two Chileans) in 1999 defending General Pinochet's coup d'état against the Marxist President of Chile Salvador Allende. In an interview with fellow journalist Andy Beckett in 2000 Harris said: "It was a polarising thing. I was on the Right, and I thought it was a bloody good thing it had happened". [3] In Harris' view, Pinochet was kidnapped and unjustly treated by the Blair government. [4]
In March 2006 he attacked Conservative leader David Cameron in an article for Prospect for what he sees as Cameron's repositioning of the party to the Left. He favourably compared Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown to Thatcher and claimed both are "immensely able, a workaholic, driven by values from a Protestant upbringing" but that in an election against Brown, Cameron "may look unprincipled and insubstantial". [5]
Andrew Roberts, in a 2007 review, characterised as a "fluent, intelligent and engaging book" Harris' biography of Talleyrand. [6]
Harris was interviewed at length by Nick Higham upon publication of his book The Conservatives - A History when part of the Conservative party appeared to be in rebellion over David Cameron's delay of a referendum on the European Union. [7]
In August 2013, he wrote in defence of the Syriac Christian community, condemning the West's leadership over the "persecution leading to elimination" of that group. [8]
On Croatia
Harris has strong views about the conflicts seen after the breakup of Yugoslavia. He became interested in Croatia in 1991 after the start of the Croatian War of Independence. [9] He believes Operation Storm was a legitimate operation to free Croatian territory. [9] Harris wrote in February 2006 an article in the American Spectator in which he vehemently attacked the ICTY Hague Tribunal and its indictment against Ante Gotovina. [4] That same year, he was interviewed by the Croatian weekly Nacional upon the release of his book Dubrovnik: A History. He spoke in part about his charge that the ICTY trial of Ante Gotovina by Carla Del Ponte was politically motivated and that if Gotovina were to be convicted, it would mean that Croatian soldiers liberated their country in an illegal action. [4]
Harris was critical of John Major's foreign policy during the Yugoslav wars, which he saw as a continuation of the Foreign Office's old policy of cooperation with the Belgrade regime. According to Harris, it was "laziness, and the biggest mistake of British politics". [4]
Harris has praised Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, the Archbishop of Zagreb during the Second World War, who he considers a victim of a communist kangaroo court. Harris claims that Stepinac fought against two forms of totalitarianism, fascism and communism. [9]
For a time around 2010, he was a member of the board of the Croatian Center for the Renewal of Culture. [9]
The territory of Chile has been populated since at least 3000 BC. By the 16th century, Spanish invaders began to raid the region of present-day Chile, and the territory was a colony from 1540 to 1818, when it gained independence from Spain. The country's economic development was successively marked by the export of first agricultural produce, then saltpeter and later copper. The wealth of raw materials led to an economic upturn, but also led to dependency, and even wars with neighboring states. Chile was governed during most of its first 150 years of independence by different forms of restricted government, where the electorate was carefully vetted and controlled by an elite.
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was a British stateswoman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to hold the position. As prime minister, she implemented economic policies known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.
Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens was a Chilean socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 1970 until his death in 1973. As a socialist committed to democracy, he has been described as the first Marxist to be elected president in a liberal democracy in Latin America.
Thatcherism is a form of British conservative ideology named after Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher that relates to not just her political platform and particular policies but also her personal character and style of management while in office. Proponents of Thatcherism are referred to as Thatcherites. The term has been used to describe the principles of the British government under Thatcher from the 1979 general election to her resignation in 1990. In international terms, Thatcherites have been described as a part of the general socio-economic movement known as neoliberalism, with different countries besides the United Kingdom sharing similar policies around expansionary capitalism.
Norman Stewart Hughson Lamont, Baron Lamont of Lerwick, is a British politician and former Conservative MP for Kingston-upon-Thames. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1990 until 1993. He was created a life peer in 1998. Lamont was a supporter of the Eurosceptic organisation Leave Means Leave.
The "Miracle of Chile" was a term used by economist Milton Friedman to describe the reorientation of the Chilean economy in the 1980s and the effects of the economic policies applied by a large group of Chilean economists who collectively came to be known as the Chicago Boys, having studied at the University of Chicago where Friedman taught. He said the "Chilean economy did very well, but more importantly, in the end the central government, the military junta, was replaced by a democratic society. So the really important thing about the Chilean business is that free markets did work their way in bringing about a free society." The junta to which Friedman refers was a military government that came to power in a 1973 coup d'état, which came to an end in 1990 after a democratic 1988 plebiscite removed Augusto Pinochet from the presidency.
The Christian Democratic Party is a Christian democratic political party in Chile. There have been three Christian Democrat presidents in the past, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, Patricio Aylwin, and Eduardo Frei Montalva.
Ante Gotovina is a Croatian retired lieutenant general and former French senior corporal who served in the Croatian War for Independence. He is noted for his primary role in the 1995 Operation Storm. In 2001, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) indicted him on war crimes and crimes against humanity charges in connection with that operation and its aftermath. After spending four years in hiding, he was captured in the Canary Islands in December 2005.
United States intervention in Chilean politics started during the War of Chilean Independence (1812–1826). The influence of United States in both the economic and the political arenas of Chile has since gradually increased over the last two centuries, and continues to be significant.
The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a military overthrow of the democratic socialist president of Chile Salvador Allende and his Popular Unity coalition government. Allende, who has been described as the first Marxist to be democratically elected president in a Latin American liberal democracy, faced significant social unrest, political tension with the opposition-controlled National Congress of Chile. On 11 September 1973, a group of military officers, led by General Augusto Pinochet, seized power in a coup, ending civilian rule.
An authoritarian military dictatorship ruled Chile for seventeen years, between 11 September 1973 and 11 March 1990. The dictatorship was established after the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup d'état backed by the United States on 11 September 1973. During this time, the country was ruled by a military junta headed by General Augusto Pinochet. The military used the breakdown of democracy and the economic crisis that took place during Allende's presidency to justify its seizure of power. The dictatorship presented its mission as a "national reconstruction". The coup was the result of multiple forces, including pressure from conservative groups, certain political parties, union strikes and other domestic unrest, as well as international factors.
Salvador Allende was the president of Chile from 1970 until his suicide in 1973, and head of the Popular Unity government; he was a Socialist and Marxist elected to the national presidency of a liberal democracy in Latin America. In August 1973 the Chilean Senate declared the Allende administration to be "unlawful," Allende's presidency was ended by a military coup before the end of his term. During Allende's three years, Chile gradually transitioned into a socialist state.
The Conservative Research Department (CRD) is part of the central organisation of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. It operates alongside other departments of Conservative Campaign Headquarters in Westminster.
David Arthur Russell Howell, Baron Howell of Guildford, is a British Conservative Party politician, journalist, and economic consultant. Having been successively Secretary of State for Energy and then for Transport under Margaret Thatcher, Howell has more recently been a Minister of State in the Foreign Office from the election in 2010 until the reshuffle of 2012. He has served as Chair of the House of Lords International Relations Committee since May 2016. Along with William Hague, Sir George Young and Kenneth Clarke, he is one of the few Cabinet ministers from the 1979–97 governments who continued to hold high office in the party, being its deputy leader in the House of Lords until 2010. His daughter, Frances, was married to the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.
On 21 September 1976, Orlando Letelier, a leading opponent of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, was assassinated by car bombing, in Washington, D.C. Letelier, who was living in exile in the United States, was killed along with his colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt, who was in the car with her husband Michael. The assassination was carried out by agents of the Chilean secret police (DINA), and was one among many carried out as part of Operation Condor. Declassified U.S. intelligence documents confirm that Pinochet directly ordered the killing.
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte was a Chilean military officer who was the dictator of Chile from 1973 to 1990. From 1973 to 1981, he was the leader of the military junta, which in 1974 declared him President of the Republic and thus the dictator of Chile; in 1980, a referendum approved a new constitution confirming him in the office, after which he served as de jure president from 1981 to 1990. His time in office remains the longest of any Chilean ruler.
Croatia–United Kingdom relations, or British-Croatian relations, are foreign relations between Croatia and the United Kingdom. After Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in June 1991, the UK established diplomatic relations with Croatia on 25 June 1992. Both countries are members of the Council of Europe and NATO. the United Kingdom gave full support to Croatia's applications for membership in the European Union and NATO.
The Trial of Gotovina et al. was a war crimes trial held from March 2008 until November 2012 before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), set up in 1993. The ICTY indicted Croatian Army (HV) generals Ante Gotovina, Ivan Čermak, and Mladen Markač for war crimes, specifically for their roles in Operation Storm, citing their participation in a joint criminal enterprise (JCE) aimed at the permanent removal of Serbs from the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) held part of Croatia.
Rajmund Kupareo was a Croatian Roman Catholic priest of the Dominican Order, poet, theological writer, composer, translator and editor. He wrote in Croatian, Czech, Latin and Spanish. He spent most productive years of his life working in Chile as a professor of aesthetics and axiology in Santiago de Chile; he served there as the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy (twice) and the vice-rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
This bibliography includes major books and articles about British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and her policies in office.
