Editing Alec Douglas-Home (section)

==Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary (1970–1974)==
[[File:John Gorton and Alec Douglas-Home.jpg|thumb|left|Douglas-Home with the Australian Prime Minister [[John Gorton]] in 1970.]]
Heath invited Douglas-Home to join the cabinet, taking charge of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. In earlier centuries it had not been exceptional for a former prime minister to serve in the cabinet of a successor, and even in the previous fifty years [[Arthur Balfour]], Stanley Baldwin, [[Ramsay MacDonald]] and Neville Chamberlain had done so. Until 2023, Douglas-Home would be the most recent former prime minister to be appointed to a ministerial post.{{Efn|Prime ministers who served under one or more of their successors included: [[the Duke of Grafton]] under [[Frederick North, Lord North|North]],{{Sfnp|ps=none|Pike|1968|p=103}} [[the Duke of Portland]] under [[William Pitt the Younger|Pitt]],{{Sfnp|ps=none|Pike|1968|p=127}} [[Henry Addington|Addington]] under [[William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville|Grenville]],{{Sfnp|ps=none|Pike|1968|p=151}} [[F. J. Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich|Goderich]] under [[Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey|Grey]],{{Sfnp|ps=none|Pike|1968|p=177}} [[Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington|Wellington]] under [[Robert Peel|Peel]],{{Sfnp|ps=none|Pike|1968|p=184}} Balfour under [[Asquith]], [[Lloyd George]] and Baldwin,{{Sfnp|ps=none|Pike|1968|pp=328–329}} Baldwin under MacDonald and MacDonald under Baldwin, and Chamberlain under Churchill.{{Sfnp|ps=none|Pike|1968|p=390}}}}  Of Balfour's appointment to [[Asquith]]'s cabinet in 1916, [[Lord Rosebery]], who had been prime minister in 1894–95, said that having an ex-premier in the cabinet was "a fleeting and dangerous luxury".{{Sfnp|ps=none|Thorpe|1997|p=404}} Thorpe writes that Heath's appointment of Douglas-Home "was not a luxury but an essential buttress to his administration".{{Sfnp|ps=none|Thorpe|1997|p=404}}

The Wilson government had merged the Colonial Office and the Commonwealth Relations Office in 1966 into the [[Commonwealth Office]],<ref>{{Cite news |title=An Honourable Record |date=30 July 1966 |newspaper=The Times |page=9}}</ref> which, two years later, was merged with the Foreign Office, to form the [[Foreign and Commonwealth Office]] (FCO).<ref>{{Cite news |last=Wood |first=David |date=17 October 1968 |title=Ministers in merger dilemma |work=The Times |page=1}}</ref> Heath appointed Douglas-Home to head the department, with, once again, a second cabinet minister, this time [[Anthony Barber]], principally responsible, as Heath had been in the 1960s, for negotiations on Britain's joining the EEC. This time, both ministers were in the Commons; Barber's cabinet post was officially [[Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Wood |first=David |date=22 June 1970 |title=The new Cabinet |work=The Times |page=10}}</ref>

Within weeks of the election Barber was moved from the FCO to the Treasury to take over as chancellor from Iain Macleod, who died suddenly on 20 July. Though they had never enjoyed an easy relationship, Douglas-Home recognised his colleague's stature, and felt his loss politically as well as personally.{{Sfnp|ps=none|Thorpe|1997|p=405}} Some commentators have maintained that Macleod's death and replacement by the less substantial figure of Barber fatally undermined the economic success of the Heath government.<ref>{{Harvp|Maitland|1996|p=178}}; {{Cite magazine |title=Without Roy Jenkins |magazine=The Economist |date=18 September 1976 |page=14}}; and {{Cite news |title=Macleod in power |date=15 December 1990 |newspaper=The Economist |page=36}}</ref>

Barber was replaced at the FCO by [[Geoffrey Rippon]], who handled the day-to-day negotiations, under the direction of Heath. Douglas-Home, as before, concentrated on east–west and Commonwealth matters. He was in agreement with Heath's policy on the EEC, and did much to persuade doubters on the right wing of the Conservative party of the desirability of Britain's entry. Hurd writes:
{{Blockquote|By temperament and background he was some distance removed from Heath's passionate commitment to a united Europe. All the more important was his steadfast support for British entry, which he based on a clear assessment of Britain's place in the modern world, and in particular her relationship with France and Germany on the one hand and the United States on the other&nbsp;... thus providing the right of the Conservative Party with much needed assurance.<ref name=dnb/>}}

[[File:Andrei Gromyko 1972 (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright|right|alt=middle aged man, clean shaven with full head of dark hair|[[Andrei Gromyko]], Douglas-Home's Soviet counterpart]]
In east–west relations, Douglas-Home continued his policy of keeping the Soviet Union at bay. In September 1971, after receiving no satisfactory results from negotiations with Gromyko about the flagrant activities of the [[KGB]] in Britain, he expelled 105 Soviet diplomats for spying.<ref name=thaw/> In addition to the furore arising from this,<ref name="leapman">{{Cite news |last=Leapman |first=Michael |date=28 September 1971 |title=Gromyko threat of reprisals on diplomats fails to sway Sir Alec |work=The Times |page=1}}</ref> the Soviets felt that the British government's approach to negotiations on détente in Europe was over-cautious, even sceptical.<ref name=thaw/> Gromyko was nonetheless realistic enough to maintain a working relationship with the British government.<ref name=leapman/> Within days of the expulsions from London he and Douglas-Home met and discussed the Middle East and disarmament.<ref name=leapman/> In this sphere of foreign policy, Douglas-Home was widely judged a success.<ref name="thaw">{{Cite news |date=4 December 1973 |title=Thaw in Anglo-Soviet Relations |work=The Times |page=17}}</ref>

In negotiations on the future of Rhodesia Douglas-Home was less successful. He was instrumental in persuading the rebel leader, [[Ian Smith]], to accept proposals for a transition to African majority rule.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Wood |first=David |date=26 November 1971 |title=Commons triumph for Sir Alec but Labour promise Rhodesia battle |work=The Times |page=1}}</ref> Douglas-Home set up an independent commission chaired by a senior British judge, [[Lord Pearce]], to investigate how acceptable the proposals were to majority opinion in Rhodesia. After extensive fieldwork throughout Rhodesia, the commission reported, "We are satisfied on our evidence that the proposals are acceptable to the great majority of Europeans. We are equally satisfied&nbsp;... that the majority of Africans rejected the proposals. In our opinion the people of Rhodesia as a whole do not regard the proposals as acceptable as a basis for independence."<ref>{{Cite news |date=24 May 1972 |title=Decision genuine expression of African opinion |work=The Times |page=8}}</ref> To Douglas-Home's disappointment there was no resolution, and Rhodesia remained a rebel regime long after he left office.{{Sfnp|ps=none|Thorpe|1997|p=428}}