Preface Patrick Salmon Chief Historian, Foreign & Commonwealth Office The Lancaster House Agreement was signed on 21 December 1979. Marking the culmination of nearly three months of intensive negotiations, the Agreement brought an end to the illegal white-dominated regime that had ruled Rhodesia since the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965, most recently in the guise of the unrecognised state of Zimbabwe Rhodesia, created by the Internal Settlement between the government of Ian Smith and the moderate black nationalist leader Bishop Abel Muzorewa. By bringing the Patriotic Front, headed by rival leaders Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, into direct negotiations with Smith and Muzorewa, the Lancaster House conference also led to the end of a bitter civil war, marked by increasing brutality on all sides, as well as paving the way for the disarmament of the rival factions and the first free elections in February 1980, under the direct supervision of a British governor-general, Christopher Soames. Few at the time anticipated the sweeping nature of Mugabe’s election victory or the ruthlessness with which he would exercise his power over Zimbabwe in the ensuing decades. Lancaster House represented an early diplomatic success for the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher that had come to power in May 1979. It remains one of the most notable achievements of British diplomacy in the modern era: a tribute to the effectiveness of Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington and his team, as well as Mrs Thatcher’s pragmatic willingness to suppress her initial preference for the Internal Settlement in favour of a bold strategy which involved considerable risk, but promised a definitive resolution of the Rhodesian question. In July 2005 a witness seminar was held at the National Archives, Kew, under the auspices of the Centre for Contemporary British History (CCBH) and the London School of Economics (LSE). Organised by Dr Sue Onslow (then of LSE) and Dr Michael Kandiah (then of the CCBH), it brought together leading participants in the Lancaster House conference. Since several important participants were unable to attend the witness seminar, Dr Onslow and Dr Kandiah conducted a series of interviews with them in the course of 20056. Both the witness seminar and the interviews represent a major historical resource for understanding both Lancaster House and the complex, frustrating negotiations that preceded it. Until now, however, only the former document had been publicly available. FCO Historians are therefore delighted to mark the 40th anniversary of the Lancaster House conference by republishing the transcript of the witness seminar, and publishing for the first time the transcripts of the subsequent interviews. We are grateful to Dr Onslow and Dr Kandiah for permission to publish them, as well as for undertaking further editorial work to bring them up to date.
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