Thatcher in Africa

But with the ink still wet on the highly confidential communiqué Fraser's advisers began leaking key aspects of the document at a midnight briefing for the Australian media at least 24 hours ahead of schedule leading to him being portrayed as the peacemaker. This infuriated Thatcher and did nothing to enhance her relationship with Fleet Street.

While Fraser and his advisers continued to chat openly with the travelling Australian media, the UK media hit a frustrating wall of silence from miffed UK government officials. To add to the tension one British journalist who attended a Thatcher media briefing in an open-neck shirt was told to go back to his hotel and put on a coat and tie.

The political spit really hit the fan during a leaders' dinner hosted by Fraser when Australian journalists' reports on the communiqué began feeding back through British newspapers. The Commonwealth leaders broke away from Fraser's barbecue and rushed into an extraordinary private session which culminated in a premature official release of the peace plan.

A furious Thatcher nevertheless commented later, "We got the communiqué we wanted ...that's all that matters." But she did not forgive or forget.

Years later, in 1990, after he had been defeated by Bob Hawke and lost his trousers in a seedy Memphis Hotel in 1986 Fraser mounted another personal campaign this time to head the Commonwealth Secretariat which among other things organises Commonwealth forums such as CHOGM. Despite support from the Hawke Government at home Fraser hit a brick wall with Thatcher and the post was filled by Nigerian, Eleazar Anyaoku, with the backing of the black African commonwealth countries ironically including Zimbabwe.