1840. Can I come back to
the Penfold minute of the 2nd? So you are asking this Committee
to believe that this document, passed by your department to the
Ministry of Defence—the Ministry of Defence, containing
the top military professionals in this country, were quite unable
to appreciate and informed your department—represented a
clear military operational plan to support the military counter
coup? I just do not find that credible.
(Sir John Kerr) I understand, broadly, what it
is saying.
1841. You do? Was it not important, then,
for your officials to minute the existence of this document, even
perhaps saying they did not fully understand it?
(Sir John Kerr) They did that, of course. They
minuted to Grant and Dales saying, "This was given to me
by Penfold. It came from Spicer". They asked the Cabinet
Office, "Grateful for comments on this. It was given to Peter
Penfold by Sandline. This is a question for DIS and the Ministry
of Defence as well. How seriously should we take this proposal?"
It includes language (which, of course, I understand) about how
the Sandline training and advisory team would deploy at the direction
of President Kabbah in support of CDF Ops to return the democratically
elected government of Sierra Leone. The document is available
to you, Sir John. What nobody could work out was precisely what
its significance was. Now, I agree with the point you made first—though
not about this document, as I said. Mr Penfold, whatever he may
have said before or not said before to the department, made clear
in his minute of 2 February that there was a contract for the
supply of arms. That is the document which should have caused
alarm bells really to ring. That is the document which should
have been submitted.
1842. That is the document to which I would
now like to come, Sir John. I have to say, listening to your response
to Mr Rowlands on that particular point, I thought again your
language was monumentally euphemistic when you described the department's
handling of Mr Penfold's minute of the 2nd as being I think you
said "unsatisfactory"; perhaps "unfortunate"
as well, equally monumentally euphemistic. Is it not the case,
Sir John, that there is, in fact, not one single minute within
your department until way into the Customs & Excise investigation,
which clearly triggered off a trawl through all the available
documentation, between officials highlighting, drawing attention
to, or even referring to Mr Penfold's minute of February 2, that
minute providing clear, unambiguous evidence of arms supply being
engaged in by Sandline?
(Sir John Kerr) I have found no minute outside
the command, that is correct. I have found no evidence that the
alarm bells were rung, leading to a proper warning to senior officials
or ministers. I think that is very unfortunate. I have read the
Committee's discussion with Ann Grant on the point. I believe,
by the way, that Ann Grant is a very good civil servant. Ann Grant
is an extremely hard working, impressive Director of the Africa
Command but, in this case, because of the search for the missing
30 December letter; because of the search to find out what he
was talking about before papers were put up; because that search
seems to have died away inconclusively without going back to her
and without her going up to ministers, it is not a pretty story.
I agree with that.
1843. On the issue of passing information
further up the line, about which Mr Penfold was criticised, can
I turn further to your own personal performance in that area?
Mr Rowlands has already referred to the minute you received, Mr
Murray's minute of March 30, which was copied on to you and to
which you replied "Thank you. Please tell Mr Murray that
on the basis of these papers he has nothing to worry about".
Do you not consider, though you have given some further background
already, that that minute alerting you about Sandline, referring
to the Customs & Excise raid on Sandline's offices with a
prima facie breach of an arms embargo, one of the most sensitive
issues that could ever be before this Government and this Foreign
Secretary, should have sent every alarm bell tingling within you?
(Sir John Kerr) I wish it had been a longer minute.
As I said, it was a rather misleading minute. I was misled. Perhaps,
even given the wording of the minute, I should have reacted more
than I did. My first concern was for Mr Murray who, on the face
of that minute, has been given rather a nasty shock in that he
has been telephoned by Customs who are saying that a company they
are investigating—investigating at Foreign Office request—are
alleging connivance by the Foreign Office in their offence. Perhaps
I attached too much weight to the sentence that says "We
are not aware of any arms shipments". I agree with the point
that Mr Rowlands made. So yes, Sir John, I think I should probably
have done more that day than I did. It was two days later that
Dales' report appeared, and I did consult the Chief Clerk and
the Legal Adviser and work out what it was that we should do.
1844. Can I just come on to that second
minute? That second minute, Sir John, contained another very significant
and, as far as you were concerned, critically important piece
of information which should have sent the alarm bells ringing
even louder because that minute disclosed that the raid on Sandline's
offices by Customs & Excise had been followed by a Customs
& Excise raid on the files of your own department in which
Customs & Excise had arrived without giving prior notice that
they were going to take away documents and had raided your department's
files. Now, that was a massive development. Will you tell the
Committee what you wrote at the top of the Dales' minute of April
3 in response to this volcanic information?
(Sir John Kerr) I wrote nothing at the top. At
the bottom I wrote "Thank you". If you study the Legg
report—
1845. Can I just—
(Sir John Kerr) Could I continue my reply? In
paragraph 6.66, the Legg Report says "On 3 April Sir John
discussed Mr Dales' report with Sir Franklin Berman and Mr Rob
Young, the Chief Clerk and Deputy Under-Secretary, whose responsibilities
include personnel. He also discussed with Dame Valerie Strachan
the Chairman of the Board of Customs & Excise, the limits
on his own management action if he was to avoid compromising the
Customs investigation. Following those discussions, Sir John decided
that normal policy work on Sierra Leone should be separated from
investigation of the allegations, that no one should speak to
the media, that someone on the personnel side should keep an eye
on AD(E) staff, and that he personally should recuse himself from
involvement in the investigations, because of the possible implications
for his role as disciplinary authority...". I hope you were
not intending to suggest to the Committee, Sir John, that I did
nothing when I received Dales' minute of 3 April.
1846. I find it very surprising that your
response to that minute in writing was simply "Thank you",
as you have acknowledged, and that you took no action at this
point or, indeed, for a considerable time thereafter to inform
ministers. I would like to ask you, Sir John, to remind the Committee
how the Secretary to the Cabinet played the same situation. Can
you tell us, when the Secretary to the Cabinet, Sir Richard Wilson,
was first informed by his officials of the Sandline affair?
(Sir John Kerr) I have read the documents. I have
seen the minute—as you have, Sir John. I cannot remember
his exact words. He says "This could turn out to be very
serious". Could I go back—
1847. Could you go back to that comment
of the Secretary of the Cabinet?
(Sir John Kerr) It is on the documents that you
have. I had not seen it until I saw the documents you have.
1848. For the record, Sir John, can you
repeat it?
(Sir John Kerr) Perhaps Sir John could. I do not
have the reference in front of me.
Sir John Stanley
1849. Was it not the case that the Secretary
to the Cabinet was formally minuted by Mr Michael Pakenham on
April 17 and, in responding to that minute, he formally minuted
that he asked to be kept up to date with developments and he added
"This could be very serious"?
(Sir John Kerr) I am sure you are right, Sir John.
I am sure that that is what the document says. Indeed, I think
I remember seeing it in the documents that were sent to the Committee,
if not before. That is, of course, two and a half weeks later.
I am not sure when I myself first spoke to Richard Wilson. I had
a number of conversations with Valerie Strachan; I remember us
working out which of us would go with a formal report to the Prime
Minister and we concluded she should do it because it was her
investigation that was in hand. She went to Richard Wilson—you
will find all that in the documents. On the first point you were
making, Sir John, I was, of course, aware that the Murray minute
of 30 March was copied to Mr Lloyd's' office, just as the Dales
minute of 3 April was copied to Mr Lloyd's office. So if you are
saying that bringing Mr Lloyd into the picture should have been
my instant responsibility, I think that is a responsibility that
had already been discharged by Mr Murray and Mr Dales though,
as the Legg report shows, Mr Lloyd's travel meant he did not see
these papers until later in April.
1850. You would agree, Sir John, that it
was inside a fortnight that the Secretary to the Cabinet, Sir
Richard Wilson, decided this was a matter that was so serious
that he decided to minute the Prime Minister, and he minuted the
Prime Minister, did he not, on April 30?
(Sir John Kerr) Yes. That was at the suggestion
of Dame Valerie Strachan, Chairman of the board of Customs &
Excise and Sir John Kerr, Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office.
1851. Could you tell the Committee who were
the two people to whom Sir Richard Wilson copied his minute to
the Prime Minister?
(Sir John Kerr) I do not have the document in
front of me. Perhaps you could tell us, Sir John.
1852. They were, were they not, Mr Mandelson
and Mr Alastair Campbell. Does not the fact that those two officials
were copied bring out with the utmost clarity that what had now
arisen was a very major policy and presentational issue affecting
the Government as a whole?
(Sir John Kerr) Did you say 30 April, because
the Berwin letter, circulated to half the Cabinet, had arrived
six days before. Mr Mandelson was certainly in the picture—I
had taken steps to make sure he was, I think as soon as the Berwin
letter arrived. I am not quite sure of the point you are trying
to make, Sir John. Are you trying to say that between 30 March
and 30 April I was not doing anything?
1853. Sir John, perhaps if you could just
answer the questions, could you tell us, as far as the Foreign
Secretary is concerned, who was the first person who provided
your Foreign Secretary with documentation evidencing Sandline's
involvement with a Customs & Excise investigation about the
breach of an arms embargo?
(Sir John Kerr) I think his private secretary,
Mr Grant.
1854. That is not actually the case, is
it? The first information that the Foreign Secretary received
by way of documentation came not from any official in your department,
let alone from yourself. The first documentation, extraordinarily
enough, came from the solicitors of the arms embargo breaking
company. Was that not an extraordinary failure on the part of
officials and, ultimately, failure by yourself that you had allowed
a situation to arise in which the Foreign Secretary is informed,
for the first time, in documentation by the solicitors of Sandline
before a single piece of paper reaches him from any official?
(Sir John Kerr) I think it must have been a very
close thing between that and Mr Dales' minute of—I am sorry.
I can't remember, I think also 24th. I do not have the reference
in my head, but it is true that the Berwin letter arrived at almost
exactly the same moment as we had just about got to the bottom
of our investigations. The papers are from about 87 through to
about 117 in the papers the Committee has. I do agree with the
point you are making: I do think that it would have been better
if I had alerted the Foreign Secretary to the investigations that
we were trying to carry out and the investigations that the Customs
& Excise were carrying out. The Foreign Secretary was in the
Foreign Office on 1 and 2 April and 7 and 8 April and 20-24 April
but he was also, of course, in Brussels; running an Asian Heads
of Government meeting in London; in Flanders; in Brussels again—
Chairman
1855. But in contact with the Foreign Office?
(Sir John Kerr) Absolutely, and I saw him at least
three times and, in retrospect, I should certainly have mentioned
that this investigation was proceeding. I was not in a position
to give him any very firm information while I was not sure that
there was not something in the allegation of connivance. I did
have to look into that carefully. I had to avoid any perception
that our investigations might have involved destruction of evidence.
It was important, I thought, to have somebody else brought in.
I realise, in retrospect, that the effect of that on the morale
of the department was not good. It is very hard to know how you
deal with that problem when there is an accusation; perhaps I
did not get that a thousand per cent right either. Certainly it
is a great pity, in retrospect, that I did not tell the Foreign
Secretary during the course of April about these investigations.
Sir John Stanley
1856. You say "a great pity".
We are talking about the Foreign Secretary hearing for the first
time from Sandline's solicitors. Can you not accept that this
was a very serious failure of communication between officials
and the Foreign Secretary of this country, a failure for which
you had the first and primary responsibility?
(Sir John Kerr) If that is your view, Sir John,
that is your view.
1857. I am not interested in my view—I
am interested in yours. Was this not a very serious failure of
communication between officials and the Foreign Secretary for
which primary responsibility lies with you?
(Sir John Kerr) I am responsible for anything
that goes wrong in the Foreign Office, I agree with that, and
I agree it was a failure that the Foreign Secretary was not informed.
I do have to carry some of the blame for that; I agree with that.
Mr Rowlands
1858. You say that, because the Foreign
Secretary is either travelling or at meetings, there is no means
of communicating with him. That is what red boxes are about. Why
did none of this information go into his box?
(Sir John Kerr) Actually what I said, Mr Rowlands,
was I had at least three meetings with him and I could have spoken
to him on the subject and I should have done in that period between
30 March—
1859. Or he could have been briefed through the normal
processes of sending up to his private office an account of some
kind of what had happened over the last few weeks, including raids
on the department and the rest of it, and just drawn it to his
attention?
(Sir John Kerr) That was done with Mr Lloyd but
not with the Foreign Secretary, I agree.
