Guadeloupe Conference

Helmut Schmidt,Jimmy Carter,Valéry Giscard d'Estaing,andJames CallaghaninGuadeloupe island

TheGuadeloupe Conferencewas a meeting inGuadeloupefrom 4 to 7 January 1979 involving leaders of fourWestern powers:theUnited States,theUnited Kingdom,FranceandWest Germany.Discussions focused on various world issues, especially theMiddle Eastand theIranian political crisis.

Meeting

A month before theIranian Revolutionsucceeded in the overthrow of the monarchy, the President of France,Valéry Giscard d'Estaing,hosted the meeting in the French territory of Guadeloupe. Also in attendance were US PresidentJimmy Carter,Chancellor of West GermanyHelmut Schmidt,and British Prime MinisterJames Callaghan.

Discussion

The meeting's discussions focused onIran's political crisis,thesituation in Cambodia,violence inSouth Africa,the increasing influence of theSoviet Unionin thePersian Gulf,thecoup in Afghanistan,and thesituation in Turkey.One of the main issues discussed was the political crisis in Iran which had led to an uprising against thePahlavi dynasty.The assembled leaders concluded that there was no way to saveMohammad Reza Pahlavi's position as theShah of Iran;and that if he remained as leader, this could further aggravate the civil war and might result in Soviet intervention.

Impact

The leaders at the Guadeloupe Conference suggested that Shah leave Iran as early as possible.Following the meeting, domestic protests and opposition to the Pahlavi dynasty increased. After the conference ended, the Shah's regime collapsed and he left Iran for exile on 16 January 1979 as the last monarch of the Pahlavi dynasty.

Downfall of Callaghan government

The summit also led, indirectly, to Callaghan'selection losstoMargaret Thatcheralmost four months later. His participation in the summit had been preceded by a few days' holiday during which he was photographed swimming joyfully and wearing swimming trunks on the beach. During that same week Britain had been struggling with the economic impact of a severe winter storm and a lorry drivers' strike, the second of many industrial disputes which led to that season being remembered as theWinter of Discontent.

Upon Callaghan's return on 10 January, a political advisor,Tom McNally,convinced him to hold a briefnews conferencewith waiting reporters after he deplaned atHeathrow Airport,against the advice of the prime minister's press secretary. McNally believed that Callaghan could reassure the public that he was in control by doing so. The impromptu news conference instead hurt Callaghan politically.

Callaghan at first focused on his own trip, jauntily pointing out how pleasant it had been to swim in the tropical waters off Guadeloupe. He suggested that Britain's domestic situation only looked as bad as it did because the media had exaggerated it, and cast aspersions on reporters' patriotism. Asked directly what he would do about "mounting chaos" in the UK, he responded: "[I]f you look at it from outside, and perhaps you're taking rather a parochial view at the moment, I don't think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos."

The Sun,a newspaper which had recently switched its political allegiance from Callaghan'sLabourto the oppositionConservatives,paraphrased this in a headline as "Crisis? What Crisis?". The Conservatives made much use of the phrase during the upcoming election, and in subsequent campaigns.