I believe [ Rajiv Gandhi] had a real sense that he would be assassinated.

[ Rajiv Gandhi] was very reflective and rueful and regretful about the fact that his children's education...He wanted them to get educated outside of India, but he said to me the only place that he found where they would be safe was in Russia, and he didn't really want them to be educated there! So, I said, "Well, send them to Australia. I'll look after them." And my security bloke went absolutely bloody bananas, and I said, "We'll look after them." But, in the end, he didn't send them.

I told [ David Lange] he was crazy, because you can't have an alliance relationship if you refuse access to their ships. And the Americans wanted to punish him very severely and I intervened there and softened them somewhat. They wanted to really take some tough, reactive measures to New Zealand.

One of the features of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings was [that] she [ Elizabeth II] would have a meeting with each of them. You'd have an allotted time.

I said to my people, "We're knocking apartheid off but we've got to be prepared to assist them." And I sent senior people over there to assist the incoming South African regime to go about the economic plan.

I don't know who described Mahathir [bin Mohamad] as a pillar of the Commonwealth, but they don't know what they're talking about.

George Bush Junior [George W Bush] was a religious fanatic, and Tony Blair wasn't far behind in a way.