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Alan Kenneth Mackenzie Clark was born in 1928, the eldest child of the art historian Kenneth Clark, author of the bestselling Civilisation. Alan went to Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he made a name for himself as a Jaguar-driving pleasure-seeker. 'Girls have to be succulent, and that means under 25,' Clark later confided to his diary. This preference was never more apparent than when he met his future wife, who would stand by him through four decades of 'girls'. Caroline Beuttler was 13 when Clark first met her. They married in 1958; he was 30, she was 16. At Clark's insistence, she used her middle name of Jane – which was also his mother's name. Historian Overshadowed by his father, Alan Clark determined to make a name for himself as a military historian. His first book, The Donkeys (1961) – a meticulous critique of the British conduct of the early years of the First World War – was his most controversial, helping to shape the public perception of the First World War, from Oh! What a Lovely War to Blackadder Goes Forth. His other books, The Fall of Crete (1963) and Barbarossa (1965), examined the Nazi war machine. Politician In 1969, as Clark senior basked in the spotlight of the BBC television version of Civilisation, and a life peerage, Alan turned to politics. Self-assured and extremely rich, he became a Conservative candidate, and, at a by-election in 1972, was elected MP for Plymouth (Sutton). With this success, he was free to reinvent himself as a 'toff' whose aristocratic charm and self-assurance allowed him to say – or do – what he liked. Despite living in a stately home, Clark's nobility was skin-deep: the family had made its money in the 19th century, and Sir Kenneth had bought the Norman castle of Saltwood in 1955. On the other hand, Alan's political extremism – often dismissed as a pose – was genuine. Even in his teens, says his brother Colin, 'Alan had never hidden his admiration for Adolf Hitler'. When he wrote an introduction to a new edition of Barbarossa, Clark's only regret was that his portrayal of Nazism had been too negative. Pressed to condemn the National Front in the 1970s, Clark accused his critics of ignoring anti-white racism, and, in his diary, he mused, 'How brave is the minority, in a once great country, who still keep alive the tribal essence.' But he found John Tyndall, leader of the British National Party, 'a bit of a blockhead'. Of one meeting with Margaret Thatcher he wrote, 'I got a full dose of personality compulsion, something of the Fuehrer Kontakt'; elsewhere he likened the Brighton bomb and Michael Heseltine's leadership challenge to plots against Hitler. 'The Lady' herself may not have shared this valuation, but she certainly saw Clark as a loyal courtier. Clark was appointed junior minister in the Department of Employment in 1983, promoted to Minister of Trade in 1986, then appointed Minister for Defence Procurement in 1989. Hopes of promotion to Minister of Defence were dashed when John Major replaced Thatcher in 1990. Clark stood down at the 1992 election, and was replaced as Minister for Defence Procurement by his friend Jonathan Aitken. Arms trader It was at the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) that Clark made his lasting impact, with a few words to a delegation from the Machine Tools Trade Association (MTTA). Although government guidelines prohibited the export of arms-related equipment to either side in the Iran-Iraq war, by 1988 several manufacturers were taking orders for machine tools from Iraq. One firm, Matrix Churchill, had been bought out by an Iraqi-controlled holding company. Clark advised the MTTA that manufacturers could breach the spirit of the guidelines without fear of repercussions. After the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Clark's move to the Defence Procurement post meant that he still had a role in approving the trade with Iraq, and Foreign Office concerns about assisting Iraq in developing nuclear and chemical weapons were dismissed. He said later, 'I am not particularly bothered about who we are trading with, providing we get paid.' In 1990, shortly before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the deception began to unravel. In December, a story in The Sunday Times alleged that Clark had given the MTTA 'a nod and a wink'. The following year, criminal charges were brought against three executives at Matrix Churchill, accused of deceiving the DTI. The trial collapsed in 1992, when Clark was asked about the 1988 meeting. On oath, he said there was 'nothing misleading or dishonest' about his advice to the MTTA, but admitted changing his story – which was enough to exonerate the Matrix Churchill executives. An unrepentant Clark retired from politics, editing his Diaries (which pass over the arms for Iraq affair in silence), and writing what he hoped would be his 'great work', The Tories. Encouraged by the success of the Diaries, he returned to the House of Commons in 1997, as MP for Kensington and Chelsea, but soon fell ill. He died in September 1999, aged 71, and was buried at Saltwood. |
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