Her Majesty, His Boss: Mulroney remembers his 10-year tenure with a queen of diplomacy

Palm Beach resident Brian Mulroney knew Queen Elizabeth better than most.

When he was prime minister of Canada, she was his boss.

Literally.

"I was with her for 10 years," Mulroney said by telephone from his office in Montreal. "Canada is part of the Commonwealth, so that made me one of 'her' prime ministers. I would make regular trips to London to meet with her."

His first private meeting with Her Majesty was on Sept. 22, 1984.

"I had just been sworn in,"  he said, reading from the personal journal he began keeping from his first day as prime minister.

When he showed up for the meeting, he was taken to a small room where only Prince Philip and the queen awaited.

His first impression of the queen?

"Composed and resolute," he said.

Queen Elizabeth: Palm Beachers reflect on an 'extraordinary' woman

Royalty in Palm Beach In Palm Beach, Prince Philip was a coveted guest

A Royal Recipe: Our Sir Rod serves up his sexy pipes at Queen's Jubilee concert. And there's pie!

Prince Philip asked Mulroney if he would like a cocktail. Mulroney demurred, asking instead for a soft drink.

"Thank God those in charge of the government stay away from the evil booze," Prince Philip said, laughing, as he mixed up two Beefeater martinis for himself and the queen.

The meeting was followed by a small dinner for about 20 people, where the queen told Mulroney that she held a particular fondness for Rose Kennedy, stemming from an incident earlier in her life.

A relative of the royal family had died and then-Princess Elizabeth and her younger sister, Princess Margaret, were shuffled off to a small, out-of-the-way room to wait alone while the king and queen received condolence callers.

"Rose Kennedy was the only person who asked for us," the queen remembered. "She found her way to our small room and visited with us. I've never forgotten that."

"Right then," Mulroney said, "I made a mental note to never cross the queen. She has a long memory."

In a speech he made some years ago — a portion of which was used as a tribute during this summer's Platinum Jubilee — he described Her Majesty as "a veteran, a mother, a grandmother and a sovereign who deftly navigates the world's diplomatic stage like no other."

And the woman who brought down apartheid.

Oh, yes, she did.

"When I became chairman of CHOG (Commonwealth Heads of Government) in 1987, Nelson Mandela had been languishing in a South African jail for two decades. I decided I would use the biennial meeting to make Mandela's freedom our number -one priority, and to do it by putting sanctions on South Africa."

At the meeting, held in Vancouver in October 1987, Mulroney found almost unanimous support.

Almost.

"[Rajiv] Gandhi, [Lynden] Pindling, [Robert] Mugabe, they were all with me," Mulroney remembered. "But not Margaret."

"Margaret" being British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who adamantly opposed sanctions because she believed they would only further the suffering of the non-white population in South Africa.

But Mulroney had a game changer — the finely honed diplomatic skills of a certain queen, who, at the 1985 CHOG meeting in Nassau, Bahamas, two years earlier, reminded attendees that apartheid was a system where a country of 4 million whites held 30 million non-whites hostage to servitude.

And she kept at it. In the nicest possible way, of course.

"When it came to the abolition of apartheid, Her Majesty was a constant and positive ... a sweet, gentle but persuasive diplomat."

Because of the queen's brilliant handling of recalcitrant statesmen, Mulroney got his sanctions, and on Feb.11, 1990, "Nelson Mandela walked out of prison into the sunshine of freedom," Mulroney said.

Two months later, apartheid ended.

Mandela himself would later say in a speech that "Canada was the key to unlock my freedom, and Brian Mulroney turned the key."

But Mulroney thinks otherwise, and he's happy to shift the credit.

"It would not have happened without Her Majesty."

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: A Palm Beacher remembers Queen Elizabeth, his former boss