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In personality if not in rank, just about everyone agrees, in fact, that Richard is far better suited for the chairmanship than the rather remote, moody and brittle Crosland. The son of a coal-mining engineer, Richard was born in South Wales, where he became a Labor supporter, as he puts it, "almost by the time I had learned to talk." He won a scholarship to Cheltenham, a leading private school, then went on to Oxford. He entered Parliament in 1964. When he lost his seat in 1974, Harold Wilson dispatched him to the U.N., where his quick repartee, enormous stamina and warmth of personality immediately made their mark. Says one former aide: "His method, which befits the good barrister he is, is to persuade rather than dictate." Adds a senior Foreign Office diplomat: "Had he become a member of the diplomatic service instead of a lawyer and politician, he would have risen to the top of the Foreign Office."
When at his U.N. job, Richard rises early and likes to play a little Chopin on the grand piano in his Fifth Avenue apartment, which he and his wife Alison redecorated with contemporary art. Although a prodigious worker ("At 2 a.m. he's still going strong," says one exhausted aide), he is a familiar figure at the bar in the delegates' lounge, quaffing huge amounts of beer.
A longtime advocate of decolonization in Africa and fair play for black and brown immigrants at home in Britain, Richard has been involved in African affairs as a minister in the defense department, later as opposition spokesman on Rhodesia and most recently at the U.N., where he got into a widely publicized conflict last year with his former American colleague Daniel Moynihan. Shocked by Moynihan's attacks on the Third World, Richard likened him to "Lear raging amidst the storm on the blasted heath" and "Savonarola in the role of an avenging angel preaching retribution and revenge." Says Richard amiably but unrepentantly: "I disagreed with him on how one should treat the U.N.—whether it is a serious body in which one could have a sensible dialogue with the Third World. Pat seemed to take a different view."
As for his job in Geneva, Richard frankly admits he hopes it will help him get back into the House of Commons. "If it goes well, obviously, some of the glitter is going to rub off," he says. "If it goes badly, presumably a fair amount of odium will rub off. That's just a fact of life." To the extent that his future depends on his success at the Rhodesian conference, what is good for Ivor Richard may very well be good for Britain.