Geoffrey Tucker

Edward Heath's publicity mastermind

Geoffrey Tucker, advertising executive, political publicist and public relations consultant: born Bristol 27 January 1925; CBE 1970; married 1952 Margaret Hooper (one son, two daughters; marriage dissolved 1977), 1983 Naomi Simms; died London 13 January 2003.

Geoffrey Tucker was the most remarkable "linkage man" I ever met. His skill in bringing people together regardless of their political, cultural, philosophical or even emotional conflicts was frequently the work of pure genius as well as guile and street wisdom.

It was a professional skill that went well beyond the conventional measure of the public relations figure, however grand, or the business consultant par excellence. Tucker was much more the gifted impresario. He had that extra dimension and ability which, in other circumstances, would certainly have made him an outstanding diplomat – a Metternich of the business round table. To watch him perform in that métier was close to witnessing an outstanding conductor leading his orchestra through a particularly difficult piece of Gustav Mahler or Arthur Honegger. It was a special combination of craftsmanship, experience and, inevitably, exquisite stealth.

Tucker was, of course, a politician to his fingertips. Among his many roles he was a long-standing luminary of the Conservative Party and frequently the trusted repository of the inner secrets of Tory cabinet ministers. When Edward Heath became Prime Minister after the general election of 1970 Tucker should have become his Press Secretary inside Downing Street, if for no other reason than his crucial role in helping Heath into No 10.

It didn't happen because the punctilious Heath believed it improper simply to swing his Tory Central Office publicity guru into Downing Street. Instead Heath, once in No 10, opted for a civil servant. He was opposed, as a matter of principle, to bringing in cronies from Central Office and took only two, Michael Woolf and Douglas Hurd.

Geoffrey Tucker was Director of Publicity at Central Office from 1968 until 1970 and close to Heath throughout. In 1968, along with Sir Michael Fraser, the mandarin and éminence grise of the Tory machine, Tucker was instrumental in putting together the "Thursday Team" of political publicity experts with a wide range of media, advertising and even theatre experience. Their commission was to work on "Project Ted" – turning the stiff Edward Heath into a voter-friendly Ted and making him electable: no easy task.

The odds were heavily against a Tory victory in 1970. Almost all the pollsters, and political journalists, believed Harold Wilson would win a third term. Many inside Central Office held the same view. But not Tucker nor Fraser. Together they established a secret group of pressure points inside the media and, in particular, recruited the services of a mole inside the Labour Party headquarters, then at Transport House. To this day the mole has never been identified – though I know he is still alive. Information passed to Tucker by the mole was later judged to have been vital in influencing the final days of Tory election strategy – and Heath's victory. Only Willie Whitelaw then knew of Tucker's secret weapon; Heath never knew.

Not that it did Tucker any favours. The thank-you letter he received from the Prime Minister after the election was formal, brief and simply signed "Yours sincerely Edward Heath". As Tucker wrote years later when reviewing Heath's memoirs in British Journalism Review: "Ted had reverted to his bad old ways." Yet it did not destroy their friendship, which continued to the end.

Indeed Heath appointed Tucker to mastermind the pro-European publicity campaign in 1970-71 which went on to achieve parliamentary consent for Britain's joining the EEC. Tucker also became a member of the key Conservative Party/government liaison committee on Europe (chaired by Willie Whitelaw), and in 1970 was appointed CBE for his political services.

Before becoming full-time publicity guru for the Tories Tucker was a highly successful advertising-agency figure, moving to Young and Rubicam in 1949 after National Service in the RAF and graduating from Jesus College, Cambridge, in English Literature and Psychology. At Cambridge, curiously, the former Bristol Grammar School boy had a brief flirtation with Communism.

In 1957 he was put in charge of Y&R's Conservative Party advertising account. But in the early Sixties he moved around various agencies including Colman, Prentis and Varley before returning to Young and Rubicam, where he rose to take charge of their Rome and Milan operations before finally settling into the job as Director of Publicity for the Conservatives in 1968.

It was in 1972, armed with his successes as Heath's publicity mastermind and the European triumph, that Geoffrey Tucker set up his own consultancy company, Geoffrey Tucker Ltd. His role was to bring together – as the "linkage man" – major British, American and European companies with ministerial contacts around luncheon, dinner and even breakfast tables.

Governments as well as international companies sought Tucker's advice and guidance. After Margaret Thatcher's 1979 election victory Tucker formed what he described as "The International Triangle" – a group that brought together cabinet ministers, senior civil servants, industrialists, bankers and London ambassadors of the United States, Japan, Germany, France etc to discuss trade and economic relations with Britain. It was also concerned with ethical questions in international trade – reflecting Tucker's own deep involvement with the Church of England and personal friendship with a range of senior clergy.

During the Wilson-Callaghan years, Tucker concentrated on his European interests, first as adviser to Sir Christopher Soames, Vice-President of the EEC, and then in 1975 as principal Conservative representative on the "Britain in Europe" publicity campaign which culminated in the successful referendum of June 1975.

Heath brought him back to Tory Central Office for the general election campaigns of 1974 as an adviser. But with Margaret Thatcher's succession there came a break: he was never brought into her inner sanctum. He resented this and never forgave her for it – though it was hardly surprising, since she always regarded Tucker as a "Heath man". Nor did much change when John Major became Prime Minister – though Tucker's lunch and dinner gatherings had by then regained much of their earlier eminence, not least because of Whitelaw's friendship.

Right to the end of his life Geoffrey Tucker continued this extraordinary "linkage" operations, though his contact-making became somewhat restricted after Tony Blair's election in 1997. Even so there were several friendly dinner gatherings with some New Labour ministers – though, more notably, with senior civil servants munching and talking away at Tucker's clubs, Brooks's and Bucks, as well as numerous expensive hotels. He never lost his touch – though his epicurean entertaining and chain cigar smoking did wane.

Geoffrey Goodman