Geoffrey Howe
In 1982, at the time of the Falklands War, he was transferred to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, being promoted to Minister of State at the Foreign Office in 1983. At the Foreign Office, he served first under Francis Pym and then Sir Geoffrey Howe. Rifkind was responsible for Britain's relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the European Community, and sub-Saharan Africa. He assisted Sir Geoffrey Howe in persuading Thatcher to change the Government's policy on the Soviet Union, attended the Chequers meeting which decided to invite Soviet leaders to the United Kingdom, and was present at Chequers when Thatcher had her first meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev and decided that he was a Soviet leader with whom "she could do business".