His wife, Lucia, was Secretary of Tourism of the Federal District but is better known for having been a close friend of Diana, Princess of Wales.
[1] He spent most of his overseas career on the "Elizabeth Arden circuit", high-status capital cities such as Rome, Paris, London, and Washington, D.C. From 1985 to 1990 he was secretary general of the Foreign Ministry in Brasília.
[2] In August 1990, Flecha de Lima was on holiday in southern France when he was commissioned to conduct negotiations on behalf of his government for the release of some five hundred Brazilians living in Iraq.
Saddam Hussein had threatened to use them as human shields to prevent an attack by the United States and its allies which later became known as the Gulf War.
[5] Flecha de Lima met his future wife, Lucia, the daughter of a professor of medicine, while she was still at school.