Nicholas Henderson, 1975–79

Abstract

Sir Nicholas Henderson (1919–2009) held the three most coveted ambassadorial posts for a British diplomat - Bonn, Paris and Washington - between 1972 and 1982. This crowned a distinguished career, which had gone from the private offices of Anthony Eden and Ernest Bevin, via posts at Athens, Santiago, Vienna and Warsaw. He was told of his appointment to Paris in March 1975 to his delight and surprise, as he had never served there and knew little about it.¹ A charismatic, stylish and charming ‘mandarin’, as he entitled his diaries, he became prominent nationally and internationally, especially after his famous Paris farewell despatch in March 1979, on which more later. This came at the historic turning point between the most denigrated decade in post-war Britain and Margaret Thatcher becoming Prime Minister.² George Walden described him as ‘a diffuse sort of man … a look of amiable derange-ment. … With his Bloomsbury credentials (he was related distantly to the illustrious circle), his intimations of originality, his friends on the Left, his affected clothes and unaffected amiability, Nicko was a stylish fellow. Politicians loved him because he gave them what they wanted: the big picture’.³