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BDOHP Interview Index and Biographical Details Sir John BDOHP Interview Index and Biographical Details Sir John Holmes, GCVO 2004 (CVO 1998); KBE 1999; CMG 1997 Biographical Details with (on right) relevant pages in the interview: FCO, 1973-76 pp 1-4 Learning Russian pp 4-6 3rd Secretary, then 2nd Secretary, Moscow, 1976–78 pp 6-18 Near East and North Africa Department, FCO, 1978–82 pp 18-22 Assistant Private Secretary to Foreign Secretary, 1982–84 pp 22-34 (Falklands War, pp 26-33) 1st Secretary (Economic), Paris, 1984–87 pp 34-47 Assistant Head of Soviet Department, FCO, 1987–89 pp 47-51 Seconded to Thomas de la Rue & Co., 1989–91 pp 51-55 Counsellor, Economic and Commercial, New Delhi, 1991–95 pp 55-62 Head of European Union Department (External), FCO, 1995 pp 62-65 On secondment as Private Secretary (Foreign Affairs), 1996–99 pp 65-101 and Principal Private Secretary, 1997–99, to the Prime Minister (Northern Ireland, pp 70-76, 86-93; BSE crisis, pp 76-79) Ambassador to Portugal, 1999–2001 pp 101-109 Ambassador to France, 2001–07 pp 109-129 (2003 invasion of Iraq, pp 115-122) Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, UN, 2007–10 pp 129-136 1 RECOLLECTIONS OF SIR JOHN HOLMES GCVO, KBE, CMG RECORDED AND TRANSCRIBED BY CATHERINE MANNING Today is 11 January 2018. This is the first interview for the British Diplomatic Oral History Programme with Sir John Holmes, Catherine Manning recording. John, I am going to ask the question that we always start off with, which is: what was it that led you to join the Foreign Office in December 1973. JH: I had been studying Classics in Oxford, and suddenly as I got well into my fourth year, the realisation dawned on me, as it did on most of my fellow students: Good Lord, we’re going to finish quite soon; we’ll have to get a job. My parents had made clear that they had been happy to support me hitherto, but that was it, so I needed to find something that paid money. My initial idea of becoming a barrister couldn’t work because in those days you didn’t get paid much, if at all, for a year or two. I applied for all sorts of things, in the way that students did then, for example for various company graduate trainee schemes. And I also applied for the Foreign Office. That was not because I was particularly interested in international affairs at the time, at least more than most students were, or because I spoke foreign languages – I’d learned Greek and Latin, so I could do languages, but I certainly wasn’t a modern linguist. I applied because I thought the FCO would be interesting. I had some awareness of it because my brother had applied and failed to get in, as it happens. In any case I went through the rather lengthy entry process of exams, and then the two-day recruitment session when they tested you for all sorts of things, and then a terrifying final interview, I remember, with me facing half a dozen people behind a polished table somewhere in Whitehall, asking me really difficult questions. Finally they offered me a job before anyone else did, which must have been in early 1973, and as I knew it was difficult to get into, I took it. It was as simple as that really – more of an accidental process than a long- standing ambition. But I’ve never regretted it. I actually joined a little bit late, in December 1973, rather than the usual September, because I went off on a travel scholarship from my college. They paid me $1000 to go around America and do what I liked for three months. I had a Greyhound bus ticket and saw more of America than most Americans have ever seen, including a lot of dull periods crossing the Mid West, which certainly teaches you just how big America is. When I got back to 2 Washington at the end of our trip, I went to one of the Watergate hearings, which was fascinating. It was also the time of the Arab-Israeli 1973 war and I remember watching very dramatic TV pictures of that in the house where I and a friend were staying. So at least there were a couple of examples of historic foreign policy events being enacted in front of my eyes. CM: You said you weren’t especially interested in foreign affairs. Were you interested in politics? JH: Yes, but only as an outside observer. I wasn’t part of any of the Oxford political party organizations or a member of the Oxford Union. Being at Balliol, which was the revolutionary college at the time, where all demonstrations started and finished, I was close to that sort of student politics, for example the protests about files supposedly held on students, and demonstrations against Edward Heath, who was a Balliol alumnus. Not that I was particularly involved myself, but it was there, happening all around me, because Balliol was such a political place. Even the master, Christopher Hill, was a communist. I’m a political junkie these days, but I wasn’t then. CM: When you arrived in the Foreign Office you were sent off to be Assistant Desk Officer for Malawi in Central and Southern Africa Department. Was there any preliminary to this? How did you come to the department? JH: I think I went straight there, to be honest. Because I started a bit late I had missed the introductory week, or perhaps two weeks, that the other fast stream entrants had had - there were about twenty people who joined the fast stream, as it was called then, at the same time each year. But I hadn’t missed very much, because the induction was pretty minimal in those days. They told you a little bit about what the Foreign Office was, how the departments worked and the structure and so on. And that was about it. There were occasional courses that they allowed you to do during your first year. I think I went to one about international law; and something about international economics and trade. At some point I also went off for a week-long course in Brussels to learn about the European Community, as it then was, which we had just joined. But overall the induction and training were minimal. It was very much learning on the job, sink or swim. The first job I had was not much of one really. The department didn’t need me; I couldn’t contribute very much; I didn’t know anything about anything international, and I certainly didn’t know much about Malawi – I was never allowed to go there. I was sitting in a room 3 with an experienced Grade 6 officer, David Small, I think his name was. He was in charge not only of Malawi but also Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland and maybe somewhere else as well. He made sure that I didn’t do anything particularly stupid – not that I had much chance. But it was a way of learning how it all worked, and for example how you wrote in the FCO. You would draft something to the High Commission, or a note to go up the chain in the office, and David Small would tear it to pieces, in the nicest possible way, because it was complete rubbish to start with. You learned by doing; that was how it worked. At a certain point, relatively early on, maybe early in 1974, all the new entrants were given a language aptitude test – it was called MLAT, though I can’t remember what the M stood for - where you were tested for your ability to learn a hard foreign language. The language they used was Kurdish, because they reckoned, quite rightly, that no one would know any Kurdish. They were interested in your ability to learn, for example, how to count from one to ten in Kurdish and then retain it long enough to regurgitate it later in the test. If you passed that - not everybody did, but most people had enough ability to learn at least some hard language - they assigned you a language depending on what they calculated the needs of the service were going to be. They knew they needed every year two or three Russian speakers, a couple of Chinese speakers, a Japanese speaker, four or five Arabic speakers, and, from time to time, someone who spoke Finnish or Burmese or whatever it was. That was of course on the assumption that all the fast stream would stay in the FCO, which was not an unreasonable assumption as most people did stay in those days, at least for quite a number of years. If you passed, you were allowed to say what language you wanted to learn. I opted for Modern Greek, because I knew Ancient Greek and I thought going to Athens would be not a bad posting. But that was disregarded for whatever reason and they assigned me to Russian. As soon as they assigned you to Russian, you knew – anecdotes to the contrary notwithstanding – that you’d being going to Moscow when you’d finished. You didn’t know exactly when or to do what, but your first overseas posting was going to be Moscow. CM: If you were interested in learning Modern Greek, you were clearly still partly in a Classical world; you weren’t making a careerist choice. Did it even occur to you: My next thirty years are going to be spent in this organization and it might be better for me if I chose Arabic or Russian.
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