1 BDOHP Biographical Details and Interview Index SHEINWALD, Sir Nigel Elton (born 26 June 1953) GCMG 2011 (KCMG 2001; CMG 1999) Career (with, on right, relevant pages in interview) Joined Diplomatic Service, 1976 pp 2-3 Japan Desk, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 1976-77 p 3 Russian language training, 1977-78 pp 4-5 Third, later Second Secretary, Moscow, 1978-79 pp 5-15 Rhodesia/Zimbabwe Department, FCO, 1979-81 pp 16-18 Eastern European and Soviet Department, FCO, 1981-83 pp 18-21 First Secretary, Washington, 1983-87 pp 21-34 Deputy Head, Policy Planning Staff, FCO, 1987-89 - European Community Department (Internal), FCO, 1989-92 see below Counsellor and Head of Chancery, UK Perm. Rep. to EU, 1993-95 see below Head of News Department, FCO, 1995-98 pp 57-67 Director, EU, FCO, 1998-2000 see below Ambassador and UK Perm. Rep to EU, Brussels, 2000-03 see below Foreign Policy and Defence Adviser to the Prime Minister, 2003-07 pp 69-85 Ambassador to the United States, 2007-12 pp 85-100 Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on intelligence and law enforcement - data sharing, 2014-15 The interview talks about Sir Nigel’s work on Europe in general, 1989-2003, pp 35-57, rather than taking his individual posts separately. 2 BRITISH DIPLOMATIC ORAL HISTORY PROGRAMME RECOLLECTIONS OF SIR NIGEL SHEINWALD GCMG RECORDED AND TRANSCRIBED BY CATHERINE MANNING This is a recording for the British Diplomatic Oral History Programme, Catherine Manning interviewing Sir Nigel Sheinwald on 5th July 2016. CM: Nigel, we are going to begin at the start of your career when you were in Moscow, but before we come onto that, would you tell me how it was that you came to join the Foreign Office? NS: I did a four-year course at university and I embarked on my last year not having thought at all about what I was going to do afterwards. I applied for a lot of things: I applied for the Civil Service; I applied for the Diplomatic Service; I applied for a lot of private sector things as well. I can’t remember what I was rejected from, but I know I got a lot of offers from different places and our children think I was completely crazy not to go for Rothschild or one of the other places from which I could have retired years and years ago and not be carrying on working. But I chose the Foreign Office, I suppose, for two reasons, both pretty obvious ones, that I had a fairly untutored but firm commitment to public service: I liked the idea of working in the public sector and in the public interest and in a funny sort of way thought that would be simpler. And secondly, I had always been interested in international affairs, had naturally gravitated to that part of the newspaper when I was reading newspapers, and so it seemed the right thing to prioritize among the different things that were on offer. For me, it was always a little bit of a choice between doing one of these very serious jobs and doing what I had done a lot of at university, which was drama and directing plays. I decided fairly early on that I wasn’t going to go into the theatre, just because I couldn't face years of sweeping stages in provincial reps and wanted to do something more quite early on. So I wasn’t as it were following a passion, my passions were probably elsewhere, I was following an interest. CM: You say it was a four-year course, was it a language course? NS: I was doing Classics, Greats at Oxford. But as I say, I had not given it any thought and it was all an incredible flurry in the Michaelmas term, the autumn of ’75. 3 CM: You didn’t have any hesitation about choosing the Foreign Office over the Home Civil Service? NS: No, no, that was clear, although I did apply for both and got into both, but I chose the Foreign Office over the Home Civil Service. CM: And what did the Foreign Office start you off with? Japan Desk, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 1976-77 NS: I think I was lucky. I was put on the Japan desk. As you remember, in those days there was very little in the way of training. There was a two-week training course, as I recall, and then straight into Far Eastern Department and the Japan desk, where I succeeded Tony Brenton who years later was Ambassador in Moscow. I did that for a year. It was a fundamentally different time from what one knows of UK-Japan relations today: broadly a harmonious relationship, Japanese investment welcome in the UK, everyone clinging to the last word of the Keidanren, and the bosses of Hitachi and other companies, on what will happen after Britain leaves the European Union. It was very different in those days: a fractious relationship, import quotas, voluntary restraint arrangements, Japanese taking jobs from the industrial heartlands of the UK, and it took a long time, which I suppose was going on in that period, to construct a more progressive and less difficult relationship. But that was what was going on in my time. The Foreign Office at that time was very involved in trade and investment issues and so on. For me, in terms of what I ended up doing, what was good was it wasn’t a country in which there was a huge Whitehall machinery, so the Foreign Office had a clear and significant role. But there was a Whitehall machinery all the same, and it introduced me very early to working with others in Whitehall, which I had to do, particularly with the Department of Trade and Industry. There was a lot of trade and economics and also a lot about Japanese politics which were going through an upheaval at the time and that was the bit that was perhaps most akin to studying Roman History or Greek History. There was a lot of personality politics and all the rest of it. Anyone interested in History would have enjoyed that phase of Japanese politics when new parties were growing up. I think it was a very good first job, because it had some substance to it and you had a certain sort of latitude because unlike, as we’ll discuss, dealing with the Soviet Union in the Foreign Office, it wasn’t a huge chunk of Foreign Office people and time. CM: So you did that first job for a year or so ... 4 NS: A year. CM ... before being offered the opportunity to do hard language training. Russian language training, 1977-78 NS: Exactly. Classically, during the course of your first year, you’d do the hard language aptitude test, and if you passed that, then you’d get the choice of what were then the four hard foreign languages, maybe there are more these days, I don’t know, but I opted for Russian. I’d done Russian at school, so I had some background. I had done it up to and just beyond O level and so I was keen to do that. I hadn’t done it since school; I hadn’t done it at all at university. CM: Nigel, I ought to anchor this to a certain date. You joined ... NS: I joined at the end of August ’76 and I carried on in the Far Eastern Department until probably July/August ’77 and then started my Russian language training, I would think, at the very beginning of September ’77. It was a year’s course, at Beaconsfield, in my case a little bit less: it went to June or July. There were a few Foreign Office people on the course, three or four, and then other diplomats. There was a Swiss diplomat; there was a Japanese diplomat; then there were people from the UK army. I don’t think there were any from other services, because there were still separate training systems at that point. And some from other countries, I remember there were two Zairois officers on the course, and there must have been others, I just can’t remember them. CM: Was it a good course? Did you come out feeling you were really in command of the language? NS: It was a good course, but it was inevitably structured to the needs of the Army interpreter. I suppose if you had an end person in mind, it would have been an Army interpreter working in the British Mission in Berlin and having to interpret mainly on military matters with Russians who were working on those issues. So there was a very military bent to the vocabulary; it was quite formal Russian. We were well equipped for reading official Russian and for speaking official Russian and you could interpret official Russian when you were in a fairly narrow band. What it did not equip us for was, what I realised at the time and what I certainly realised the moment I got to Moscow, was it didn’t equip you for the speed of Russian social conversation, for colloquial Russian, which I don’t think I ever completely 5 mastered. Obviously, you got better as you got more used to it, but of course there were limited opportunities in those days for having free and easy conversations with Russians. It was a rarity. So for the core skills which we’ll come on to, which were reading a lot, analysing things a lot, doing the Kremlinology, which was essentially a sort of rigorous, analytical way of approaching power in the Soviet Union, for doing that, for doing official duties, it was OK.