Sunday 28 June 1914 was warm and sunny, and most Londoners were enjoying a day of rest. One exception was the resident clerk at the Foreign Office who was on duty to deal with any unexpected crisis that might occur. …
"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies" - Churchill to Stalin at the Teheran Conference, November 1943
How the West was won 65 years ago today the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in the State Department auditorium in Washington. An organisation was born—NATO—that remains a cornerstone of Western defence up to the present day. In 1949 there …
Everyone likes the opportunity to travel in their job; especially if you are asked to go overseas, and sometimes you may choose to take your work home with you. This is a long established practice for many occupations. But the …
Ninety years ago today, the British political mould was shattered by the election of the first Labour government. After an inconclusive election on 6 December 1923 that the ruling Conservatives lost but nobody won, Ramsay MacDonald took office as both …
Ask anyone to name Winston Churchill’s best-known speech and nine times out of ten they will answer: We shall fight them on the beaches. It’s not an exact quotation – Churchill did not include the word ‘them’ – but the …
Fifty years ago today, the 35th President of the United States of America was shot dead as his car drove through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. The brutal shock of the assassination made it one of the defining moments of …
75 years ago today, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew back from Munich after two days of tense discussions with the German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler. He had reached an agreement setting out a timetable and terms for the Nazi takeover of …
Early foreign diplomatic entertainment by the Foreign Secretary took place in local taverns or at his home, but by the 1850s the London Diplomatic Corps had increased so greatly that there were very few places sufficiently large enough to contain …
A quick question: how many Foreign Secretaries have there been since the Foreign Office was founded in 1782? Fifty, 100? The answer is 61 - and a portrait of every former foreign secretary hangs on the walls of the Secretary …
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