Nicholas Henderson
|
Sir Nicholas Henderson GCMG KCVO |
|
|---|---|
| British Ambassador to the United States | |
|
In office 1979–1982 |
|
| Monarch | Elizabeth II |
| President |
Jimmy Carter Ronald Reagan |
| Prime Minister | Margaret Thatcher |
| Preceded by | Peter Jay |
| Succeeded by | Oliver Wright |
| British Ambassador to France | |
|
In office 1975–1979 |
|
| President | Valéry Giscard d'Estaing |
| Prime Minister |
Harold Wilson James Callaghan |
| Preceded by | Edward Tomkins |
| Succeeded by | Reginald Hibbert |
| British Ambassador to West Germany | |
|
In office 1972–1975 |
|
| Prime Minister |
Edward Heath Harold Wilson |
| Chancellor | Helmut Schmidt |
| Preceded by | Frank Roberts |
| Succeeded by | Oliver Wright |
| British Ambassador to Poland | |
|
In office 1969–1972 |
|
| Prime Minister |
Harold Wilson Edward Heath |
| Preceded by | Thomas Brimelow |
| Succeeded by | Frank Brenchley |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1 April 1919 |
| Died | 16 March 2009 (aged 89) |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Stowe School |
| Alma mater | Hertford College, Oxford |
Sir John Nicholas Henderson, GCMG, KCVO (1 April 1919 – 16 March 2009) was a British diplomat and writer, who served as British Ambassador to the United States from 1979 to 1982.
Educated at Stowe School and Hertford College, Oxford, he joined the British Diplomatic Service in 1946 and rose to become Private Secretary to the Foreign Secretary in 1963. Subsequently he served as British Ambassador to Poland, Germany and finally France, from which post he retired in 1979 on his sixtieth birthday.
Upon retiring (as he thought) from the foreign service when relinquishing his post in Paris, he wrote a final dispatch titled "Britain's decline; its causes and consequences". The Economist magazine obtained a copy and printed it in the same year stating "The despatch does not, needless to say, reach us from him and was presumably written for very limited circulation. But it is so unusually forthright and timely, particularly in its middle and concluding passages on British policy in Europe, under governments of every stripe, as to merit publication virtually in full."
A surprise extension to Henderson's career came about because of the election of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister in May of that year. Mrs Thatcher invited him to return to service as Ambassador to Washington, where he served until 1982. Mrs Thatcher had first asked Edward Heath to take up the post, but he had refused the offer. Henderson was enormously popular in Washington, and he and his wife Mary formed a close personal friendship with President Ronald Reagan at a crucial time in the latter's presidency, oiling the special friendship which developed between Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. In particular he was successful in putting the British side of the Falklands War in 1982, and maintaining friendly relations between the nations when that friendship was under some strain.
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