Living the Cold War

Memoirs of a British Diplomat

Christopher Mallaby

• Publisher: Amberley Publishing
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781445669625
• Edition: 0
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: History

The centrepiece of this memoir by Sir Christopher Mallaby, former British Ambassador in Germany and France, is the unification of Germany in 1990, the culmination of years of work by Sir Christopher and his colleagues. He held different views from the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. He saw unification as the key to ending the Cold War with a peaceful victory for the West and the liberation of millions in eastern and central Europe from Soviet control. She disliked the Germans and opposed unification.Christopher Mallaby writes vividly of many other people, places and events. He and his wife were a young couple in Moscow during the Cuba crisis, and knew they might be destroyed by American nuclear weapons. He explains why Khrushchev took such a huge risk and why he yielded to President Kennedy.'Living the Cold War' describes the work of diplomats and leaders on many other fronts, from dealing with the threat of the Soviet Union to Britain's attempt to persuade Argentina to withdraw peacefully from the Falklands. The author brings different experiences alive, including the KGB's harassment of diplomats in Moscow and the fascination of his time as Ambassador in France. In doing so, he shows what diplomats can really achieve. He mixes amusing incidents with an insider's insights on crucial world events.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword by Peter Hennessy
• Introduction
• 1 - Getting Started
• 2 - Moscow 1961–63
• 3 - Foreign Office 1963–66
• 4 - Berlin 1966–69
• 5 - Soviet Desk, Foreign Office 1969–71
• 6 - British Trade Office, New York 1971–74
• 7 - Moscow 1975–77
• 8 - Head of Arms Control and Disarmament Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office 1977–1979
• 9 - Head of Eastern European and Soviet Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office 1979–80
• 10 - Poland’s Historic Drama
• 11 - Head of Policy Planning, FCO, the Falklands War 1980–82
• 12 - Cabinet Office, the Anglo Irish Agreement 1985–88
• 13 - Germany before the Transformation
• 14 - The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Rush to German Unity; An ‘Alarming’ Ambassador’s Account
• 15 - Differences with Prime Minister Thatcher; German Unification Achieved
• 16 - Germany United 1990–92
• 17 - Paris 1993–96
• 18 - Summing up the Cold War
• Plates
• Epilogue