Nicholas Henderson

Sir Nicholas Henderson GCMGKCVO
British Ambassador to the United States
In office 1979–1982
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Prime Minister	Margaret Thatcher
Preceded by	Peter Jay
Succeeded by	Oliver Wright
British Ambassador to France
In office 1975–1979
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(2009-03-16)(aged 89)
Nationality	British
Education	Stowe School
Alma mater	Hertford College, Oxford

Sir John Nicholas Henderson,GCMG,KCVO(1 April 1919 – 16 March 2009), known asNicko Henderson,was a British diplomat and writer, who served as British Ambassador to the United States from 1979 to 1982.

Life and career

Henderson was born in London, the only son and second of three children ofSir Hubert Henderson,a prominent political economist and laterDrummond Professor of Political EconomyatOxford,and of Faith Marion Jane Henderson,néeBagenal.

Nicholas was educated atStowe SchoolandHertford College, Oxford,and was thePresident of the Oxford Union.Childhood tuberculosis disqualified him from military service duringWorld War II.Instead, in 1942, he joined the Cairo staff ofLord Moyne,Minister Resident in the Middle East, on a temporary basis. In 1944, he was appointed Assistant Private Secretary to theForeign Secretary,Sir Anthony Eden,and then toErnest Bevin.

He joined the BritishDiplomatic Servicein 1946 and rose to becomePrivate Secretaryto theForeign Secretaryin 1963. Subsequently, he served as British Ambassador toPoland,Germany and finally France, from which post he retired in 1979 on his sixtieth birthday.

Valedictory dispatch and Ambassadorship to the United States

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 Economistobtained 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 ofMargaret ThatcherasPrime Ministerin May of that year. Thatcher invited him to return to service as Ambassador toWashington,where he served until 1982. She had first askedEdward Heathto 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 PresidentRonald Reaganat 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 forward the British side of theFalklands Warin 1982, and maintaining friendly relations between the nations when that friendship was under some strain.

In retirement, Henderson wrote several books on history, and an account of his career as a diplomat,Mandarin.He held directorships of several major British companies, including theChannel Tunnel Group,Sotheby's,andHambros.He also had close ties with thePrince of Wales,serving asLord Warden of the Stannariesand Chairman of the Prince's Council (the body which oversees theDuchy of Cornwall) after retiring from the Diplomatic Service. He was appointedKCVOfor this service to the Crown. He gave theRomanes LectureinOxfordin 1986.

In 1951, Henderson marriedMary Barber(née Cawadias), a Greek-born former war correspondent forTime-Life.She died in 2004. Their only child, Alexandra Nicolette, married the photographer Derry Moore, now the12th Earl of Drogheda.As Alexandra Henderson, she has followed a career as a television and radio producer specialising in current affairs.

He was generally known as "Nicko (sp." Nico "in Lady Thatcher's memoirs) Henderson" in private life.

Bibliography

• Prince Eugen of Savoy.A BiographyWeidenfeld & Nicolson, (1964)
• The Birth of N.A.T.O.,(1982)
• The Private Office,(1984)
• Channels and Tunnels: Reflections on Britain and Abroad,(1987)
• Diplomatic Immunity: Principles, Practices, Problemsby Grant V. McClanahan, with a foreword by Sir Nicholas Henderson (1989)
• Mandarin: The Diaries of an Ambassador 1969-1982, (1994)
• Old Friends and Other Instances,(2000)
• The Private Office Revisited,(2001)

In popular culture

Ian Fleming,author of theJames Bondseries, was a friend of Henderson, and gave his name to the character "Dikko" Henderson in his final completed Bond novel,You Only Live Twice.

Henderson was portrayed byJeremy Clydein the 2002BBCproduction ofIan Curteis's controversialThe Falklands Play.

External links

• The Daily Telegraph obituary
• The Guardian obituary
• The Independent obituary
• The Times obituary
• Appearance on Desert Island Discs (2 June 1989)
• Interview with Sir John Nicholas Henderson&transcript,British Diplomatic Oral History Programme, Churchill College, Cambridge, 1998