Geoffrey Harrison

Harrison was born in Southsea, Hampshire. His parents were Thomas Edmund Harrison, a commander in the Royal Navy, who was a grandson of Josiah Wedgwood III, and Maud Winifred Godman. He was educated at Winchester College in Hampshire and then at King's College, Cambridge. He joined the Foreign Office in 1932 and was posted to Japan and Germany before the outbreak of World War II.{{cite book|title=International Who's Who 1990–91|year=1990|publisher=Europa Publications|isbn=0946653585}} On 2 July 1935, he married Amy Katherine Clive (the daughter of Sir Robert Clive, the British ambassador to Japan) at the embassy in Tokyo.{{cite news|title=Ambassador's Daughter to Marry|url=http://newspapers.nl.sg/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19360621-1.2.15.aspx|access-date=18 December 2013|newspaper=The Straits Times|date=21 June 1936|archive-date=19 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131219083441/http://newspapers.nl.sg/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19360621-1.2.15.aspx|url-status=dead}}

In October 1932, Harrison was appointed as a third secretary in His Majesty's Diplomatic Service,{{London Gazette |issue=33888 |date=2 December 1932 |page=7663 }} and in October 1937, he was promoted to second secretary.{{London Gazette |issue=34497 |date=29 March 1938 |page=2085 }} In July 1942, he was acting first secretary.{{London Gazette |issue=35990 |date=23 April 1943 |page=1871 }}

As a junior diplomat at the Foreign Office, Harrison drafted a memorandum, "The Future of Austria", which greatly contributed to the notion of Austria as an independent state. Harrison also contributed to the British draft declaration on Austria for the 1943 Moscow Declaration.{{cite book|last=Steininger|first=Rolf|title=Austria, Germany, and the Cold War : from the Anschluss to the State Treaty 1938–1955|year=2008|publisher=Berghahn Books|location=New York|isbn=978-1845453268|edition=English}}

He was also the principal drafter of Article XII of the Potsdam Agreement, which concerned the expulsion of ethnic Germans from central and eastern Europe after World War II.{{cite book|last=Zayas|first=Alfred-Maurice de|title=A terrible revenge: the ethnic cleansing of the east European Germans, 1944–1950|year=1994|publisher=St. Martin's Press|location=New York|isbn=0312121598|edition=1st pbk. ed. with new material}}

On 1 October 1956, Harrison was granted his first ambassadorship, as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Brazil.{{London Gazette |issue=40930 |date=20 November 1956 |page=6575 }} On 3 November 1958, he was transferred to Tehran as Ambassador to Iran/Persia.{{London Gazette |issue=41579 |date=19 December 1958 |page=7766}} Between 1963 and 1965, Harrison was based in London as Deputy Under Secretary of State at the Foreign Office.{{cite book|last=Louis|first=S.R. Ashton, Wm Roger|title=East of Suez and the Commonwealth: 1964–1971|year=2004|publisher=The Stationery Office, published for the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in the University of London|location=London|isbn=011290582X|edition=1st}}

On 27 August 1965, Harrison was appointed as ambassador to the Soviet Union.{{London Gazette |issue=43803 |date=29 October 1965 |page=10076 }} In 1968, he engaged in a brief affair with a Russian chambermaid who was working at the British Embassy. Harrison recalled not asking or knowing if she worked for the KGB, but he said that it was assumed that every Soviet employee at the embassy worked or was an agent for the Soviet secret service. When security concerns arose over the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, and after he had been sent incriminating photographs taken by the KGB,{{cite book|last=Lilleker|first=Darren G.|title=Against the Cold War : the history and political traditions of pro-Sovietism in the British Labour Party 1945–89|year=2004|publisher=Tauris|location=London|isbn=1850434719|page=9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1Vs54R2ySToC&pg=PA9}} Harrison informed the Foreign Office of his indiscretion, which immediately terminated his appointment and recalled him to Britain. Harrison revealed the affair to The Sunday Times newspaper in 1981.{{cite news|title=Former diplomat admits affair with maid|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=IKUsAAAAIBAJ&pg=4809%2C2505281|access-date=18 December 2013|newspaper=Lakeland Ledger|date=22 February 1981}}

The journalist and author John Miller, who was part of the British press corps in the Soviet Union at the time of Harrison's ambassadorship, revealed more details of the affair in his memoir All Them Cornfields and Ballet in the Evenings: Miller named the maid with whom Harrison was involved as Galya Ivanov and said he was told that by a Russian contact that she was not only a KGB agent but also the sister of Eugene Ivanov, the Soviet naval attaché in Britain involved in the Profumo affair.{{cite book|last=Miller|first=John|title=All Them Cornfields and Ballet in the Evening|year=2010|publisher=Hodgson Press|isbn=978-1906164126|pages=260–261|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EfBI2FD-cMMC&pg=PA260}}

Harrison was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in the New Year Honours of 1955.{{London Gazette |issue=40366 |date= 31 December 1954 |page=5 |supp=y }}

In the 1968 Queen's Birthday Honours, he became a Knight Grand Cross of the Order (GCMG).{{London Gazette |issue=44600 |date=31 May 1968 |page=4 |supp=y }}

On 6 March 1961, Harrison was made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO).{{London Gazette |issue=42305 |date=17 March 1961 |page=2057 }}

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.britishpathe.com/video/wilson-visits-podgorny/ Wilson Visits Podgorny, 1968], British Pathé film of Sir Geoffrey Harrison with Prime Minister Harold Wilson, meeting Soviet head of state Nikolai Podgorny

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{{s-ttl|title=British Ambassador to Brazil|years=1956–1958}}

{{s-aft|after=Sir Geoffrey Wallinger}}

{{s-bef|before=Sir Roger Stevens}}

{{s-ttl|title=British Ambassador to Iran|years=1958–1963}}

{{s-aft|after=Sir Denis Wright}}

{{s-bef|before=Sir Humphrey Trevelyan}}

{{s-ttl|title=British Ambassador to the Soviet Union|years=1965–1968}}

{{s-aft|after=Sir Duncan Wilson}}

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{{s-bef|before=Viscount Hood}}

{{s-ttl|title=Deputy Under Secretary of State
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Category:1908 births

Category:1990 deaths

Category:Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Brazil

Category:Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Iran

Category:Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to the Soviet Union

Category:Members of HM Diplomatic Service

Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George

Category:Knights Commander of the Royal Victorian Order

Category:Alumni of King's College, Cambridge

Category:People educated at Winchester College

Category:20th-century British diplomats