Description
Object description
British officer served with Air Disarmament Unit in Germany, 1945-1946, with Allied Soviet Control Commission for Finland, 1946 and with Air Ministry in London, 1947-1948. Worked for Bank of London and South America, and Midland and International Bank negotiating loans to Eastern Europe, 1960s-1982
[Reels 17-25 Closed Access]
Content description
REEL 1 Aspects of family background. Recollections of life, GB, 1930s-1944: father's reaction to letters written by Goebbels to British ex-army personnel; education; enrolling at St Catherine's College, Oxford, 1942; family connection to the artist David Roberts; enlisting in Queen's Royal Regt; being declared unfit due to hayfever; decision to learn how to speak Russian; passing next medical and joining RAF; attending School of Slavonic Studies to learn Russian, 1944; qualification as Service Interpreter.
REEL 2 Continues: completing language course; various postings with RAF; work with Connie Babington Smith. Recollections of period with Air Disarmament Unit, Germany, 1945-1946: posting to Germany, 5/1945; journey to Travemunde via Luneburg Heath and Hamburg; description of Travemunde and Luftwaffe Station; first encounter with Russian troops in area; destruction of German weapons and ammunition; fireworks party using distress signal rockets; relations with Russians; German Air Force women in area.
REEL 3 Continues: finding work for German Air Force women; memories of Commander Anthony Courtney; relationship with Lt Tassilo von Ruhland; preventing mutiny amongst von Ruhland's troops; Anglo-German woman working with German Air Force; party given by Russians for Scottish Regt in area; change in relations with Russians, summer 1946; story of how Germans fled from Russian advance 6/1945; setting up border pole; difference between Russian fighting troops and garrison troops; living conditions in area for German civilians; story of Alsatian dog that bit unpopular officer; transition from non-fraternisation to fraternisation policy.
REEL 4 Continues: transition from non-fraternisation to fraternisation policy; story of ship carrying concentration camp victims that was sunk; clearing of bodies by SS POWs; refugees and evacuated Germans passing through Travemunde; difference between fighting troops and peacetime conscripts that replaced them; change in relations between Russian and British troops, 1946; question of accidental bombing of Russian tanks without Allied insignia; story of two Polish airmen who took revenge on Germans. Recollections of period with Allied Soviet Control Commission for Finland, 1946: journey to Finland; billet with Anglo-Finnish family; meeting up with cousin living in area; composition of ASCCF; memories of Russian liaison officer, Col Adam Hassanovich Vakitov.
REEL 5 Continues: Vakitov's subtle methods of interrogating British about political events during language classes; formation of ASCCF; role of ASCCF; directive given to British team; British political presence; relations between Finland and Russia; Finnish British relations; Russians war crimes trials of Finnish politicians and generals; story of Bob Crichton; failed communist putsch in Finland, 1946; Stalin's orders to Finland to refuse Marshall Aid; role as official interpreter.
REEL 6 Continues: role as official interpreter; responsibility for weekly British aircraft landing at Russian controlled Helsinki Malmi Airport; perks of job; relations between Finland and Britain; memories of Rex Bosley; failure of Stalin to establish communist government in Finland; Finnish attitude towards Russians; attending Prime Minister Kekonnen's son's party in Finland, 1948. Recollections of period with Air Ministry, 1947/1948; looking after foreign Air Attaches.
REEL 7 Continues: looking after foreign Air Attaches; story of demonstration of Martin Baker ejector seat for Portuguese Attache; victory parties held post-war; leaving RAF. Recollections of life in GB, 1948-1950: return to Oxford to finish degree; change in student population; friendship with Donald Swann and John Corselis; women at Oxford; difficulties adjusting to life at Oxford; marriage to Liza Rehbinder, 1950; joining Permanent and Under Secretaries Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Further recollections of period with Air Disarmament Unit, Travemunde, Germany, 1945-1946: duties protecting forced labourers destined for forcible repatriation to Soviet Union; story of labourer who was lab assistant to Soviet Nuclear Physicist, Peter Kapitza.
REEL 8 Continues: meeting Russian POWs; looking out for General Vlasov; role of Control Commission; process of de-Nazification; living conditions for German population; memories of Rex Bosley.
REEL 9 Recollections of life and work, 1957-: joining Personnel Dept of Reed Paper Group; attitude towards work in Personnel; joining Davy Ashmore Group, Eastern European section, 1960; travelling to Eastern Europe; meeting second wife, Magda, in Budapest, 1961; story of how he got Magda's daughter to GB; story of how British authorities preventing him working for Amalgamated Electrical Industries due to his MI6 past; joining the Bank of London and South America; reasons for creation of Eurodollar by Sir George Bolton; relations between BOLSA and Soviet Banks; role as liaison officer for COMECON countries; question of money kept in Soviet money held in British banks since 1920s; organising loan for Yugoslavia with Beogrdsk Banka, 1967.
REEL 10 Continues: relations with contact from Beogrdsk Banka, Borka Vucic; story of being served drinks by Slobadan Milosovic; attitude towards Yugoslavia; provision of loan of 15 million eurodollars by BOLSA to Hungarian aluminium industry; 30 million eurodollar loan for Hungarian chemical industry; negotiations for Czech loan, 1968; absence of USA from consortia of banks funding loans; first loan for Russian exports to Brazil for hydro electric power station; attempts to arrange deal with Rio Tinto/Russia for copper extraction in Syberia; Foreign Office's ignorance regarding economic relations between Britain and Eastern Europe; attitude towards merger of Lloyds and BOLSA into Lloyds BOLSA International, early 1970s; reasons for not joining Morgan Grenfell.
REEL 11 Continues: attitude towards bribery and corruption in Romania and Yugoslavia; joining Midland and International Bank London; attitude towards MAIBL; resuming contacts with countries in Eastern Europe; economic problems of Eastern Europe; experience of Solidarity riots in Warsaw, 1980; move to Moscow to oversee Midland Bank Moscow Office, 1976-1978; story of refusing to be evicted from suite in Intourist Hotel, Moscow; memories of Russian secretary, Alla Michailovna Ulynova.
REEL 12 Continues: relationship between his step-daughter and his secretary's daughter; memories of chauffeur, Volodya; obtaining flat in Moscow; life in Moscow; restriction of movements; bugging; situation in Moscow by 1978; story of being sent out of hatters as they served Galina Brezhnev; visits to British Embassy cinema; deposits of large sums of money made by Russian into MAIBL; return to GB; separation of finance and politics.
REEL 13 Continues: reliability of Russians in paying back loans; Eastern European difficulties in paying back loans; first loans to China, 1978; standard of Chinese banking; quality of Soviet bankers; invitation to Cuba on 25th anniversary of founding of National Bank of Cuba; travels around and impressions of Cuba; attending party in Havana hosted by Fidel Castro; conversation with Castro; British Embassy's ignorance of invitation of 200 banks to Cuba; Eastern European attitude to Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962; variations in socio, political and economic systems within Eastern Europe; role of Hungary in economic development in area.
REEL 14 Continues: Hungarian economic reforms; comparison of Hungarian and Finnish approach to Russia; situation in Czechoslovakia; interrogation by Czech official when visiting Brno industrial fair; cultural life in Eastern Europe; relationship with contacts in Eastern Europe; comparison/contrast between Eastern European countries; role of COMECON; question of Soviet control over Eastern Europe.
REEL 15 Continues: role of COMECON; industrial and consumer goods produced by Eastern Europe; surprise that Russia didn't collapse until 1991; Western reaction to break up of Soviet Bloc; meeting with three Chinese professors, 1992; Chinese economic influence in Siberia; retirement from MAIBL, 1982; joining St John's Ambulance; setting up scheme to train Russians in First Aid; visit to St Petersburg, 1993; funding; visit of 12 Russian trainees to GB; assessing success of schemes; further training visits to London.
REEL 16 Continues: meeting with Vladimir Putin working in Mayor Sobchak's office; take of project in Russia by health department; system of training and trainees; funding of scheme from 1998 by Know How Fund and Department of International Development; quality and enthusiasm of trainees; relations between British and Russians; visit to Russian, 2000; visit to secondary school and being questioned by students; plans to visit again in 11/2002; role of NGOs in Russia; contrast in attitudes of old and young people in Russia.
REEL 17 role of British 'Know How Fund'; role of Foreign Office, DFID and NGOs; reflections on Cold War; speculation on Russia's future; belief in importance of oral history; belief than business and financial aspect to Cold War has been overlooked.
[REELS 18-25 are CLOSED ACCESS]