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Paul Johnston

Ambassador to Ireland

Part of UK in Sweden

27th August 2013

Inspiring the Inspirational

Today people around the world are honouring the memory of Raoul Wallenberg.

I’ve been reading Alex Kershaw’s book “To Save a People”. It is in equal parts heartbreaking in its accounts of individual cruelty and suffering and inspirational in its description of the idealism and bravery that Wallenberg and his colleagues displayed.

I was intrigued to read that the British Embassy in Stockholm might have played a role in inspiring Wallenberg. In December 1942, the night before he left Stockholm to travel to Budapest, his sister Nina and he attended a private screening arranged by the Embassy of a 1941 British film “Pimpernel Smith”.

In the film, the English actor Trevor Howard, himself the son of a Hungarian Jew, plays a man who saved persecuted Germans from the Nazis. Leaving the cinema, Wallenberg ‘s sister recalls his saying “This is something I would like to do”.

The rest is history, tragedy and greatness.

1 comment on “Inspiring the Inspirational”

  1. Very intreresting.

    When we organized very recently a Seminar on the role played by neutral Embassies (Vatican, Pôrtugal, Sweden, Switzerland and Spain)during the Budapest Holocaust , I could share with the audience the freindly links existing between Raoul and the then “Chargé d Affaires” at the Spanish Embassy, Angel Sanz-Briz. I had discovered an interview Sanz-Briz, who had been my boss when he was Ambassador to the Holy See in 1977, gave in 1954 to a Spanish newspaper. He praised very much his personal and proffesional qualities, and express ed his deep sorrow for “his death at the hands of the soviets beyond the Iron Curtain”.

    Beng Jandfeldt confirmed to me that Angel had Raoul´s telephone number among his inner contacts.

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About Paul Johnston

Paul Johnston joined the UK Civil Service in 1990, working for the Ministry of Defence initially. He has served in Paris and New York and has also had a wide…

Paul Johnston joined the UK Civil Service in 1990, working for the Ministry of Defence initially.

He has served in Paris and New York and has also had a wide range of political and security roles in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. Paul joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1993 as Desk Officer for Bosnia. As part of this role he was also Private Secretary to EU negotiator Lord Owen and his representative on Bosnia Contact Group.

His first foreign posting was to Paris in 1995-99 as Second Secretary Political. He was Private Secretary to the Ambassador and latterly part of the UK delegation to the Kosovo Rambouillet negotiations. Then he returned to London as Head of the Kosovo Policy Team, leading work on post-conflict policy in the EU, NATO, UN and G8.

Before his second overseas posting to New York in 2005, Paul held a variety of other EU policy and security appointments in London, such as Head of European Defence Section between 2000-01 and Head of Security Policy Department between 2002-04.

As Head of the Political Section in UKMIS New York, he advised on major policy issues for the UK on the Security Council and the UN World Summit, including the UK EU Presidency in 2005.

Paul returned to London in 2008 as Director, International Security for the FCO. He was responsible for policy on UN, NATO, European Security, arms control and disarmament, human rights and good governance.

Paul was British Ambassador to Sweden from August 2011 to August 2015 and then was Deputy Permanent Representative to NATO.

He was UK Ambassador to the EU for Political and Security affairs from 2017 to January 2020 and became Ambassador to Ireland in September 2020.

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