Geoffrey Harrison

Background

Harrison was born in Southsea, Hampshire. 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.

Education

He was educated at Winchester College in Hampshire, and then at King"s College, Cambridge.

Career

Harrison"s tenure in Moscow was terminated in 1968 when he was recalled to London following his admission to the Foreign Office that he had been having an affair with his Russian maid, which was later revealed as a Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) "honey trap" operation. He joined the Foreign Office in 1932, and was posted to Japan and Germany before the outbreak of World World War World War II

In October 1932, Harrison was appointed as a Third Secretary in His Majesty"s Diplomatic Service, and in October 1937, he was promoted to Second Secretary, and in July 1942, Acting First Secretary. As a junior diplomat at the Foreign Office, Harrison drafted a memorandum entitled "The Future of Austria", which contributed in no small part to the notion of Austria as an independent state.

Harrison also contributed to the British draft declaration on Austria for the 1943 Moscow Declaration.

He was also the principal drafter of Article XII of the Potsdam Agreement, which concerned the transfer of ethnic Germans from central and eastern Europe after World World War World War II On 1 October 1956, Harrison was granted his first ambassadorship, as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Brazil. On 3 November 1958, he was transferred to Tehran as Ambassador to Iran/Persia.

Between 1963 and 1965, Harrison was based in London as Deputy Under Secretary of State at the Foreign Office. On 27 August 1965, Harrison was appointed as Ambassador to the Soviet Union.

In 1968, he engaged in a brief affair with a Russian chambermaid working at the British Embassy.

Whilst Harrison recalled not asking or knowing if she worked for the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security), he said 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 having already been sent incriminating photographs by the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security), 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, thirteen years after it had occurred.

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 Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) agent, but also the sister of Eugene Ivanov, the Soviet naval attaché in Britain who was involved in the Profumo Affair.

Achievements

• Harrison was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of Street Michael and Street George (Knight Commander of the Order of Street Michael and Saint George) in the New Year of 1955. In the 1968 Queen"s Birthday, he became a Knight Grand Cross of the Order (Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Street Michael and Street George). On 6 March 1961, Harrison was made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order).