John Sawers

Sir Robert John Sawers KCMG (born 26 July 1955), also known as C,^[1] is a British diplomat and senior civil servant. He is the current Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).^[2] He was previously the British Permanent Representative to the United Nations from August 2007 to November 2009.^[3][4]

Background

Born in Warwick,^[5] Sawers was brought up in a family of five children in Bath and educated at the City of Bath Boys' School (which became Beechen Cliff School before he left), where he still holds the 440-yard hurdles school record.^[6] He studied physics and philosophy at the University of Nottingham, and spent periods at the Universities of St Andrews, Witwatersrand and Harvard. During his time at Nottingham he took a year out of his studies to serve in the students' union committee. His interests include theatre, hiking and sport, especially tennis and cycling. His wife Shelley is a teacher. They have three grown-up children.

Career

Sawers joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1977.^[7] In his early career, Sawers worked in Yemen and Syria, on behalf of MI6.^[8][2] He became Political Officer in Damascus in 1982 and then returned to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office to take up the roles of Desk Officer in the European Union Department in 1984 and Private Secretary to the Minister of State in 1986.^[7]

He was based in Pretoria and then Cape Town in South Africa from 1988 to 1991^[7] during the first part of the transition from apartheid.^[9] He returned to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office yet again to take up the roles of Head of European Union Presidency Planning Unit in 1991 and Principal Private Secretary to Douglas Hurd in 1993.^[7] The period was dominated by war in Bosnia, crises in the Middle East, and the debate in Britain on the European Union.

From 1995 to 1998 he was in the United States and spent a year as an International Fellow at Harvard University^[7] and later working at the British Embassy in Washington D. C., where he headed the Foreign and Defence Policy team.^[7]

From January 1999 to summer 2001 he was Foreign Affairs Adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair,^[7] dealing with all aspects of Foreign and Defence Policy and working closely with international counterparts.^[10] The period included the Kosovo War. He also worked on the Northern Ireland peace process and the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. He reviewed the Iraq sanctions policy during this period and issued a document that included consideration of regime change.^[11]

He served two years in the Middle East as Ambassador to Egypt from 2001 to 2003,^[7] and for three months was the British Government's Special Representative in Baghdad^[7] assisting in the establishment of the Coalition Provisional Authority as the transitional government during the Occupation of Iraq.

In August 2003 Sawers was appointed Director General for Political Affairs at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In this post he advised the Foreign Secretary on political and security issues worldwide and negotiated on behalf of the Foreign Secretary with international partners in the G8, EU and the UN. He was particularly closely involved in policy on Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans. Sawers headed the British team in the EU-3 negotiations over Iran's nuclear program in 2006,^[12] utilising his scientific background on nuclear matters.^[13]

In 2007 he became British Permanent Representative to the United Nations.^[7]

Sawers was announced as the new chief of the Secret Intelligence Service on 16 June 2009, succeeding Sir John Scarlett. He took up his new appointment in November 2009.^[2] In July 2009 his family details were removed from the social networking site Facebook following media interest in the contents.^[14][15]

Sawers is a governor of the Ditchley Foundation, which aims to promote international, especially Anglo-American, relations.^[16]

On 10 and 16 December 2009 Sawers gave evidence to The Iraq Inquiry.^[11][17]

In July 2010 his salary was revealed to the public to be in the range of £160,000 to £169,999.^[18]

References

Offices held