Julian Bullard

Sir Julian Bullard GCMG (March 8 1928—May 25 2006) was a British diplomat, Foreign Office Minister and Chancellor of Birmingham University. He was employed at Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service from 1953 until 1988, the ambassador to Bonn in the mid 1980s as well as heading up Britain's relations with Soviet Russia during the early 1970s under the government of Ted Heath. He is noted for his expulsion of 105 KGB personnel from London, as well as his stance on nuclear weapons.

Career

Early life

Bullard was both in Athens in Greece and moved to Rugby in his youth, where he was educated until attending Magdalen College at Oxford University, where at 22 he began a fellowship at All Souls. His elder brother, Giles Bullard, was already employed at the Foreign Service and upon recommendation from the boys father, Sir Reader Bullard, Julian was enrolled there. From 1950 until 1952 he completed his national service with the British Army in Germany.

Germany and the KGB

In his early career from 1953 until 1971 he was sent to Vienna and the Middle East. Here, in the post-Six-Day War climate, he became fluent in Arabic. In 1971 he was made head of the East European and Soviet department of the Foreign Office. At this time, KGB infiltration was rife in London, and Bullard is credited with devising the strategy which resulting in the expulsion of 105 KGB spies from the capital in the 1970s.

From 1975, he was sent to Bonn, in West Germany as a minister, returning there in 1984 as ambassador. During this time, he was one of many defending NATO's use of the Pershing missile to counter the Soviet nuclear threat. In 1982 he was awarded the KCMG.

Retirement from the Foreign Office

Bullard had retired before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, having had his KCMG promoted to GCMG in 1987. Using his All Souls Fellowship, Bullard went to Birmingham and joined the University's council in 1988, the chairman of which he became in 1989 and remained until 1994. He was also instrumental in creating the University's Institute for European Law and the Institute for German Studies.

At the turn of the century, Bullard began suffering from long term illness. He continued to be active in protest against the polices of Tony Blair and the war in Iraq, however he died in 2006 in Oxford. He is survived by his wife Margarent Stephens, whom he married in 1954, [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/sir-julian-bullard-480401.html "Obituary - Sir Julian Bullard"] from "The Independent" retrieved June 1 2008] and his two sons and two daughters. [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article669545.ece "Obituary - Sir Julian Bullard"] from "The Times" retrieved June 1 2008]

Published works

* "Europe in the 1990s", W.H. Smith Group, 1991.

Notes

References

Printed sources:

* Noakes, Jeremy, Peter Wende, Jonathan Wright"Britain and Germany in Europe, 1949-1990", Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0199248419

Websites:
* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article669545.ece "Sir Julian Bullard"] from "The Times"
* [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/sir-julian-bullard-480401.html "Obituary - Sir Julian Bullard"] from "The Independent"