Member of Parliament
Dennis Walters took which position between Apr 1980 and May 1982?
Dennis Walters Sir Dennis Murray Walters ( born 28 November 1928 ) is a former British Conservative Party politician . He was the Member of Parliament ( MP ) for Westbury from 1964 to 1992 . Early life . The son of Douglas L . Walters and Clara Walters ( née Pomello ) , Walters was of English and Italian descent ; he was brought up as a Roman Catholic . At the outbreak of the Second World War he was in Italy and was interned , but after the Armistice of 1943 he was released and served for eleven months with the Italian Resistance . He then returned to England and was educated at Downside School and St Catharines College , Cambridge , where he read Modern Languages as an Exhibitioner and completed an MA . Career . In the late 1950s , Walters was employed as personal assistant to the Conservative peer Lord Hailsham throughout his chairmanship of the Conservative Party . At the 1959 general election , Walters contested Blyth for the Conservatives , fighting the seat again the next year at a by-election after Alf Robens was promoted to the House of Lords . In October 1962 , he was selected as his partys candidate for the Conservative-held safe seat of Westbury , which he represented as Member of Parliament ( MP ) for 28 years from 1964 onwards . During his early years in the Commons , he worked closely with Shadow Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home , of whom he later wrote I could not imagine a more considerate , fair , or civilised person to serve . Following the Six-Day War of 1967 , Walters visited Palestine with his parliamentary colleague Ian Gilmour , and in a joint statement they said The Israeli attitude to the refugees becomes clearer when their return rather than their expulsion is considered . Most people in Britain probably believe that Israel has agreed to their return and that repatriation is now satisfactorily proceeding . Nothing could be further from the truth . This was an early signal of the willingness of Walters and Gilmour to work closely together to explain the Arab point of view to the Western world , and they became close allies . Outside parliament , Walters served as Chairman of Middle East International , founded in 1971 with a mission to provide authoritative and independent news and analysis on the Middle East . A sympathiser with Arab interests , from 1970 to 1982 he was Chairman of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding and from 1978 to 1981 joint Chairman of the Euro-Arab Parliamentary Association . He was also a company director with interests in investment , advertising , public relations and travel . When the Conservatives returned to government in 1979 , Walterss well-known pro-Arabism cost him the chance of advancement as a Foreign Office minister , the area in which his hopes lay , as in the shape of Gilmour , Margaret Thatcher was willing to appoint one pro-Arab colleague , but not two . From 1965 to the 1990s , he served as a Governor of the British Institute of Florence . Walters retired from parliament in 1992 , to be succeeded as member for Westbury by David Faber . Honours . In 1960 , he was appointed MBE for political services . Walters was knighted in 1988 . He was made a Commander of the Order of Cedar of Lebanon in 1969 , and a Grande Ufficiale of the Ordine al Merito Repubblica ( Italy ) in 2012 . Personal life . Walters has been married three times : firstly in 1955 to Vanora McIndoe , a daughter of the surgeon Sir Archibald McIndoe ( divorced 1969 ) ; secondly to Celia Sandys , daughter of the politician Duncan Sandys ( divorced 1979 ) ; and thirdly , in 1981 , to Bridgett Shearer , daughter of the late J . Francis Shearer ( divorced 2004 ) . By his first wife , he has a son and daughter ; by his second wife , a son , and by his third wife , a daughter and son . He lives in Chelsea . He is a member of the Boodles , Hurlingham and Queens clubs . Walters memoirs , Not Always with the Pack , were published in 1989 , and translated into a revised Italian edition , which was issued in 1991 . Publications . - Not Always with the Pack . United Kingdom , Constable , 1989 . - Benedetti Inglesi Benedetti Italiani ( Italian translation , revised edition ) , 1991 . References . - The Times Guide to the House of Commons , Times Newspapers Ltd , 1966 , 1987 & 1992