Zwei-plus-Vier-Vertrag
From 1981 to 1985 he was the Foreign Office's Director of International Security Policy, after heading their Defence Department during the Falklands War. He was then posted overseas, as Deputy Ambassador and Minister Plenipotentiary in Paris, from 1985 to 1988. On his return to London, he worked as Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet and as Political Director at the Foreign Office. In 1990, he was the British official negotiator on the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (for which he received the German Order of Merit, with Star).