SIR (JOHN) OLIVER WRIGHT - UNITED KINGDOM

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 05820179
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: March 16, 2022
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2016
• Case Number: F-2015-00499
• Publication Date: August 8, 1983

Approved for Release: 2014/12/22 005820179
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Sir (John) Oliver WRIGHT
Ambassador to the United States
(since September 1982)
Addressed as:
Sir Oliver or
Mr. Ambassador
UNITED KINGDOM
A diplomat for 35 years, Sir Oliver Wright
retired in 1981 after six years as Ambassador to the
Federal Republic of Germany. Only 16 months
later, however, he was recalled to erve as
Ambassador to the United States.
The British
press says that he speaks bluntly and has a knack
for stating difficult problems in simple terms
During late 1982 Wright publicly criticized this country for imposing trade sanctions
against those British firms having contracts to supply equipment for the Siberian gas
pipeline, claiming that the sanctions were hurting the Atlantic Alliance more than the
Soviets. Wright is a strong critic of the Soviet Union. During a January 1983 public
appearance in Washington, he termed the Soviet system "bankrupt" and argued that the
West must adopt a threefold strategy in dealing with Moscow. In the NATO area, he said,
the West must maintain military strength while at the same time treating arms control
negotiations as seriously as the need to maintain military might. Outside the NATO arena,
he said, the West must increase aid to the world's developing countries in order to win the
hearts and minds of their rieople
Wright has expressed concern about the impact of demographic changes on the
Atlantic Alliance, he noted that as a result
of the shift in the US population center since World War II from the northeast to the
sunbelt, those Americans who know Europe the best enjoy less influence now than they did
in the immediate postwar period. Compounding the problem, he said, is a generational
change on both sides of the Atlantic: the current generations did not have the same
experiences as did those Allied leaders who fought in World War II and who established the
postwar framework, and therefore they do not automatically share the same values�such as
support for a strong NATO. The result, he says, is that the United States and Europe do not
know each other as well as they did during the years immediately after World War II, a
development that he describes as sad.
Wright was educated at Cambridge. During World War II he served in the Royal
Navy aboard destroyers and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. After joining the
Foreign Office in 1945, he held assignments in New York, Bucharest, Singapore, Berlin,
and Pretoria. Wright served as private secretary to Sir Alec Douglas-Home when the latter
was Foreign Minister and Prime Minister and then as, private secretary and foreign policy
adviser to Prime Minister Harold Wilson. He was Ambassador to Denmark from 1966 until
1969 and was detailed to the Home Office during 1969-70 as representative to the Northern
Ireland Government; Subsequently, he was chief clerk of the diplomatic service and then
deputy under secretary of state, responsible for matters pertaining to economics, commerce,
and the European Communities. Wright, 62, is married and has three sons. (U)
CR M 83-13827
8 August 1983
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Approved for Release: 2014/12/22 005820179 _