My good pal John Sawers is to take over as Head of MI6, the first (mainly) FCO person to do so although he did start off there a while ago before crossing to join the FCO.

He enjoyed a brisk ride to the top with an unusual amount of sharp-end operational content, including pioneering  ‘township diplomacy’ in twilight apartheid South Africa – he was the first Western diplomat to meet Nelson Mandela after Mandela emerged from prison.

Later he also served in Iraq when things were especially difficult. Did I help send him there?

The Times has the best analysis of John and his life and times, albeit curiously omitting any reference to his deft tennis backhand. And here is part of a great speech he gave in Boston.

Mind you, I recall a lively exchange we had back in 1996 when I was HM Ambassador in Sarajevo and he was Political Counsellor in the Embassy in Washington.

John said that US troops would pull out of Sarajevo soon after the Bosnian 1996 elections because that’s what President Clinton had promised. I by contrast, closer to the sprawling building works going on as the Americans built bowling alleys and other phenomena on their Bosnian bases, suspected that they would be there for a lot longer than that. 

And they were.

Intelligence work is like any other. Link accuracy, realism and wisdom to hard facts, and you don’t go far wrong.

Congratulations.