Brian Maurice Bennett (born 1 April 1948) is a former

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

diplomat A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or internati ...

. Bennett studied Russian at the

University of Sheffield , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...

Career

He entered the

Foreign and Commonwealth Office The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, department of the Government of the United Kingdom. Equivalent to other countries' Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ministries of fore ...

in 1971. After two years as a desk officer, he received his first foreign posting, as an information secretary at the British embassy to

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

, where he served until 1976, when he was transferred back to London to serve in the FCO's personnel department. After further stints at the British embassies to

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

and

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...

, he served as first secretary in the British delegation at the

Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions The Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR) talks were a series of negotiations held in Vienna between NATO and Warsaw Pact countries between 1973 and 1989. Origins The MBFR talks were first proposed at the SALT meeting between President Rich ...

talks in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and in the British embassy in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. In 1992, Bennett returned to

Whitehall Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A roads in Zone 3 of the Great Britain numbering scheme, A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea, London, Chelsea. It is the main ...

as a desk officer. In 1997, he received another foreign posting, this time as Deputy Head of Mission in Tunis, where he served until 2000. He subsequently served as British Ambassador to Belarus from 2003 to 2007. In 2005 his name appeared on a list of alleged

Secret Intelligence Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

personnel published on the US website

Cryptome Cryptome is an online library and 501(c)(3) private foundation created in 1996 by John Young and Deborah Natsios. The site collects information about freedom of expression, privacy, cryptography, dual-use technologies, national security, intelli ...

References

1948 births Living people Members of HM Diplomatic Service Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Belarus Alumni of the University of Sheffield 20th-century British diplomats {{UK-diplomat-stub