Diplomat and Author
Sir Christopher Meyer, KCMG, was 37 years in the British diplomatic service, ending up as Ambassador to the United States during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies between 1997 and 2003. His five and a half years in Washington, which made him the longest-serving Ambassador to the U.S. since the Second World War, coincided with 9/11, the wars in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, and the preparation for war in Iraq.
He was previously Ambassador to Germany and had postings to the former Soviet Union, Spain and the European Union in Brussels. He was Press Secretary to Prime Minister Sir John Major, Press Secretary to Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey, now Lord, Howe, and speech writer to three Foreign Secretaries, James Callaghan, Anthony Crosland and Lord (David) Owen.
After retiring from the Diplomatic Service in 2003, Sir Christopher chaired the Press Complaints Commission until March 2009 and ran his own consultancy. He is a regular media commentator on international affairs and the press. In 2005 he published DC Confidential, a memoir of his time in the Diplomatic Service, followed in 2009 by Getting Our Way: 500 Years of Adventure and Intrigue: the Inside Story of British Diplomacy, which accompanied a three-part TV series for BBC4. In 2012 he presented and co-wrote a six-part TV documentary series for Sky Atlantic, Networks of Power. Sir Christopher has also made several documentaries for BBC Radio 4 with diplomatic and press themes. In 2013 Sir Christopher published, as an Amazon Kindle Single, a personal memoir, Only Child, about the circumstances of his father’s shooting-down in the Second World War
Sir Christopher is an Honorary Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, a visiting Professor at the University of North Carolina and a Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. He is a non-executive director of the Arbuthnot Banking Group and is Chairman of the Advisory Board of Pagefield, a public relations company. He is a Freeman of the City of London and member of the Worshipful Company of Stationers.
