He served in India until independence in 1947, then transferred to HM Diplomatic Service. He held many key diplomatic posts, including chargé d'affaires in Beijing after the Revolution, ambassador to Egypt at the time of Suez, a development with which he was clearly uncomfortable, ambassador to Iraq at the time of the 1961 Kuwait crisis, Iraq's first attempt to annex Kuwait, and ambassador to the Soviet Union. On his retirement in 1965, he was offered the post of Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, which he declined in order that a younger man should be appointed.