Murder In Samarkand - Document 11 - Minute of my meeting with Howard Drake
Preface
I was delighted to get away on holiday to Canada with my family after an exhausting and difficult year. The personnel officer, Colin Reynolds having failed to bring back the answer they wanted, while I was on leave the FCO sent a political officer, Dominic Schroeder, to Tashkent. The excuse was a "Crisis" they had themselves produced by suspending my five most senior members of office staff.
Schroeder came back and dutifully reported he had found allegations of mismanagement, alcoholism, financial corruption and offering sex in exchange from visas.
I was summoned back immediately from holiday and arrived back to meet Howard Drake of Personnel Department. I went straight from the airport to his office after a 16 hour overnight flight from Vancouver via Chicago, having not slept for 60 hours. As I walked in the door I had no idea I was about to face a huge raft of false allegations and be asked to resign.
In the circumstances I am amazed by how well I managed to defend myself at this meeting! You should bear in mind that this is Howard Drake's record of this meeting; it therefore puts the best possible gloss on what the FCO was doing.