From Churchill’s great rival to Peter Mandelson: a history of British ambassadors to the US

Dispatching Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US proved an embarrassing misstep for the British government. But have political appointments to Washington ever been successful? Longstanding British diplomat Lord Peter Ricketts runs the rule over three political appointees who enjoyed various degrees of success – or ignominy – in Washington

Three people are positioned in front of a large American flag. The central figure, shown in colour, wears a suit, glasses, and a patterned tie, resting a hand near the chin. Two grayscale figures stand behind on either side, both dressed formally.

Published: June 1, 2026 at 2:40 PM

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The prime minister decides that he wants a different sort of person as ambassador in Washington – not a career diplomat, but someone with a wider experience and sharper communication skills. His choice is controversial, but he presses ahead anyway. The new ambassador doesn’t last long, and the story does not end well.

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This may sound all too familiar. However, the man in this telling is not Lord Peter Mandelson but Peter Jay, appointed to the role in 1977 by his father-in-law, Labour PM James Callaghan.

Jay was well-known as a brilliant if caustic economics editor of The Times. The appointment was widely criticised as an example of nepotism, and because Jay had no relevant credentials for the role. History never provides exact parallels. Jay was not forced out of the job by scandal in the way Mandelson was. But his time in office was marred by well-publicised marital problems.

In the US, an incoming president routinely fills the top diplomatic jobs with his own appointees. Practice is very different in the UK, where prime ministers only rarely use their power to make political appointments, and there have only been a handful in the past 20 years.

A row of Daily Mail newspapers on a shop shelf, with front‑page headlines about Peter Mandelson’s arrest and a banner promoting the paper’s new Crime Desk section.

UK newspapers report on Peter Mandelson’s downfall, February 2026. Choosing the correct ambassador is a tricky business – and can backfire (Image by Getty Images)

Risky gambits

I have found from my experience, including as head of the Diplomatic Service, that they can work, but they are always risky. This is not just because someone who has risen to prominence in another walk of life brings their past with them – which can be disastrous, as the Mandelson case has shown. It is also that the temperament and talents needed for a successful career in business or politics are not necessarily the same as those expected of a senior ambassador.

A political appointee needs to be adaptable enough to learn quickly some new skills that diplomats develop over their working life. These include the capacity to operate in a foreign culture and the different attitude to risk that comes from being the sovereign’s representative as well as the government’s. The individual also needs to bring something special that fits the needs of the moment, and which a career diplomat could not match.

An example of what I would consider a successful political appointment is John Major’s choice of Chris Patten (now Lord Patten) as governor of Hong Kong in 1992. His mission was to steer the colony through the final anxious years of British sovereignty before the handover to China in 1997. Patten was a senior minister, and a close confidant of the prime minister, who brought political skills essential to navigating that difficult period while fully respecting the constitutional role of governor.

There have only been four political appointments as British ambassador to the US since the Second World War: Lord Halifax in 1940, David Ormsby-Gore in 1961, Peter Jay, and the fateful choice of Lord Mandelson in 2025. They have all attracted particular scrutiny, because Washington is the most prestigious job in the Diplomatic Service, fronting the UK’s relations with our most important military and economic ally. And they provide interesting case studies in what makes a successful political appointment.

Churchill’s choice

When Winston Churchill became prime minister in May 1940, he followed Lloyd George’s example in the First World War of sending vexatious political colleagues to some of the key ambassadorships. These included Sir Sam Hoare – a strongly pro-appeasement minister during the 1930s – to Madrid, and Sir Stafford Cripps, a radical socialist whom Churchill could not stand, to Moscow.

His most striking decision was to oust Lord Halifax from his crucial position as foreign secretary at the end of 1940 and dispatch him to Washington.

Lord (Edward) Halifax was the scion of a wealthy aristocratic family. He was first elected as a Conservative MP in 1910, before being elevated to the Lords to serve as Viceroy of India from 1925.

In the 1930s, he held a series of cabinet jobs, culminating in the foreign secretaryship in 1938, making him the natural choice as prime minister when Neville Chamberlain resigned in May 1940. However, in a famously tense meeting in the cabinet room, the diffident Halifax stood aside in favour of Churchill.

An older person sits at a dining table with tea, pastries, and a copy of The Times, in an elegant room with a fireplace and mirror behind them.

Lord Halifax sits down for breakfast, May 1941. The previous year, he had favoured Churchill as the next prime minister, despite being the “natural choice” himself, says Lord Ricketts (Image by Getty Images)

On the sudden death of the popular British ambassador in Washington, Lord Lothian, Churchill seized the opportunity to force the reluctant Halifax out of the Foreign Office and replace him with the more congenial Anthony Eden. Halifax and his wife set out in style for the US in early 1941, on board the battleship HMS King George V. President Roosevelt did them the signal honour of sailing out in his presidential yacht to greet them as they entered Chesapeake Bay.

The first months of Halifax’s tenure did not go well. Never a gregarious or informal man, his reserved manner came across as haughty and condescending. A series of gaffes turned the press against him, and he was much criticised for going on a day’s hunting in Pennsylvania with the Cheshire Hunt.

After a few months, Lady Halifax and some personal friends embarked on a campaign of “de-icing Edward”. He gradually learned to loosen up and adopt a more approachable style. His mission was also helped by the attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the US into the war. From then on, Britain and the US were firm allies, sharing the overriding goal of defeating Germany and Japan.

A large battleship is engulfed in flames and thick black smoke, with smaller boats close by on the water as the vessel shows severe damage.

American boats are destroyed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 1941. This pivotal point of the war helped Lord Halifax build firmer relations with the US (Image by Getty Images)

Halifax accepted that the important policy discussions would be undertaken directly between Churchill and Roosevelt, and that his most valuable contribution to the war effort would be to get out beyond Washington. He criss-crossed the country, visiting more states than any previous ambassador, tirelessly promoting the message of unity and purpose.

Halifax also proved an admirable leader of the vast British official presence in Washington. By the end of the war, this had swollen to around 9,000 civil servants and military personnel from every government department. Halifax’s long ministerial experience made him a highly effective chairman of this Whitehall on the Potomac.

His ambassadorship finished on a high. When the Attlee government came to power in July 1945, he was asked to stay on for a few months to oversee vital negotiations on a US loan to help Britain through the worst of its economic crisis. Lord Maynard Keynes came from London to cover the detail, while Halifax made the public case to Congress. Halifax retired in 1946 to a chorus of praise on both sides of the Atlantic.

Crucial crisis management

The next political appointment to Washington came about in a very different way. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan flew to Key West, Florida, in March 1961 for his first meeting with President John F Kennedy, a few weeks after the latter’s inauguration. When discussion turned to replacing the outgoing British ambassador, Sir Harold Caccia, Kennedy pressed hard for David Ormsby-Gore, who was then a junior minister in Macmillan’s government.

Ormsby-Gore came from a distinguished political family, was Eton-educated, and wore his intelligence lightly. He first met John F Kennedy when they were students in 1938. Kennedy was visiting his father Joe, the US ambassador in London, and Ormsby-Gore was a friend of Kennedy’s sister, Kathleen. The two young men found that they shared not just a passion for socialising but also a deep interest in politics as storm clouds gathered over Europe.

Two people in formal suits shake hands in an elegant room, smiling as one holds a stack of papers.

Ambassador Ormsby-Gore and US President John F Kennedy meet at the White House. Life-long friends, the pair had an excellent working relationship – with Ormsby-Gore becoming one of Kennedy’s most trusted advisers (Image by Alamy)

They remained close friends and, when Macmillan agreed to send Ormsby-Gore to Washington, he immediately joined the new president’s trusted inner circle of advisers. This proved crucial during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

Kennedy valued Ormsby-Gore’s advice so much that the latter became a de facto member of the president’s executive committee handling the crisis, thus privy to all intelligence on Khrushchev’s extraordinary decision to bring Soviet ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads to a series of bases just 90 miles from Florida.

The ambassador was able to keep Macmillan discreetly briefed on Kennedy’s thinking, which in turn enabled Macmillan to offer well-judged advice as Kennedy grappled with the appalling dilemma of how to remove the Soviet threat without pitching the world into nuclear war.

Ormsby-Gore made his own personal contribution to the crisis management when, at a particularly tense moment, he suggested that the US quarantine zone around Cuba should be reduced to give the Kremlin more time to decide whether to turn around their ships and so begin a de-escalation.

Ormsby-Gore was also at the heart of the policy discussions in both capitals leading up to Kennedy’s historic decision in 1962 that Britain should have the Polaris nuclear missile system, thereby creating the strategic nuclear partnership that continues to this day.

He stayed on as ambassador after Kennedy’s assassination, though his relationship with Lyndon B Johnson was never as close. In 1965, Ormsby-Gore resigned and took a seat in the House of Lords, having inherited the title of Lord Harlech from his father the previous year.

“Outrageously pro-American”

The appointment of Peter Jay in 1977 was not the idea of the Carter administration. In fact, they thought highly of the then ambassador, Sir Peter Ramsbotham. It was, in fact, the foreign secretary, David Owen – a friend of Jay – who persuaded Callaghan to take the risk of appointing his son-in-law.

“I believe we need an ambassador from a different generation, and in Peter Jay I believe we have one of the most outstanding men of his generation,” Owen wrote to his US counterpart, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, adding that Jay was “outrageously pro-American”.

An adult in a light suit and cap bends down to show something to a group of children gathered around him.

Peter Jay visits a London school shortly after his appointment as ambassador, July 1977. Despite being successful in the role, Jay’s personal problems eclipsed much of his work (Image by Topfoto)

Jay proved to be an effective ambassador in the parts of the job that played to his strengths. He travelled widely, using his economic know-how to urge American companies to invest in the UK. He also took a close interest in the Northern Ireland issue, lobbying senior Irish–American figures such as Senator Edward Kennedy, Speaker Tip O’Neill and Governor Carey of New York to oppose the flow of American funds to the IRA, which fell by around 75 per cent during Jay’s tenure.

However, Jay’s time in Washington was overshadowed by his wife Margaret’s very public affair with journalist Carl Bernstein, famous for his part in exposing the Watergate scandal. Jay himself had an affair with his children’s nanny, and was later involved in a widely reported paternity suit during which he accepted that he was the father of the young woman’s child. Jay resigned when the Callaghan government fell at the 1979 election, and returned to his career in the media.

Inspired, important, awkward

The first two of these political appointments to Washington meet my criteria for success. After a rocky start, Lord Halifax proved to be an inspired choice for an exceptional moment in history. His status as a senior political figure gave him the authority and experience to speak for Churchill and his cabinet across the whole breadth of the wartime relationship.

Thanks to David Ormsby-Gore’s longstanding friendship with Kennedy, that he was included in the president’s innermost counsels as the world came closer to nuclear war than at any time before or since. Both men brought skills and experience that no career diplomat could match.

This is less clear in the case of Peter Jay. He used his journalistic talents to good effect in some areas, but overall I doubt he was more effective than a top-flight diplomat would have been. And his disorderly private life undermined his status as ambassador.

Two individuals in dark suits are in the Oval Office. One sits at the Resolute Desk wearing a red‑and‑white striped tie, while the other stands nearby. Behind them are gold curtains, large windows showing greenery, and several flags including the presidential seal and military flags.

Donald Trump and Peter Mandelson at a trade agreement announcement in the Oval Office, May 2025. Mandelson’s appointment was the result of “a spectacularly bad judgement”, writes Ricketts (Image by Getty Images)

As for Peter Mandelson, the warning signs were all there. Before he was chosen in December 2024, the Trump team had made it known that they wanted Dame Karen Pierce to stay on as ambassador – a mirror image of the Ormsby-Gore case. It was well known that Mandelson carried a lot of baggage from his past, including his links with Jeffrey Epstein.

There were also good reasons to question whether he had the right temperament for the role. One Downing Street adviser commented to the Financial Times that the reason for the choice was that “Mandelson was seen as the best person to go into the bear pit” of Trump’s White House. That turned out to be a spectacularly bad judgement.

There is a lot to be said for leaving diplomacy to diplomats.

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Peter Ricketts was a diplomat for 40 years and served as Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, National Security Adviser and Ambassador to France. He is a member of the House of Lords and a frequent commentator on international affairs. His latest book is Peace Makers: The Men and Women of the Foreign Office in World War II (Aurum, 2026)

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