Laurence O'Keeffe
Peter Laurence O'Keeffe
Career
O'Keeffe was educated at
He was then posted to New York City as director of the then British Information Services, which was "an extension of the press and public affairs section of the British Embassy in Washington, located in New York because of the city's pre-eminence as a media centre. Its role [was] to explain developments in British Government policies and society to people and organisations throughout the United States."[1] O'Keefe fought to save the BIS from changes proposed by the ambassador Peter Jay but left New York in 1978; The Times reported that the dispute with Mr Jay had cost him his post[2] although the Foreign Office claimed that his departure was routine.[3]
O'Keefe was then posted as Counsellor to the embassy at
In 1988 O'Keefe was appointed to his final diplomatic post as ambassador to Czechoslovakia. "O'Keeffe arrived in a country on the brink of change. He was fortunate to have been introduced to most of the leading dissidents, so by the time of the Velvet Revolution he knew personally all the main actors in Prague and Bratislava. ... In the wave of Anglophilia that swept over post-revolutionary Czechoslovakia his official car was greeted by cheering crowds who saw him as a symbol of liberty."[5] He retired in 1991.
Laurence O'Keefe was appointed CVO in 1974
Publications
(as Laurence Halley)
- Simultaneous Equations, Jonathan Cape, London, 1975. ISBN 022401160X
- Ancient Affections: Ethnic Groups and Foreign Policy, Praeger, New York, 1985. ISBN 0030025745
- Abiding City, Bodley Head, London, 1986. ISBN 0370307305
References
- O’KEEFFE, (Peter) Laurence, Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007, accessed 27 May 2012
- Obituary: Laurence O'Keeffe, The Telegraph, London, 12 June 2003
- ^ "Britain in the USA: British Information Services". Archived from the original on 5 December 1998. Retrieved 27 May 2012.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link), British Embassy in Washington DC, 5 December 1998 (retrieved on 26 May 2012) - ^ "Dispute with Mr Jay costs information chief his US post", The Times, London, 8 July 1978, page 1
- ^ "Information chief 'was due to leave New York'", The Times, London, 11 July 1978, page 6
- ^ "Latest appointments", The Times, London, 15 July 1982, page 12
- ^ Obituary: Laurence O'Keeffe, The Telegraph, London, 12 June 2003
- ^ "No. 46280". The London Gazette. 3 May 1974. p. 5486.
- ^ "No. 49375". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 June 1983. p. 4.
External links
- Interview with Peter Laurence O'Keeffe & transcript, British Diplomatic Oral History Programme, Churchill College, Cambridge, 1998