Bernard Burrows

Sir Bernard Alexander Brocas Burrows, GCMG (3 July 1910 – 7 May 2002) was a British diplomat. Career Burrows studied at Eton College and Trinity College in Oxford. In 1934, after two years spent learning languages in France, Austria and Italy, he entered the Diplomatic Service. He was posted to Cairo in 1938 where he served throughout the Second World War and where he met his future wife Ines, the daughter of John Walter, co-proprietor of The Times. They were married in 1944, and the next year he was posted back to London. He served as the head of the Foreign Office's eastern department in 1947–1949. In this position he advocated for Transjordan's invasion of Palestine which, in his view, "would have immense strategic advantages for us, both in cutting the Jewish State … off from the Red Sea and by extending up to the Mediterranean the area in which our military and political influence is predominant". In 1950, Bernard Burrows went to British Embassy in Washington D.C. as the Head of Chancery, at the same time as Guy Burgess. He became Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, based in Bahrain, in 1953, handling relations with Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the seven Trucial States. Burrows expressed his disagreement with British foreign policy over Suez and was frustrated by the inadequate communication from his headquarters (he was never consulted by London about the regional repercussions of the operation), bringing him close to resignation.