Walter Haydon - The Blundering Diplomat

AN irritant in Anglo Irish relations at present is the personality of the British ambassador, Walter Haydon. Jack Lynch cannot abide the man, all because of an incident at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

Lynch then had an informal meeting with Ted Heath, who was then British Prime Minister. The meeting was reasonnably cordial and both later went off to watch the athletics. However the followwing morning's British press was full of stories of Lynch being dressed down by Heath allegedly because of the Irish Covernment.'s security record, It was a completely distorted account of the meeting,

The man Lynch blames for all this is none other than Walter Haydon, who was then Ted Heath's press secretary and who was responsible for briefing journalists on the content of the meeting.