Harold Huyton ('Tim') Francis: 1 May 1928-2 January 2016.

• Author: Ricketts, Rita
• Position: Obituary

Public coverage of the death of Harold Huyton Francis, known as Tim, aged 87, has celebrated his distinguished diplomatic career. Early postings took him to London and Washington. He was high commissioner to Singapore (1970-73), permanent representative at the United Nations (1978--82) and ambassador to the United States (1988-92). Born in England, Tim came to New Zealand at the age of two with his solo mother. Against the odds, she must have nurtured his love of literature and learning. Emerging as a promising scholar, he refused a PhD place at Oxford University and joined New Zealand's Department of External Affairs in 1954.

Tim Francis, reared by a generation of great foreign policy operators, such as Carl Berendsen, Frank Corner and Alister McIntosh, was an adherent of the old-fashioned tradition of anonymity. It was in his nature to be self-effacing and to eschew the limelight. Although skilled in the art of the possible, he was not a man to be thwarted, even when facing the American government. We can see the background to this. He had been versed in the United States/New Zealand relationship by McIntosh, who, after the blockade of Berlin in 1948-49, conceded that New Zealand had to be at one with Western democracies standing up to Soviet Union. McIntosh reluctantly accepted the need for the ANZUS treaty (1951), later growing to acknowledge its importance.

In 1965, probably against his inclination, McIntosh advised Prime Minister Keith Holyoake--who was himself against participation--to 'deploy a token combat force' to assist the Americans in Vietnam, largely on the grounds that not to do so would jeopardise the ANZUS alliance. (1) As one of the doves in the department, Tim Francis warned against deployment. There appear to be no official records to support this, but his former boss Tom Larkin remembers Francis's finely penned drafts, full of 'clarity, candour, wit and grace', pressing non-intervention. (2) Although New Zealand in the end agreed to limited participation, the mould was broken. (3) After Vietnam, there was no longer consensus in New Zealand that America had to be followed come hell or high water.

When the rift came with the United States over the anti-nuclear legislation (passed in 1987), denying access for nuclear powered or armed war ships, Tim Francis was well prepared to go into bat for New Zealand. At his funeral, a eulogy, written by former Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer, honoured him for the crucial role he...