Reader Bullard

Sir Reader William Bullard (5 December 1885 – 24 May 1976) was a British diplomat and author.

Education Reader Bullard was born in Walthamstow, the son of Charles, a dock labourer, and Mary Bullard. He was educated at the Monoux School there and later at Bancroft's School, Woodford Green, northeast London, and spent two years studying at Queens' College, Cambridge. He entered the Levant (Western Asia) Consular Service of the Foreign Office in 1906.

Career Bullard held various diplomatic positions during his career:

1920: Military Governor, Baghdad, Iraq 1921: Middle East Department, Colonial Office 1923–25: Consul, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia 1925–28: Consul, Athens, Greece 1928: Consul, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 1930: Consul General, Moscow, Russia 1931–34: Leningrad, Russia 1934: Rabat, Morocco 1936–39: Minister, Jedda, Saudi Arabia 1939–46: Minister and later Ambassador, Tehran, Iran

In Eastern Approaches, Fitzroy Maclean describes how Bullard and General Joseph Baillon, the Chief of Staff, requested him to kidnap a powerful Iranian. They were concerned about the influence of Fazlollah Zahedi, the general in charge of the Iranian forces in the Isfahan area, who, their intelligence told them, was stockpiling grain, liaising with German agents, and preparing an uprising. Baillon and Bullard asked Maclean to remove Zahidi alive and without creating a fuss, and so he did so. (Zahedi spent the rest of the war in British Palestine; five years later he was back in charge of the military of southern Iran, by 1953 he was prime minister.)

In 1951, Bullard became Director of the Institute of Colonial Studies in Oxford. In 1953, he became a member of the governing body of School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

Bullard was appointed Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) in 1916, Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1933, Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 1936, and Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in 1944. Bullard's papers have been archived by St Antony's College, Oxford.

Works Bullard published a number of books, including Britain and the Middle East (Hutchinson, 1951) and his autobiography The Camels Must Go: An Autobiography (Faber, 1961). The diaries that he kept during his time in the Soviet Union were published posthumously, under the title Inside Stalin's Russia (Day Books, 2000).

See also Margaret Bullard - Bootstraps: A Memoir of Reader William Bullard (MPG Books Group, 2008)