Two Obituaries of Peter Hayman, Senior Diplomat, MI6 Officer and PIE Member

Below are two obituaries of Sir Peter Hayman (1914-1992), the diplomat who was named by Geoffrey Dickens named using Parliamentary Privilege in 1981 as a contributing member of PIE. Hayman left 45 volumes of diaries detailing his sexual experiences. The Attorney General who failed to prosecute Hayman on grounds of his PIE involvement, Sir Michael Havers, died just five days before Hayman himself.

The Times

April 9, 1992, Thursday

Sir Peter Hayman

Sir Peter (Telford) Hayman, KCMG, CVO, MBE, High Commissioner in Canada, 1970-74, died on April 6 aged 77. He was born on June 14, 1914.
DURING a distinguished diplomatic career Peter Hayman held a series of sensitive senior posts culminating in his appointment as High Commissioner to Ottawa. The lustre of his achievements was sadly tarnished in 1981, however, seven years after his retirement, when he was named in the House of Commons, under the cloak of parliamentary privilege, as a member of a child pornography ring. Geoffrey Dickens, the Conservative MP alleged that Haymen’s involvement in the case had been the subject of a serious cover-up and argued that because of his work at the Foreign Office and defence ministry, his involvement had laid him open to blackmail and thus made him a security risk.

Mr Dickens’s question brought accusations from Sir Michael Havers, the Attorney-General, among others, that Mr Dickens had misused the protection of parliamentary privilege. Although there was criticism of the authorities for allowing Hayman the protection of a pseudonym during the prosecution of other members of the ring, there was also sympathy for the disgrace he suffered.

High points in his diplomatic service had included acting as political adviser in 1958 to the Governor of Malta, Sir Robert Laycock, during the state of emergency following anti-British strikes and rioting on the island; serving as deputy commandant and minister in the British sector of West Berlin from 1964 to 1966; and appointment, for three years from 1961, to the post of director-general of the British Information Services in New York with the task of explaining British policies to the American media.

For two years from 1968 he was deputy under-secretary at the Foreign Office with responsibility for the departments dealing with the United Nations and Eastern Europe. He was appointed High Commissioner to Ottawa during the high state of tension following the kidnapping, by Quebec separatists, of James Cross, the British Trade Commissioner. His appointment at such a time was seen to reflect the high regard with which he was held. He was knighted in 1971.

Hayman was educated at Stowe and Worcester College, Oxford. In November 1937 he joined the Home Office as an assistant principal. From 1942 until 1945 he served with the Rifle Brigade, ending with the rank of major. After the war he had a further spell at the Home Office, but became an assistant secretary in the Ministry of Defence in November 1950. He was then seconded, in May 1952, for service with the British delegation to Nato in Paris, after which in April 1954 he was appointed a member of the Foreign Service.

After a year at the Foreign Office, he was transferred to Belgrade for three years, becoming counsellor and acting as charge d’affaires during this posting, after which he was given the special task of acting as information advisor to the Governor of Malta, Sir Robert Laycock. This appointment was made immediately after anti-British riots and strikes in Malta in April 1958, during a state of emergency.

He carried out his exacting task with characteristic good humour and efficiency, and was then transferred as counsellor and head of chancery to Baghdad in June 1959, where he again acted at times as charge d’affaires.

By this time his genial and sanguine approach to the problems with which he was confronted, had earned him the reputation of being particularly effective in the public relations field, and in September 1961 he was appointed director-general of the British Information Services in New York. He was made a CMG in 1963 and in 1966 was given increased responsibility as deputy commandant of the British sector of West Berlin. Hayman was serving in West Berlin during the Queen’s visit to Germany in 1965 and was awarded the CVO after it.

Hayman then returned in 1968 to the Foreign Office as deputy under-secretary with responsibility for the Departments dealing with the United Nations and Eastern Europe until he was appointed in 1970 to be High Commissioner in Canada. In Ottawa Hayman was fully extended in the face of the idiosyncrasies and difficulties of the government of Pierre Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, and his period as High Commissioner included the Commonwealth summit conference in Ottawa in 1973.

His retirement, taken in 1974, was damagingly disrupted when it became known that a quantity of pornographic literature had been discovered in the flat which he had rented in Linden Gardens, Notting Hill. The discovery took place during a police raid in connexion with enquiries into the Paedophile Information Exchange of which he had been a corresponding member. At subsequent hearings Hayman’s name was not disclosed, but amid accusations of a cover-up he was later named in Parliament. He had meanwhile resigned from his various appointments.

The group published a contact magazine carrying advertisements from men seeking sex with children. Hayman’s secret life was discovered when a packet addressed to ”Mr Henderson” at his Notting Hill flat was found on a London bus and given to the police. The flat was raided in November 1978 and police found a mass of pornographic material including photographs of prostitutes and letters from other members of the paedophile group. There were also 45 volumes of diaries kept by Hayman including entries relating sexual experiences or fantasies. Police interviewd him and others identified with the material but it was decided not to prosecute because there was no evidence of any offence other than possibly one of sending indecent material through the post. Hayman escaped with a caution until three years later when the magazine Private Eye drew attention to the involvement in the ring of ”a senior civil servant”.

Three years after his exposure in the Commons, Hayman suffered further disgrace when he was fined Pounds 100 for an act of gross indecency with a lorry-driver in a public lavatory in Reading.

Hayman is survived by Lady Hayman, formerly Miss Rosemary Eardley Blomefield, whom he had married in 1942, and their son and daughter.

The Independent (London)

April 11, 1992, Saturday

Obituary: Sir Peter Hayman

BYLINE: By DENIS GREENHILL

Peter (Telford) Hayman, diplomat, born 14 June 1914, Assistant Principal Home Office 1937-39, Ministry of Home Security 1939-41, Assistant Private Secretary to Home Secretary 1941-42, Principal Home Office 1942, 1945-49, Personal Assistant to Chief Staff Officer to the Minister MOD 1949-52, Assistant Secretary MOD 1950, UK Delegation to Nato 1952-54, Foreign Office 1954, Counsellor Belgrade 1955-58, temporary assignment to Malta 1958, Counsellor Baghdad 1959-61, Director General of British Information Services New York 1961-64, CMG 1963, CVO 1965, Minister and Deputy Commandant British Military Government in Berlin 1964-66, Assistant Undersecretary FO 1966-69, Deputy Under Secretary of State FCO 1969-70, High Commissioner in Canada 1970-74, KCMG 1971, married 1942 Rosemary Blomefield (one son, one daughter), died 6 April 1992.

FEW THINGS are sadder than the spectacle of an active and distinguished public career ruined by self-inflicted disgrace. This was the case with the diplomat Sir Peter Hayman. Enough publicity has been given to his involvement in a Paedophile Information exchange, revealed by documents left on a bus. A subsequent offence of gross indecency added to the shame.

Hayman was educated at Stowe and Worcester College, Oxford. Many of his contemporaries became notable public men and Hayman’s abilities gave an assurance of an equally distinguished career. In the Second World War he served with the Rifle Brigade, ending with the rank of major.
After the war he returned to the Home Office where he had started his civil service career. Later he moved to the Ministry of Defence and the British delegation to Nato then being established in Paris. In 1954 he transferred to the Foreign Service. These moves suited better his strong personality and his authoritative manner. He served first in Belgrade and then, unusually, as information adviser to Sir Robert Laycock, the Governor of Malta at a time of some unrest on the island. His success and self-assurance made him a highly suitable choice for Director-General of the British Information Service in New York. He was awarded the CMG in 1963 and transferred to West Berlin as Deputy Commandant of the British Sector.

In 1968 he was back in London as a Deputy Under-Secretary in the Foreign Office, dealing with the United Nations and Eastern Europe. He was soon ready for his own Mission abroad but was working well with George Brown and Michael Stewart who both, as Foreign Secretaries, appreciated his readiness to take initiatives and plead his case with vigour.

In 1970 he was appointed High Commissioner in Ottawa. He made many friends and had some critics there, and sometimes the Canadian government found him somewhat intrusive. But his merits outweighed his faults and it was appropriate to have a Head of Mission whose presence was felt by the Trudeau Government.

After his retirement in 1974 he started out on a commercial career, but this came abruptly to a halt with the offences referred to above. This fatal setback ruined his role in local politics, no doubt to his great disappointment. He was unable to re-establish himself but some felt he showed insensitivity. Later he was dogged by ill health. His wife strongly supported him in his diplomatic career and stood by him in his dark days.

---