Letters from Mongolia - Tapa dura

The ways of the Foreign Office are mysterious: "the FO is sometimes like the army: if you belong to a minority faith you can be dismissed from church parade and sent on an obscure fatigue". Reginald Hibbert had read Russian at Oxford and it was thus he found himself resident Charge d'Affaires at Ulan Bator in the Mongolian Peoples' Republic from 1964 to 1967. The Hibberts travelled to Mongolia to become the first Westerners resident there at the height of the Cold War among a diplomatic corps consisting entirely of representatives from eastern Europe and Asia. Letters from Mongolia is a vivid chronicle of the authors' experiences and an invaluable insight into the country in which they served.

Reginald and Ann Hibbert served throughout the world in postings from Guatemala and Turkey to Belgium. Reginald Hibbert had a distinguished career in the Foreign Office, where he became Deputy Under Secretary of State and was later appointed Ambassador to France. He was awarded the CMG in 1966, was knighted in 1979 and became a Knight Grand Cross in 1982.