Sir Humphrey Trevelyan 1967 at Khormaksar Airmen's Quarters

I do not know if Trevelyan grasped from the beginning that his real task would be just to get the British army and civilian officials out with the minimum bloodshed. I suspect he did, because he was extraordinarily acute and the minister who appointed him, George Brown, was of the school that saw no future at all in Britain’s presence in Arabia.

Trevelyan, a veteran of the Indian Political Service and a former Ambassador in Moscow (and avid reader of Pushkin), was a truly great man, shrewd and kind, leader, manager and tactician. Some examples: relations between Government House and the military were traditionally tense, so on his second day in Aden Trevelyan overrode protocol and insisted on visiting the Commander in Chief in his headquarters; so simple the gesture, so great the benefit! He seems to have been the only official in the Foreign Office who understood that a clear decision from George Brown at breakfast was worth any amount of fuddled discussion later in the drinking day.