In the summer of 1945, after only a few months in post, he was invited to meet Ernest Bevin, the new Foreign Secretary. One of Britain’s earliest Cold Warriors, Bevin remarked over lunch: ‘Communists and communism are vile. It is the duty of all members of the service to stamp upon them at every possible opportunity.’ Elliott never forgot those words, for they mirrored the philosophy he would take into his new role.
