Radek Sikorski: a Spectator foreign correspondent made good

Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, is undoubtedly one of the most dashing figures on the world stage. I first met him in the mid-1980s, possibly when I was a guest of the Oxford Union and Radek who, I seem to remember, was wearing white tie and tails, was on the standing committee. At that time, he was a refugee from communist Poland, having helped organise resistance to martial law, and — though I did not know it then — a member of that nursery of world rulers, the Bullingdon Club. I made him The Spectator’s Afghanistan correspondent and he filed brave and fascinating reports from within the ranks of the mujahedin. In his mind, the Soviets’ retreat from Afghanistan was a dummy run for getting them out of eastern Europe. In this publication in April 1990, he described how he had just bought a ruined country house and estate in Poland and would restore it.