Paul Bergne

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Alexander Paul A'Court Bergne CBE (9 January 1937 – 5 April 2007) was a British diplomat and historian who studied Central Asia. His mother was Diana Holman-Hunt, a writer and art critic, and his great-grandfather was William Holman Hunt, a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He went to Winchester College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied Economics, Archaeology, and Anthropology. He also earned an MA in Persian language and literature from the School of Oriental and African Studies, and learned Arabic at the Middle East Centre for Arabic Studies. Bergne spent 30 years in the Secret Intelligence Service, then moved to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He was the first British ambassador to Uzbekistan (1993–95) and Tajikistan (1994–95) after the Soviet Union fell. In 2001 he led a mission to northern Afghanistan to meet anti-Taliban leaders. He died of cancer in 2007.