Pavel Seifter was Czech ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1997 until his retirement in 2003. A lecturer in labour and social history in Prague, he was forced to leave his post after the Soviet invasion. He then worked as a window cleaner for twenty years, before becoming a key member of the Civic Forum movement, which led to the return from totalitarianism to democratic values in Czechoslovakia. He subsequently served as deputy director of the Institute of Contemporary History and then as the deputy director of the Institute of International Relations in Prague. He was appointed as Director of Foreign Policy to the President in 1993. He is currently a visiting research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, LSE.