Word: gilchrist
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...with Britain, which is pledged to defend Malaysia, government troops in Djakarta barred British diplomats from entering their embassy, gutted fortnight ago by an unchecked mob. The guards even tried to break into the embassy's fireproof code room until they were stopped by tough, stocky Ambassador Andrew Gilchrist, who forced his way into the embassy and stood guard over the strong room himself...
...then turned its fury on the British embassy in nearby Friendship Square. They ripped down sections of the iron fence around the building and shattered its modernistic glass facade under a hail of stones. The rioters tore the Union Jack from its flagpole and set fire to Ambassador Andrew Gilchrist's Rolls-Royce...
Dodging stones, a British military attaché showed his contempt for the mob by parading in front of the embassy playing his bagpipes. In his glass-strewn office, Ambassador Gilchrist finally received a delegation of the rioters. A blunt, spade-bearded Scot who once dispersed an anti-British mob in Iceland by playing Chopin records from a phonograph set in his office window, Gilchrist explained to the rioters that the United Nations had sanctioned Malaysia, dismissed them with a contemptuous "Hidup [long live] U Thant...
...finish the job it started. Some 10,000 rioters, many of whom arrived in government trucks, poured into the embassy, smashed everything smashable, then set it afire. A fire engine dispatched to the scene was seized by the rioters and driven away. As smoke curled through the building, Gilchrist sent one last cable to the Foreign Office in London. "Building on fire. Got to leave now. Goodbye. Gilchrist Ambassador...
...Djakarta, Ambassador Gilchrist recommended that British dependents be flown to safety in Singapore, and in London, the Foreign Office threatened to break diplomatic ties with Indonesia unless it guaranteed to protect British lives and property. Both Britain and Australia pledged military aid to Malaysia if Indonesia stirred up any trouble-as it had threatened-along the jungle border separating Sarawak and North Borneo from Indonesian Borneo...