Returning to the UK in 1946, Mackintosh resumed his studies at Glasgow, graduating with a first class degree in History and
Russian in 1948. For the next 12 years he worked as a programme organiser in the
BBC Overseas Service's Bulgarian and
Albanian section. On graduating he had turned down the offer of a job with the
Foreign Office, but he was employed by them as an interpreter in 1955 and 1956, when
Marshal Bulganin and
Nikita Khrushchev visited Britain. In 1960 he joined the
Foreign Office as an intelligence analyst. In 1968 he was appointed to the
Cabinet Office as senior adviser on Soviet affairs. In 1973 he was a member of the delegation that visited the Soviet Union with foreign secretary
Alec Douglas-Home, being described by Soviet officials as a
falsifier of history - a description for which he received an apology after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He retired in 1987, amongst his final achievements having been as one of the advisers who persuaded
Margaret Thatcher that it would be possible to "do business with"
Mikhail Gorbachev. In retirement he continued to lecture and write, and took up a number of academic appointments, including at
St Andrew's University,
King's College, London and the
International Institute of Strategic Studies. ==Publications==