Crucial job in difficult times
Stafford eventually quit journalism to become the press spokesman for Lord Carrington, who had taken up the role of Secretary General of Nato.
The work based in Belgium was more structured and office-based, but not without its moments of tension as the world struggled to leave the Cold War behind.
When he left office in June 1988, a grateful Carrington wrote on a photo he gave to Stafford: “To Robin – without whose professionalism and friendship I would have been lost. Carrington.”
Stafford stayed on to assist the next Secretary General, the German diplomat Manfred Wörner, and the pair made a ground-breaking visit to Moscow, where one of the tasks was to lay a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
One of the Russian delegates told Stafford: “When you were here as a journalist, we thought you were a spy.
“Now you have come from Nato, we know you are.”
This assumption was untrue.