 As Ambassador, in 1989, he attempted to personally send a letter to the dissident Doina Cornea at her home in the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.Securitate officers prevented him to do this, "pushing and manhandling" him, a behaviour that Britain described as "outrageous".The official response of the Romanian authorities was that Hugh Arbuthnott "infringed traffic regulations" and that Cornea's activities were an internal matter of Romania.