In his days as professor of physical sciences in Madrid, Javier Solana did not think much of Nato.
He only changed his mind ten years before becoming its general secretary.
For a long time an outspoken opponent of the organisation, he opposed Spain's membership in a referendum as recently as 1982, when he was minister of culture and government spokesman in the Spanish parliament. But once Spain was in, he campaigned for it to stay there in a further referendum three years later.
Spain's decision to stay out of Nato's integrated military structure meant it was considered odd when Solana was given the job of general secretary in December 1995 after weeks of wrangling over who should replace the disgraced Willy Claes. Critics said he was only granted the post because Nato members could not agree on anyone else.
Born in Madrid in 1942, the grandson of Salvador de Madariaga, Spain's delegate at the League of Nations, he was educated at the Colegio del Pilar, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
He won a Fulbright scholarship to study physical sciences in the United States until 1968 before returning to Spain to lecture. He joined the Universidad Aut"noma de Madrid, where his contract was cancelled for political reasons.
In 1973, while a lecturer in solid-state physics at the Complutense University, he joined the Young Socialists, which was then a clandestine organisation. Two years later he was made a professor.
Elected to the Cortes as a Socialist deputy in 1977, he has been a member of every Spanish parliament since then. He served as minister of education and science between 1988 and 1992 and then as foreign minister.
Called "one of Europe's great leaders" by President Clinton, he has been tipped in the past as a possible Spanish prime minister and, more recently, as a possible future president of the European Commission.