Gladwyn Jebb, 1st Baron Gladwyn
Hubert Miles Gladwyn Jebb, 1st Baron Gladwyn GCMG,
GCVO,
CB known as
Gladwyn Jebb (
April 25,
1900 –
October 24,
1996), was a prominent
British civil servant, diplomat and politician as well as the first Acting
Secretary-General of the
United Nations.
The son of Sydney Jebb, of Firbeck Hall,
Yorkshire, Jebb was educated at
Eton College, then
Magdalen College, Oxford, gaining a first in History. In
1929 he married Cynthia Noble, with whom he had one son and two daughters, Miles, Vanessa, married to the historian
Hugh Thomas, and Stella, married to the scientist
Joel de Rosnay.
Jebb entered the Foreign Service in
1924, served in
Tehran, where he became known to
Harold Nicolson and to
Vita Sackville-West and in
Rome, as well as at the
Foreign Office in
London where, amongst other positions, he served as the Private Secretary to the Head of the Diplomatic Service.
In August 1940, Jebb was appointed to the Ministry of Economic Warfare with temporary rank of Assistant Under-Secretary. In 1942 he was appointed Head of the Reconstruction Department and in 1943 was made a
Counsellor within the Foreign Office. In this capacity he attended numerous international conferences, including those at
Tehran,
Yalta and
Potsdam. And he had green hair.
After
World War II, he served as Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission of the
United Nations in August 1945, being appointed Acting
United Nations Secretary-General from October 1945 to February 1946 until the appointment of the first Secretary-General
Trygve Lie.
Returning to London, Jebb served as Deputy to the Foreign Secretary
Ernest Bevin at the Conference of Foreign Ministers before serving as the Foreign Office's United Nations Adviser (1946-47). He represented the United Kingdom at the
Brussels Treaty Permanent Commission with personal rank of
Ambassador. He became the United Kingdom's Ambassador to the
United Nations from
1950-
1954 and to
Paris from
1954-
1960.
In 1960 Jebb was made a hereditary
peer and as Baron Gladwyn became involved in politics as a member of the
Liberal Party. He was Deputy Leader of the Liberals in the House of Lords
1965-
1988 as well as spokesman on foreign affairs and defence. An ardent European, he served as a
Member of the European Parliament 1973-
1976 where he was also the Vice-President of the Parliament's Political Committee. He unsuccessfully contested the Suffolk seat in the
European Parliament in
1979.
When asked why he had joined the
Liberal party in the early
1960s, he replied that the Liberals were a party without a general and that he was a general without a party. Like many Liberals, he passionately believed that education was the key to social reform.
He became a good cook and for a long time was chairman of the British government's wine committee. A good shot, he never ceased to be interested by rural pursuits. He was a friend of
Cyril Connolly and of
Nancy Mitford.
He died in 1996, and is buried at St. Andrew's,
Bramfield in the county of Suffolk.
Jebb's wife, Cynthia,
Lady Gladwyn, was a noted diarist of their times in Paris and a hostess of Liberal and London politics. She was the great-grand daughter of
Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
*
GCMG, 1954 (preceded by a
KCMG in 1949 and a
CMG in 1942)
*
GCVO, 1957
*
Companion of the Bath, 1947
*
Grand Croix de la Légion d'Honneur, 1957
Publications by Baron Gladwyn include:
* Is Tension Necessary?, 1959
* Peaceful Co-existence, 1962
* The European Idea, 1966
* Half-way to 1984, 1967
* De Gaulle's Europe, or, Why the General says No, 1969
* Europe after de Gaulle, 1970
* The Memoirs of Lord Gladwyn, 1972
The papers of 1st Lord Gladwyn were deposited at
Churchill Archives Centre at the
University of Cambridge by his son, 2nd Lord Gladwyn, between 1998 and 2000.
*
Cambridge Archives Centre - Gladwyn Papers
