Gladwyn Jebb

Template:Short description Template:Lead too short Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox officeholder Hubert Miles Gladwyn Jebb, 1st Baron Gladwyn (25 April 1900 – 24 October 1996), was a prominent British civil servant, diplomat and politician who served as the acting secretary-general of the United Nations between 1945 and 1946.

Early life and career

The son of Sydney Gladwyn Jebb JP, of Firbeck Hall, Yorkshire (a grandson of Sir Joshua Jebb and a maternal nephew of the 5th and 6th Viscounts Melville), and Rose Eleanor Chichester (daughter of Maj.-Gen. Hugh Chichester), Jebb attended Sandroyd School and Eton College before graduating from Magdalen College, Oxford, with a first class honours degree in history.<ref name=SG>Sean Greenwood, Titan at the Foreign Office: Gladwyn Jebb and the shaping of the modern world (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2008), pp. 5–18.</ref>

Jebb entered the British Diplomatic Service in 1924 and served in Tehran, where he got to know Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West. He later served in Rome and at the Foreign Office in Westminster, where he served as Private Secretary to the Head of the Diplomatic Service.<ref name=SG/>

Personal life

In 1929, Jebb married Cynthia Noble, daughter of Sir Saxton Noble, 3rd Baronet. She was a granddaughter of the gun-developer Sir Andrew Noble, 1st Baronet, and a great-granddaughter of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The couple had three children, one son, Miles, and two daughters: Vanessa, who married the historian Hugh Thomas, and Stella, who married the scientist Joel de Rosnay and was the mother of the French writer Tatiana de Rosnay.<ref name=SG/>

Second World War

For part of the War of 1939 to 1945, Jebb left the Foreign Office to serve as the Chief Executive Officer for the Special Operations Executive,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> where he was from 1940 to 1942. On his return to the Foreign Office, Jebb asked to be posted to Madagascar, but this application was rejected, and he was sent to the Treasury for economic training.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Acting UN Secretary-General

After the Second World War, Jebb served as Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations in August 1945 and served as Acting United Nations Secretary-General from October 1945 to February 1946, when the first Secretary-General was appointed, Trygve Lie.<ref name=EB/>

Jebb remains the only UN Secretary-General or Acting Secretary-General to come from a permanent member state of the UN Security Council.<ref name=EB/>

Ambassador

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 (1946–1947). He represented the United Kingdom at the Brussels Treaty Permanent Commission with personal rank of ambassador.<ref name=EB/>

Jebb became the United Kingdom's Ambassador to the United Nations from 1950 to 1954 and to Paris from 1954 to 1960. He was the first permanent UN representative of the United Kingdom.<ref name=EB>Template:Cite web</ref> In the latter role, he was angered that secret negotiations between the British, French and Israelis in advance of the Suez invasion in 1956 took place at Sèvres without his knowledge and, in certain respects, that he was sidelined by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan at the Paris "big power" summit in 1960.<ref name=smac>Template:Cite book</ref>

Jebb's rather "grand" manner caused Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd to coin an epigram: "You're a deb, Sir Gladwyn Jebb".<ref name=smac/>

Political career

Jebb was knighted in 1949. On 12 April 1960 Jebb was created a hereditary peer and as Baron Gladwyn, of Bramfield in the County of Suffolk.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> He became involved in politics as a member of the Liberal Party. He was Deputy Leader of the Liberals in the House of Lords from 1965 to 1988 and spokesman on foreign affairs and defence. An ardent European, he served as a Member of the European Parliament from 1973 to 1976, where he was also the Vice-President of the Parliament's Political Committee. Jebb unsuccessfully contested the Suffolk seat in the European Parliament in 1979.<ref name=EB/>

When asked in the early 1960s why he had joined the Liberal Party, 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.<ref name=EB/>

Death

Jebb died on 24 October 1996 at the age of 96, the 51st anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. He is buried at St Andrew's Church, Bramfield in Suffolk.Template:Citation needed

Honours

• GCMG, 1954 (preceded by a [[Order of St Michael and St George|Template:Abbr]] in 1949 and a CMG in 1942)
• GCVO, 1957
• Companion of the Bath, 1947
• Grand Croix de la Légion d'Honneur, 1957

Publications and papers

Publications by Jebb include:

• Is Tension Necessary?, 1959
• Peaceful Coexistence, 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

Jebb's papers were deposited at the Churchill Archives Centre of the University of Cambridge by his son, Miles Jebb, 2nd Baron Gladwyn, between 1998 and 2000.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In popular culture

In an episode of The Goon Show broadcast on 16 February 1959 entitled "The Gold Plate Robbery", Major Bloodnok – in his rôle as 'the last British Ambassador in Marrakesh' – is heard to muse aloud "Now, for a kip on full Ambassador's pay. Gad! I wonder what old Gladwyn Jebb's doing".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>The Goon Show Site "The Goon Show Site - Script - The Gold Plate Robbery (Series 9, Episode 16)" Template:Webarchive Retrieved at 11.07 on Thursday 12/8/21.</ref>

Bibliography

• Template:Cite book

External links

• Cambridge Archives Centre – Gladwyn Papers
• Template:Internet Archive film clip