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British diplomat and writer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert Cecil CMG (25 March 1913 – 28 February 1994) was a British diplomat and writer.[1]
Born | Southbourne, Hampshire, England | 25 March 1913
---|---|
Died | 28 February 1994 80) | (aged
Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
Occupation(s) | Diplomat and writer |
Spouse | Kathleen Marindin |
Children | 1 son and 2 daughters |
Awards | Order of St Michael & St George |
Robert Cecil was born in Southbourne, a suburb of Bournemouth, Hampshire (now in Dorset) in southern England on 25 March 1913.[2][1] He was educated at Wellington College and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, graduating with a BA (Cantab) in 1935.[2] He married Kathleen Marindin in 1938, and they had one son and two daughters.[1]
He was seconded to Major General Sir Stewart Menzies, the wartime head of MI6, for two years during the war.[3] During his career in the diplomatic service, from 1945 to 1967, Cecil served in the Foreign Office; as First Secretary in Washington, D.C.; as a Counsellor and Consul General in Europe, as Director-General of British Information Services, and latterly as Head of the Cultural Relations Department at the Foreign Office.[1] He had been made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in the 1959 Birthday Honours.[1]
According to Cecil's obituary in The Independent, from childhood he had a close personal relationship with Donald Maclean, and the two both studied at Cambridge and worked together in the Foreign Office.[1] Maclean was a member of the Cambridge Five, who acted as spies for the Soviet Union.[1] There was some speculation that this relationship "cost [Cecil] the promotion to the highest echelons of the diplomatic service which his talents merited."[1] Cecil would later write a biography of Maclean.[1]
Cecil went on to become a reader in Contemporary German History at the University of Reading from 1968 to 1978, and chairman of the Graduate School of Contemporary European Studies from 1976 to 1978,[4] at the University of Reading. From 1968 to 1994 he was chairman of the London-based Institute for Cultural Research (ICR),[a] founded by the writer, thinker and teacher in the Sufi mystical tradition, Idries Shah[1][4] (for whom Cecil wrote an obituary).[5] Cecil wrote three monographs for the institute, and also published several books,[4] including The King's Son, co-compiled for Shah's publishing house, Octagon Press.
As well as his interest in Sufism, Cecil had a prior interest in the esoteric work of the Russian mystic, P. D. Ouspensky. Ouspensky lectured in New York, and had been a student of George Gurdjieff whose school became known as the Fourth Way.[1]
Robert Cecil died in the village of Hambledon, Hampshire on 28 February 1994.[1]
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