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Sir Ivone Augustine Kirkpatrick, (3 February 1897 – 25 May 1964) was a British diplomat who served as the British High Commissioner in Germany after World War II, and as the
Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs This is a list of Permanent Under-Secretaries in the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (and its predecessors) since 1790. Not to be confused with Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Permanent Und ...
, the highest-ranking civil servant in the
Foreign Office Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * United S ...
.


Early life and family

Kirkpatrick was born on 3 February 1897 in Wellington, India, the elder son of Colonel Ivone Kirkpatrick (1860–1936) of the
South Staffordshire Regiment The South Staffordshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence for only 68 years. The regiment was created in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 38th (1st Staffordshire) Regiment of Foot an ...
, and his wife, Mary Hardinge (d. 1931), daughter of General Sir Arthur Edward Hardinge, later Commander-in-Chief, Bombay Army, and
Governor of Gibraltar The governor of Gibraltar is the representative of the British monarch in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. The governor is appointed by the monarch on the advice of the British government. The role of the governor is to act as th ...
. His father was a descendant of a Scottish family that settled in Ireland during the eighteenth century. His mother was former
Maid of Honour A maid of honour is a junior attendant of a queen in royal households. The position was and is junior to the lady-in-waiting. The equivalent title and office has historically been used in most European royal courts. Role Traditionally, a queen r ...
to
Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...
, and her grandfather
Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge, (30 March 1785 – 24 September 1856) was a British Army officer and politician. After serving in the Peninsular War and the Waterloo Campaign he became Secretary at War in Wellington's ministry. After ...
, served in the cabinets of Wellington and Peel, and was later governor-general of India in 1844–1848. Her first cousin
Charles Hardinge, 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst Charles Hardinge, 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst, (20 June 1858 – 2 August 1944) was a British diplomat and statesman who served as Viceroy and Governor-General of India from 1910 to 1916. Background and education Hardinge was the second ...
was
Permanent Under-Secretary A permanent secretary (also known as a principal secretary) is the most senior civil servant of a department or ministry charged with running the department or ministry's day-to-day activities. Permanent secretaries are the non-political civil s ...
of the Foreign Office in 1906–1910 and 1916–1920, and
Viceroy of India The Governor-General of India (1773–1950, from 1858 to 1947 the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, commonly shortened to Viceroy of India) was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom and after Indian independence in 19 ...
in 1910–1916. Being a Roman Catholic, Kirkpatrick was sent to
Downside School Downside School is a co-educational Catholic independent boarding and day school in the English public school tradition for pupils aged 11 to 18. It is located between Bath, Frome, Wells and Bruton, and is attached to Downside Abbey. Originall ...
to be educated between 1907 and 1914. Kirkpatrick volunteered for active service on the outbreak of the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighti ...
and was commissioned in November 1914 in the
Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers was an Irish line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 until 1968. The regiment was formed in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 27th (Inniskilling) Regiment of Foot and the 108th Regiment o ...
. Severely wounded in action against the Turks in August 1915, he was accepted by
Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...
, in October, but chose to resume his war service early in 1916 when he was employed in propaganda and intelligence activities for the GHQ intelligence service Wallinger London. During the last year of the war he was stationed in
Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...
in the Netherlands as replacement for Sigismund Payne Best. From there he worked as a spy master, running a network of Belgian resistance agents operating in German-occupied Belgium.


Early career in the Foreign Office

He entered the diplomatic service in July 1919. He was firstly posted to Brazil for one year, returning to London in August 1920 to take up a post in the Western Department of the Foreign Office. He was promoted second secretary in December 1920 and first secretary in October 1928. On 10 January 1929 he married Violet Caulfield, daughter of Colonel Reginald James Cope Cottell, army surgeon, of 7 Phillimore Terrace, London; they had one son, Ivone Peter (1930–2013), and one daughter, Cecilia Sybil (1932–Unknown). Kirkpatrick was then posted to the British Embassy at Rome from 1930 to 1932; ''
chargé d'affaires A ''chargé d'affaires'' (), plural ''chargés d'affaires'', often shortened to ''chargé'' (French) and sometimes in colloquial English to ''charge-D'', is a diplomat who serves as an embassy's chief of mission in the absence of the ambassado ...
'' at the
Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...
in 1932–33; and first secretary at the British Embassy at Berlin from 1933 to 1938. It was during this time that he got firsthand experience of dealing with the emerging European dictatorships.


Second World War

During the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
Kirkpatrick was once again employed in the propaganda and information work which he had so relished twenty-five years earlier. Appointed Director of the Foreign Division of the Ministry of Information in April 1940, he became Controller of the European services of the BBC in October 1941. During this time, he made a major contribution which included the task of interviewing Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, following Hess's flight to Scotland in May 1941. His report on Hess was shown only to the Prime Minister,
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1 ...
, Foreign Secretary
Anthony Eden Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955 until his resignation in 1957. Achieving rapid prom ...
, Lord Privy Seal
Clement Attlee Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was Deputy Prime Mini ...
and Minister of Aircraft Production
Lord Beaverbrook William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (25 May 1879 – 9 June 1964), generally known as Lord Beaverbrook, was a Canadian-British newspaper publisher and backstage politician who was an influential figure in British media and politics o ...
. In September 1944 Kirkpatrick was appointed to organize the British element of the Allied Control Commission for Germany, and following the end of the war he served at Supreme Allied Headquarters as British political adviser to U.S. General
Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
until that organization's disbandment. After the war, he became Permanent Under-Secretary for the German Section at the Foreign Office in 1949.


British High Commissioner for Germany

In June 1950, Kirkpatrick was appointed by
King George VI George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death in 1952. He was also the last Emperor of Indi ...
as British High Commissioner for Germany. As one of the three joint sovereigns of western Germany, Kirkpatrick carried immense responsibility particularly with respect to the negotiation of the Bonn conventions during 1951–52, which terminated the occupation regime and (in parallel) prepared the way for the rearmament of West Germany. In November 1953, Kirkpatrick was brought back to London to succeed Sir William Strang as Permanent Under-Secretary.


Permanent Under-Secretary

Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick succeeded Sir William Strang as
Permanent Under-Secretary A permanent secretary (also known as a principal secretary) is the most senior civil servant of a department or ministry charged with running the department or ministry's day-to-day activities. Permanent secretaries are the non-political civil s ...
(PUS) in 1953. In his memoirs, Kirkpatrick later recalled his thoughts on taking up his new position: Kirkpatrick was related to a former PUS, his mother being first cousin to Charles Hardinge. He joined the Office in February 1919 after spending the previous three years in wartime intelligence and propaganda work, an activity to which he returned when in 1941 he became foreign adviser to the BBC. Serving as head of Chancery in Berlin during 1933–1938, he made clear his detestation of the Nazis. His views seem not, however, to have made any great impression on the British Ambassador, Sir Neville Henderson. After 1945 he was again very much involved with German affairs, serving for a year in the Office's Germany Section and then, during 1950–1953, as High Commissioner in Bonn. Kirkpatrick had a reputation as a combative, even aggressive, Irishman, who had little time for discussion. He was not, according to some of his former colleagues, the easiest of men to work with, and in Lord Gladwyn's opinion he would have made 'an excellent general'.


Suez Crisis

Kirkpatrick's difficult period as PUS culminated in the Suez Crisis of 1956, an event that was little referred to in his memoirs, The Inner Circle (London, 1959). Convinced that the nation's survival was dependent upon the exercise of great power responsibilities, he encouraged the Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, in his dangerous fixation with Nasser as a Middle Eastern Hitler. The experience of the 1930s had led both men to oppose any 'appeasement' of Nasser. Kirkpatrick's closeness to Eden was reinforced by the Prime Minister's dissatisfaction with what he perceived as a pro-Arab stance held by his Foreign Office subordinates during the last Churchill administration. As a result, Eden increasingly used Kirkpatrick as an intermediary between himself and other senior officials in the Office. This close relationship took an ominous turn when the PUS found himself obliged to exclude the Foreign Office from the decision-making process during the final crisis. For Kirkpatrick, the Suez debacle was a test of Britain's great power status, leading him later to reflect that:
No country n the Western worldcan any longer pursue an independent foreign policy. The liberty of action of each is in varying degrees restricted by the need to obtain the concurrence of one or more members of the alliance.
As Permanent Under-Secretary during the
Suez Crisis The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the Tripartite Aggression ( ar, العدوان الثلاثي, Al-ʿUdwān aṯ-Ṯulāṯiyy) in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel,Also known as the Suez War or 1956 Wa ...
Kirkpatrick was in favour of a strong line against Colonel Nasser. In a letter to the British Ambassador on 10 September 1956, Kirkpatrick said:
If we sit back while Nasser consolidates his position and gradually acquires control of the oil-bearing countries, he can and is, according to our information, resolved to wreck us. If Middle Eastern oil is denied to us for a year or two, our
gold reserves A gold reserve is the gold held by a national central bank, intended mainly as a guarantee to redeem promises to pay depositors, note holders (e.g. paper money), or trading peers, during the eras of the gold standard, and also as a store of ...
will disappear. If our gold reserves disappear, the
sterling area The sterling area (or sterling bloc, legally scheduled territories) was a group of countries that either pegged their currencies to sterling, or actually used sterling as their own currency. The area began to appear informally during the ear ...
disintegrates. If the sterling area disintegrates and we have no reserves, we shall not be able to maintain a force in Germany, or indeed, anywhere else. I doubt whether we shall be able to pay for the bare minimum necessary for our defence. And a country that cannot provide for its defence is finished.
Sir Evelyn Shuckburgh said of Kirkpatrick: "He was so sharp that he cut".Kyle, p. 88 However, Suez sullied Kirkpatrick's reputation as PUS, though he may have been guilty of no more than fulfilling a civil servant's duty of loyalty to his political chiefs..


Retirement and death

After retiring from the Foreign Office in February 1957 Kirkpatrick served for five years as chairman of the
Independent Television Authority The Independent Television Authority (ITA) was an agency created by the Television Act 1954 to supervise the creation of "Independent Television" ( ITV), the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom. The ITA existed from 1954 un ...
. In addition to his memoirs he wrote ''Mussolini: Study of a Demagogue'' (published posthumously in 1964). He was appointed Companion of the
Order of St Michael and St George The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is a British order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George IV, Prince of Wales, while he was acting as prince regent for his father, King George III. It is named in honour ...
(CMG) in 1939, Knight Commander (KCMG) in 1948, Knight Commander of the
Order of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved bathing (as a symbol of purification) as one ...
(KCB) in 1951, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in 1953, and Knight Grand Cross of the
Order of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved bathing (as a symbol of purification) as one ...
(GCB) in 1956. He died at his home, Donacomper, Celbridge, co. Kildare, Ireland, on 25 May 1964. He was survived by his wife and two children.


Notes


Publications

*''The Inner Circle: The Memoirs of Ivone Kirkpatrick'' (London: Macmillan, 1959). *''Mussolini: Study of a Demagogue'' (London: Odhams, 1964).


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kirkpatrick, Ivone 1897 births 1964 deaths Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to the Holy See British Army personnel of World War I Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers officers Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Members of HM Diplomatic Service People from Celbridge Permanent Under-Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs Recipients of the Croix de guerre (Belgium) Spymasters Foreign Office personnel of World War II 20th-century British diplomats