Hastings Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay

General Hastings Lionel Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay KG GCB CH DSO PC (21 June 1887–17 December 1965) was a British soldier and diplomat.

Ismay was educated at Charterhouse and Sandhurst before being commissioned in 1905. He joined the Indian Army in the 21st Cavalry and served on the North-West Frontier. During and immediately after World War I (from 1914 to 1920), Ismay saw action in Somaliland against Mohammed bin Abdullah, the "Mad Mullah." He was an officer in the Somaliland Camel Corps.

Following the conclusion of operations in Somaliland Ismay held a number of staff and teaching appointments before becoming in 1931 military secretary to Lord Willingdon, then Viceroy of India. From 1933 until 1940 Ismay occupied various staff positions within the War Office, eventually becoming Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence in 1938.

In 1940 he was selected by Winston Churchill as his chief of his personal staff at the Ministry of Defence, with the duty of liaison between the War Cabinet and Chiefs of Staff. He was promoted lieutenant-general in in 1942 and general in 1944, retiring from the British Army in 1946.

In January 1947 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Ismay, of Wormington in the County of Gloucester. Lord Ismay served as chief of staff to Lord Mountbatten of Burma, then Viceroy of India, March to November 1947. In 1951 he was made Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, and in 1952 became the first Secretary General of NATO, a post he held until 1957. He once famously remarked that NATO had been formed to "keep the Americans in, the Soviets out and the Germans down."

Lord Ismay died in 1965 at the age of 78. Without a male heir, his title became extinct. He was nicknamed "Pug", which is the name by which both Mountbatten and Churchill knew him.

Publications

• The memoirs of General the Lord Ismay (Heinemann, London, 1960)

References

• Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives
• The new Universal Encyclopedia, ed Sir John Hammerton, The Educational Book Co, London