Fitzroy Maclean

Sir Fitzroy Hew Maclean, 1st Baronet (born March 11, 1911 in Cairo , Egypt , † June 15, 1996 in Hertford , England ) was a Scottish diplomat , officer , writer and politician .

Life

Fitzroy Maclean was born in Cairo to British Major Charles Maclean and his wife Gladys Royle. He attended Eton College and until 1932 the King's Collge at Cambridge University . He then entered the UK diplomatic service .

Initially he was stationed at the British Embassy in Paris from 1934 . He pushed for a transfer to the Soviet Union and was transferred to Moscow in 1937 . He traveled the country on his own and reached Central Asia and Afghanistan . On his return he reported on Stalin's purge trials in London.

At the beginning of the war in 1939 he resigned from the diplomatic service and volunteered for the British Army . In 1941 he won the seat in the House of Commons for the Conservative Party in the Lancaster constituency . He remained a member of parliament until 1974.

He rose rapidly in the army and eventually reached the degree of major general . He fought in the newly established special forces of the Special Air Service . Initially he was deployed in North Africa. At the end of 1942, a commando took him to Iran , where rumor has it that an uprising against the Anglo-Soviet occupation was being prepared at the instigation of the Germans . Maclean brought General Zahidi, who appeared to be leading the rebellion, under his control and abducted him to Palestine .

He was parachuted in 1943 on behalf of Churchill in Yugoslavia , where he made friends with the communist partisan leader Josip Broz Tito . Maclean is seen as the driving force behind the Allies' decision to support the communists as representatives of the Yugoslav resistance, instead of the previously preferred monarchist government-in-exile in London and its representatives, the Chetniks . He was also allowed to purchase a property in Yugoslavia.

In 1946 he married his wife Veronica (1920-2005), daughter of the 16th Lord Lovat, with whom he had two sons.

After the war, Maclean wrote books about his adventures (1949: Eastern Approaches ) and Scottish history. He also worked on television documentaries and as a commentator on events in the Soviet Union. In 1957 he was raised to hereditary nobility with the title of Baronet , of Dunconnel in the County of Argyll. Ian Fleming (who was 3 years older than Maclean and like him in Eton) is said to have been inspired by Maclean and his missions for his agent character James Bond .

Fitzroy Maclean and his wife bought a country estate in western Scotland on Loch Fyne , where they also ran a hotel.

After the end of the wars in Yugoslavia , he and his wife organized and accompanied aid deliveries to Bosnia and Korčula .

He died of a heart attack while visiting friends in England . His son Charles Edward Maclean (* 1946) inherited his title of nobility.

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• Obituary in the New York Times (English)
• Obituary for his wife in Dunoon Observer (English)