Robert Cecil CMG (25 March 1913 – 28 February 1994) was a British diplomat and writer. ^[1]

Life, education, and career

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]

Death

Robert Cecil died in the village of Hambledon, Hampshire on 28 February 1994. ^[1]

Works

ICR monographs

• Education and Elitism in Nazi Germany ISBN  978-0-904674-05-7 ^{[4] [6]}
• Cultural Imperialism ISBN  978-0-904674-06-4 ^{[4] [7]}
• Cults in 19th Century Britain ISBN  978-0-904674-15-6 ^{[4] [8]}

Books

• Life in Edwardian England (Victorian, 1969) ASIN  B008OTTMAI ^[9]
• The Myth Of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology (Dodd, Mead & Company, 1972) ISBN  0396065775 ^[10]
• Hitler's Decision to Invade Russia (HarperCollins, 1975) ISBN  0706701828 ^[11]
• The King's Son: Readings in the Traditional Psychologies and Contemporary Thought of Man (co-compiled with Richard Rieu and David Wade, Octagon Press, 1980) ISBN  090086088X
• A Divided Life: a biography of Donald Maclean (The Bodley Head Ltd, 1988) ISBN  0370311299 ^{[1] [12]}
• The Masks of Death: Changing Attitudes in the Nineteenth Century (The Book Guild, 1991) ISBN  0863326072.

See also

• Nazism
• Alfred Rosenberg (Nazi ideologist)

Notes

References