Robert Cecil (25 March 1913 – 28 February 1994) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

diplomat and writer.

Life, education, and career

Robert Cecil was born in Southbourne, a suburb of Bournemouth,

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

(now in

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...

) in southern England on 25 March 1913. He graduated from the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

. He married Kathleen Marindin in 1938, and they had one son and two daughters. He was seconded to Major General Sir

Stewart Menzies Major General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, (; 30 January 1890 – 29 May 1968) was Chief of MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), from 1939 to 1952, during and after the Second World War. Early life, family Stewart Graham Menzies wa ...

, the wartime head of

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

, for two years during the war."A Divided Life", 1988, author biography summary During his career in the

diplomatic service Diplomatic service is the body of diplomats and foreign policy officers maintained by the government of a country to communicate with the governments of other countries. Diplomatic personnel obtains diplomatic immunity when they are accredited to o ...

, from 1945 to 1967, Cecil served in the Foreign Office; as First Secretary in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

; as a Counsellor and

Consul General A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, as well as to facilitate trade and friendship between the people ...

in Europe, as Director-General of British Information Services, and latterly as Head of the Cultural Relations Department at the Foreign Office. He had been made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in the

1959 Birthday Honours The Queen's Birthday Honours 1959 were appointments in many of the Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The appointments were made to celebrate ...

. According to Cecil's obituary in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'', from childhood he had a close personal relationship with Donald Maclean, and the two both studied at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

and worked together in the Foreign Office. Maclean was a member of the

Cambridge Five The Cambridge Spy Ring was a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and was active from the 1930s until at least into the early 1950s. None of the known members were ever prosecuted ...

, who acted as spies for the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. There was some speculation that this relationship "cost ecilthe promotion to the highest echelons of the diplomatic service which his talents merited." Cecil would later write a biography of Maclean. Cecil went on to become a

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in Contemporary German History at the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

from 1968 to 1978, and chairman of the Graduate School of Contemporary European Studies from 1976 to 1978, at the

. From 1968 to 1994 he was chairman of the London-based Institute for Cultural Research (ICR), founded by the writer, thinker and teacher in the Sufi

mystical Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...

tradition,

Idries Shah Idries Shah (; hi, इदरीस शाह, ps, ادريس شاه, ur, ; 16 June 1924 – 23 November 1996), also known as Idris Shah, né Sayed Idries el- Hashimi (Arabic: سيد إدريس هاشمي) and by the pen name Ark ...

(for whom Cecil wrote an obituary). Cecil wrote three monographs for the institute, and also published several books, 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 Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas ...

work of the Russian mystic, P. D. Ouspensky. Ouspensky lectured in New York, and had been a student of

George Gurdjieff George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (; rus, Гео́ргий Ива́нович Гурджи́ев, r=Geórgy Ivánovich Gurdzhíev, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj ɪˈvanəvʲɪd͡ʑ ɡʊrd͡ʐˈʐɨ(j)ɪf; hy, Գեորգի Իվանովիչ Գյուրջիև; c. 1 ...

whose school became known as the

Fourth Way The Fourth Way is an approach to self-development developed by George Gurdjieff over years of travel in the East (c. 1890 – 1912). It combines and harmonizes what he saw as three established traditional "ways" or "schools": those of the body, ...

Death

Robert Cecil died in the village of

Hambledon, Hampshire Hambledon is a small village and civil parish in the county of Hampshire in England, situated about north of Portsmouth within the South Downs National Park. Hambledon is best known as the 'Cradle of Cricket'. It is thought that Hambledon Clu ...

on 28 February 1994.

Works

ICR monographs

* ''Education and Elitism in Nazi Germany'' * ''Cultural Imperialism'' * ''Cults in 19th Century Britain''

Books

* ''Life in Edwardian England'' (Victorian, 1969) * ''The Myth Of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology'' (Dodd, Mead & Company, 1972) * ''Hitler's Decision to Invade Russia'' (HarperCollins, 1975) * ''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) * ''A Divided Life: a biography of Donald Maclean'' (The Bodley Head Ltd, 1988) * ''The Masks of Death: Changing Attitudes in the Nineteenth Century'' (The Book Guild, 1991) .

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cecil, Robert 1913 births Writers from Bournemouth Alumni of the University of Cambridge British diplomats Secret Intelligence Service personnel Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George Academics of the University of Reading 20th-century British writers English biographers 1994 deaths People associated with The Institute for Cultural Research