Hubert Miles Gladwyn Jebb, 1st Baron Gladwyn (25 April 1900 – 24 October 1996), was a prominent British civil servant, diplomat and politician who served as the acting secretary-general of the United Nations between 1945 and 1946.

Early life and career

The son of Sydney Gladwyn Jebb JP, of Firbeck Hall, Yorkshire (a grandson of Sir Joshua Jebb and a maternal nephew of the 5th and 6th Viscounts Melville), and Rose Eleanor Chichester (daughter of Maj.-Gen. Hugh Chichester), Jebb attended Sandroyd School and Eton College before graduating from Magdalen College, Oxford, with a first class honours degree in history.

Jebb entered the British Diplomatic Service in 1924 and served in Tehran, where he got to know Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West. He later served in Rome and at the Foreign Office in Westminster, where he served as Private Secretary to the Head of the Diplomatic Service. where he was from 1940 to 1942. On his return to the Foreign Office, Jebb asked to be posted to Madagascar, but this application was rejected, and he was sent to the Treasury for economic training.

Acting UN Secretary-General

After the Second World War, Jebb served as Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations in August 1945 and served as Acting United Nations Secretary-General from October 1945 to February 1946, when the first Secretary-General was appointed, Trygve Lie. In the latter role, he was angered that secret negotiations between the British, French and Israelis in advance of the Suez invasion in 1956 took place at Sèvres without his knowledge and, in certain respects, that he was sidelined by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan at the Paris "big power" summit in 1960.

Jebb's rather "grand" manner caused Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd to coin an epigram: "You're a deb, Sir Gladwyn Jebb". He became involved in politics as a member of the Liberal Party. He was Deputy Leader of the Liberals in the House of Lords from 1965 to 1988 and spokesman on foreign affairs and defence. An ardent European, he served as a Member of the European Parliament from 1973 to 1976, where he was also the Vice-President of the Parliament's Political Committee. Jebb unsuccessfully contested the Suffolk seat in the European Parliament in 1979.

Honours

  • GCMG, 1954 (preceded by a Order of St Michael and St George| in 1949 and a CMG in 1942)
  • GCVO, 1957
  • Companion of the Bath, 1947
  • Grand Croix de la Légion d'Honneur, 1957

Publications and papers

Publications by Jebb include:

  • Is Tension Necessary?, 1959
  • Peaceful Coexistence, 1962
  • The European Idea, 1966
  • Half-way to 1984, 1967
  • De Gaulle's Europe, or, Why the General says No, 1969
  • Europe after de Gaulle, 1970
  • The Memoirs of Lord Gladwyn, 1972

Jebb's papers were deposited at the Churchill Archives Centre of the University of Cambridge by his son, Miles Jebb, 2nd Baron Gladwyn, between 1998 and 2000.

In an episode of The Goon Show broadcast on 16 February 1959 entitled "The Gold Plate Robbery", Major Bloodnok – in his rôle as 'the last British Ambassador in Marrakesh' – is heard to muse aloud "Now, for a kip on full Ambassador's pay. Gad! I wonder what old Gladwyn Jebb's doing".

References

Bibliography

  • Cambridge Archives Centre – Gladwyn Papers