Gladwyn Jebb, 1954–60

Gladwyn Jebb was described by his official biographer as ‘a kind of diplomatic Zelig’ because of his ability to be involved when history was being made in the middle of the twentieth century.1 He was present at the creation of both the United Nations (UN) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), was at the heart of government during the period of appeasement and played a key role in developing Britain’s policy at the outset of the Cold War. Even his final posting as Ambassador to France was marked by epoch-changing events, including the end of the First Indochina War, the 1956 Suez Crisis, the return of Charles de Gaulle in May 1958 and the launch of the European Economic Community (EEC). Although he would have much rather have become Permanent UnderSecretary (PUS) at the Foreign Office, his period in Paris was no period of exile or uneventful backwater. In fact, Jebb’s six years in the Rue Faubourg St Honore marked a crucial period not only in Franco-British relations, but also arguably a turning point for Britain’s foreign policy as a whole. As James Ellison2 has argued, French and British policies had been on diverging paths for a decade because the two countries responded differently to the outcome of the Second World War.