Which position did Ivone Kirkpatrick hold from 1950 to Jun 1950?
Ivone Kirkpatrick Sir Ivone Augustine Kirkpatrick , ( 3 February 1897 – 25 May 1964 ) was a British diplomat who served as the British High Commissioner in Germany after World War II , and as the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs , the highest-ranking civil servant in the Foreign Office . Early life and family . Kirkpatrick was born on 3 February 1897 in Wellington , India , the elder son of Colonel Ivone Kirkpatrick ( 1860–1936 ) of the South Staffordshire Regiment , and his wife , Mary Hardinge ( d . 1931 ) , daughter of General Sir Arthur Edward Hardinge , later Commander-in-Chief , Bombay Army , and Governor of Gibraltar . His father was a descendant of a Scottish family that settled in Ireland during the eighteenth century . His mother was former Maid of Honour to Queen Victoria , and her grandfather Henry Hardinge , 1st Viscount Hardinge , served in the cabinets of Wellington and Peel , and was later governor-general of India in 1844–8 . Her first cousin Charles Hardinge , 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst was Permanent Under-Secretary of the Foreign Office in 1906–10 and 1916–20 , and Viceroy of India in 1910–16 . Being a Roman Catholic , Kirkpatrick was sent to Downside School to be educated between 1907 and 1914 . Kirkpatrick volunteered for active service on the outbreak of the First World War and was commissioned in November 1914 in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers . Severely wounded in action against the Turks in August 1915 , he was accepted by Balliol College , Oxford , in October , but chose to resume his war service early in 1916 when he was employed in propaganda and intelligence activities for the GHQ intelligence service Wallinger London . During the last year of the war he was stationed in Rotterdam in the Netherlands as replacement for Sigismund Payne Best . From there he worked as a spy master , running a network of Belgian resistance agents operating in German-occupied Belgium . Early career in the Foreign Office . He entered the diplomatic service in July 1919 . He was firstly posted to Brazil for one year , returning to London in August 1920 to take up a post in the Western Department of the Foreign Office . He was promoted second secretary in December 1920 and first secretary in October 1928 . On 10 January 1929 he married Violet Caulfield , daughter of Colonel Reginald James Cope Cottell , army surgeon , of 7 Phillimore Terrace , London ; they had one son , Ivone Peter ( 1930-2013 ) , and one daughter , Cecilia Sybil ( 1932-Unknown ) . Kirkpatrick was then posted to the British Embassy at Rome from 1930 to 1932 ; chargé daffaires at the Vatican in 1932–33 ; and first secretary at the British Embassy at Berlin from 1933 to 1938 . It was during this time that he got firsthand experience of dealing with the emerging European dictatorships . Second World War . During the Second World War Kirkpatrick was once again employed in the propaganda and information work which he had so relished twenty-five years earlier . Appointed Director of the Foreign Division of the Ministry of Information in April 1940 , he became Controller of the European services of the BBC in October 1941 . During this time , he made a major contribution which included the task of interviewing Hitlers deputy , Rudolf Hess , following Hesss flight to Scotland in May 1941 . His report on Hess was shown only to the Prime Minister , Winston Churchill , Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden , Lord Privy Seal Clement Attlee and Minister of Aircraft Production Lord Beaverbrook . In September 1944 Kirkpatrick was appointed to organize the British element of the Allied Control Commission for Germany , and following the end of the war he served at Supreme Allied Headquarters as British political adviser to U.S . General Dwight D . Eisenhower until that organizations disbandment . After the war , he became Permanent Under-Secretary for the German Section at the Foreign Office in 1949 . British High Commissioner for Germany . In June 1950 , Kirkpatrick was appointed by King George VI as British High Commissioner for Germany . As one of the three joint sovereigns of western Germany , Kirkpatrick carried immense responsibility particularly with respect to the negotiation of the Bonn conventions during 1951–2 , which terminated the occupation regime and ( in parallel ) prepared the way for the rearmament of West Germany . In November 1953 , Kirkpatrick was brought back to London to succeed Sir William Strang as Permanent Under-Secretary . Permanent Under-Secretary . Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick succeeded Sir William Strang as Permanent Under-Secretary ( PUS ) in 1953 . In his memoirs , Kirkpatrick later recalled his thoughts on taking up his new position : Kirkpatrick was related to a former PUS , his mother being first cousin to Charles Hardinge . He joined the Office in February 1919 after spending the previous three years in wartime intelligence and propaganda work , an activity to which he returned when in 1941 he became foreign adviser to the BBC . Serving as head of Chancery in Berlin during 1933–38 , he made clear his detestation of the Nazis . His views seem not , however , to have made any great impression on the British Ambassador , Sir Neville Henderson . After 1945 he was again very much involved with German affairs , serving for a year in the Offices Germany Section and then , during 1950–53 , as High Commissioner in Bonn . Kirkpatrick had a reputation as a combative , even aggressive , Irishman , who had little time for discussion . He was not , according to some of his former colleagues , the easiest of men to work with , and in Lord Gladwyns opinion he would have made an excellent general . Suez Crisis . Kirkpatricks difficult period as PUS culminated in the Suez Crisis of 1956 , an event that was little referred to in his memoirs , The Inner Circle ( London , 1959 ) . Convinced that the nations survival was dependent upon the exercise of great power responsibilities , he encouraged the Prime Minister , Anthony Eden , in his dangerous fixation with Nasser as a Middle Eastern Hitler . The experience of the 1930s had led both men to oppose any appeasement of Nasser . Kirkpatricks closeness to Eden was reinforced by the Prime Ministers dissatisfaction with what he perceived as a pro-Arab stance held by his Foreign Office subordinates during the last Churchill administration . As a result , Eden increasingly used Kirkpatrick as an intermediary between himself and other senior officials in the Office . This close relationship took an ominous turn when the PUS found himself obliged to exclude the Foreign Office from the decision-making process during the final crisis . For Kirkpatrick , the Suez debacle was a test of Britains great power status , leading him later to reflect that : No country [ in the Western world ] can any longer pursue an independent foreign policy . The liberty of action of each is in varying degrees restricted by the need to obtain the concurrence of one or more members of the alliance . As Permanent Under-Secretary during the Suez Crisis Kirkpatrick was in favour of a strong line against Colonel Nasser . In a letter to the British Ambassador on 10 September 1956 , Kirkpatrick said : If we sit back while Nasser consolidates his position and gradually acquires control of the oil-bearing countries , he can and is , according to our information , resolved to wreck us . If Middle Eastern oil is denied to us for a year or two , our gold reserves will disappear . If our gold reserves disappear , the sterling area disintegrates . If the sterling area disintegrates and we have no reserves , we shall not be able to maintain a force in Germany , or indeed , anywhere else . I doubt whether we shall be able to pay for the bare minimum necessary for our defence . And a country that cannot provide for its defence is finished . Sir Evelyn Shuckburgh said of Kirkpatrick : He was so sharp that he cut . However , Suez sullied Kirkpatricks reputation as PUS , though he may have been guilty of no more than fulfilling a civil servants duty of loyalty to his political chiefs. . Retirement and death . After retiring from the Foreign Office in February 1957 Kirkpatrick served for five years as chairman of the Independent Television Authority . In addition to his memoirs he wrote Mussolini : Study of a Demagogue ( published posthumously in 1964 ) . He was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George ( CMG ) in 1939 , Knight Commander ( KCMG ) in 1948 , Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath ( KCB ) in 1951 , Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George ( GCMG ) in 1953 , and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath ( GCB ) in 1956 . He died at his home , Donacomper , Celbridge , co . Kildare , Ireland , on 25 May 1964 . He was survived by his wife and two children . Notes . 4 . FCO Website Publications . - The Inner Circle : The Memoirs of Ivone Kirkpatrick ( London : Macmillan , 1959 ) . - Mussolini : Study of a Demagogue ( London : Odhams , 1964 ) .