Unionist Executive Chair
Sir Fitzroy Maclean, 1st Baronet took which position from Oct 1959 to Sep 1964?
Sir Fitzroy Maclean , 1st Baronet Major-General Sir Fitzroy Hew Royle Maclean , 1st Baronet , ( 11 March 1911 – 15 June 1996 ) was a Scottish soldier , writer and politician . He was a Unionist Member of Parliament ( MP ) from 1941 to 1974 and was one of only two men who during the Second World War enlisted in the British Army as a private and rose to the rank of brigadier , the other being future fellow Conservative MP Enoch Powell . Maclean wrote several books , including Eastern Approaches , in which he recounted three extraordinary series of adventures : travelling , often incognito , in Soviet Central Asia ; fighting in the Western Desert campaign , where he specialised in commando raids behind enemy lines ; and living rough with Josip Broz Tito and his Yugoslav Partisans while commanding the Maclean Mission there . It has been widely speculated that Ian Fleming used Maclean as one of his inspirations for James Bond . Early life . Maclean was born in Cairo to Major Charles Wilberforce Maclean QOCH ( 1875–1953 ) , a member of the Scottish landed gentry serving in Egypt with the Queens Own Cameron Highlanders , and Frances Elaine Gladys Royle ( 12 June 1882 – 1954 ) , the only daughter of George Royle , a Royal Navy officer , and Fannie Jane Longueville Snow . The couple wed on 12 July 1905 at St Georges Parish , Hanover Square , Middlesex , London . Heritage and education . He was descended from the Macleans of Ardgour , a Sept of the Clan Maclean , whose chiefs have as their historic seat Duart Castle on the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides . He was brought up in Italy and educated at Eton and Kings College , Cambridge , where he read Classics and History . He then studied in Germany before joining the Diplomatic Service in 1933 . In the Soviet Union . In 1934 Fitzroy Maclean was posted to the British Embassy in Paris . Bored with the pleasant but undemanding routine , he requested a posting to Moscow in 1937 . The two and a half years he spent in the Soviet Union formed the first third of his best known book , the autobiographical Eastern Approaches . Maclean was in Moscow until late 1939 , and so was present during the great Stalinist purges , observing the fates of Bukharin and other Russian revolutionaries . Although he was stationed in the capital , Maclean travelled extensively , primarily by train , into remote regions of the USSR which were off limits to foreigners , and was shadowed by the NKVD as he did so . World War II . When war broke out in 1939 Maclean was prevented from joining the military because of his position as a diplomat . He was 2nd Secretary in the Foreign Office . Therefore , he resigned from the Diplomatic Service to go into politics . After tendering his resignation he immediately took a taxi to the nearest recruiting office and enlisted as a Private in the Queens Own Cameron Highlanders . He was soon promoted to lance corporal and was commissioned in 1941 . In that year he became the Conservative MP for Lancaster . In North Africa in 1942 , he distinguished himself in the early actions of the newly formed Special Air Service ( SAS ) , where , with Ralph A . Bagnold , he developed ways of driving vehicles over the Libyan sand seas . Maclean was a brilliant practitioner in the T . E . Lawrence brand of fighting , and he reported directly to Winston Churchill in Cairo . A letter of introduction from David Stirling said of him at the end of this period : He has done well on our raids . Dont be taken in by his rather pompous manner or his slow way of speaking - he is OK . Persia and Iraq . Later that year he transferred to the Middle East as part of the Persia and Iraq Command . He was allotted a platoon of Seaforth Highlanders and instructed to kidnap General Fazlollah Zahedi , the commander of the Persian forces in the Isfahan area . Maclean captured him and smuggled him out by plane to internment in Palestine . This incident soon led Hitlers government to withdraw support from its network in Persia . Yugoslavia . Churchill chose him to lead a liaison mission ( Macmis ) to central Yugoslavia in 1943 . Josip Broz Tito and his Partisans were emerging as a major obstacle to German control of the Balkans . Little was known at the time about Tito : some suspected this was an acronym for a committee or that he might in fact be a young woman . Maclean got to know Tito well , and later produced two biographies of him . Macleans relationship with Titos Partisans was not always easy , partly because they were Communist , while he came from an upper class Scottish background , and had witnessed Stalinism in action ( see above ) . As Churchill personally told him , Macleans mission was not to concern himself with how Yugoslavia was to be run after the war , but simply to find out who was killing the most Germans and suggest means by which we could help them to kill more . In the late summer of 1944 , together with Tito , he planned and implemented Operation Ratweek . It was a major Allied bombing campaign in collaboration with the local Partisan troops in order to prevent German troops retreating back and reinforcing those in central and western Europe , thus prolonging the war . His biography of Tito reveals the admiration he held for the Yugoslav leader and the Yugoslav Communist-led anti-fascist struggle . He developed a great affection for Yugoslavia and its people and was later given permission to buy a house on the Dalmatian island of Korčula , Croatia . Having been appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire ( CBE ) in 1944 , he received the Order of Kutuzov ( Soviet Union ) ( which impressed the Soviet troops in Belgrade ) , and after the war the Croix de Guerre ( France ) , and Order of the Partisan Star ( Yugoslavia ) . He reached the rank of Brigadier during the war , and was promoted to the local rank of Major General on 16 June 1947 . Later life . Maclean was elected as Conservative Member of Parliament ( MP ) for Lancaster in the 1941 by-election . He was re-elected from Lancaster in 1945 , 1950 , 1951 , and 1955 . He served briefly as a junior minister at the War Office from 1954 to 1957 . Harold Macmillan regretted losing him , but he is really so hopeless in the House that he is a passenger in office .. . a great pity , since he is so able . On 9 July 1949 , Maclean laid the foundation stone of the Overton & District Memorial Hall in his Lancaster constituency . He had been President of the committee that had raised the money to purchase the land and build it . In the 1959 general election he switched constituencies to Bute and North Ayrshire , where he was elected as a Unionist ( then the Scottish label for Conservatives ) . He was re-elected as a Unionist in 1964 , and as a Conservative in 1966 and 1970 . He retired at the February 1974 general election . In his last two years , he was appointed as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and Western European Union . Maclean was Executive Chair ( 1959-1970 ) and later President ( 1977-1987 ) of the GB-USSR Association . The Association , funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office [ FCO ] , was a semi-official organization for cultural relations with the Soviet Union . Marriage . He married Veronica Nell Fraser-Phipps ( 1920–2005 ) , a Roman Catholic , in 1946 . She was the daughter of the 16th Lord Lovat and widow of naval hero Lt . Alan Phipps , who was killed ashore at Leros in 1943 . Sir Fitzroy and Lady Maclean had two sons : Charles Edward ( born 1946 ) and Alexander James Simon Aeneas ( Jamie ; born 1949 ) , who were brought up in their mothers faith . Charles is an author , well known for dark thrillers , including the cult classic The Watcher . Jamie became an art dealer and founded the Erotic Review . Maclean was also stepfather to his wifes children from her first marriage , Susan Rose Sukie Phipps ( born 1941 ) and Jeremy Julian Phipps ( born 1942 ) , who were not brought up Catholic . Sukie married Richard St . Clair de la Mare , grandson of poet Walter de la Mare in 1959 , then writer Derek Marlowe in 1968 , and finally Captain Nicolas Paravicini in 1986 . She had five children , and is stepmother to autistic savant Derek Paravicini . Jeremy became a Major General in the Army , having served in the SAS . Honours . Sir Fitzroy was honoured with the baronetcy of Maclean of Strachur and Glensluain in 1957 , was made the 15th Hereditary Keeper and Captain of Dunconnel Castle in 1981 and was made a knight of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle in 1994 . In retirement Maclean wrote extensively . His wide range of subjects included : Scottish history , biographies ( including Tito and Burgess ) , a Russian trilogy and assorted works of fiction . He also contributed to other books , for example writing the foreword to a 1984 biography of Joseph Wolff , the so-called Eccentric Missionary in whose footsteps he had travelled to Bukhara almost half a century before . Maclean and his wife managed a hotel at Strachur . In 1964 he commissioned his wartime friend , fellow commando and yacht designer Alfred Mylne II , to build the motor yacht Judi of Bute for use around the West Coast of Scotland . Maclean was a patron of Strachur and District Shinty Club . He collected an extensive library , including a full set of early editions of James Bond novels , which sold in September 2008 for £26,000 . In the late 1960s , Maclean bought the Palazzo Boschi villa on the Adriatic island of Korčula ( present-day Croatia ) , where he spent a good part of each year . Yugoslav legislation at the time barred foreigners from buying real-estate property , but Tito intervened to allow Maclean to do so . The town of Korčula was declared a free city , and the Macleans were declared its citizens . As soon as the purchase was registered with city authorities , the free city status was revoked . In 1991 , during the Croatian War of Independence , Maclean and his wife delivered medical supplies to the island of Korčula , with a substantial contribution from the people of Rothesay and Bute . Death . Sir Fitzroy Maclean died on 15 June 1996 , aged 85 , in England . Legacy . Maclean was posthumously awarded the Order of Prince Branimir for the humanitarian aid to Croatia , as well as contributing to international affirmation of Croatia . The decoration was presented by the Croatian President Stjepan Mesić in December 2001 . Maclean may have been one of the models for Ian Flemings character James Bond . Styles and honours . - Fitzroy Maclean , Esq ( 1911–41 ) - Fitzroy Maclean , Esq ( 1941–44 ) MP - Fitzroy Maclean , Esq , CBE , MP ( 1944–57 ) - Sir Fitzroy Maclean of Strachur and Glensluian , Bt , CBE , MP ( 1957–74 ) - Sir Fitzroy Maclean of Strachur and Glensluian , Bt , CBE ( 1974–81 ) - Sir Fitzroy Maclean of Dunconnel , Bt , CBE ( 1981–94 ) - Sir Fitzroy Maclean of Dunconnel , Bt , KT , CBE ( 1994–96 ) Posts held . - Member of Parliament for Lancaster ( 1941–59 ) - Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for War ( 1954–1957 ) - Member of Parliament for Bute and Northern Ayrshire ( 1959–74 ) - President , GB-USSR Association ( 1977-1987 ) Bibliography . - Eastern Approaches 1949 - Also published as Disputed Barricade : the life and times of Josip Broz-Tito , Marshal of Yugoslavia 1957 - A Person from England 1958 - Back to Bokhara 1959 - Yugoslavia 1969 - Concise History of Scotland 1970 - The Battle of Neretva 1970 - The Back of Beyond : an illustrated companion to Central Asia and Mongolia 1974 - To Causasus 1976 - Holy Russia 1978 - Take Nine Spies 1978 - Tito 1980 - Josip Broz Tito : A Pictorial Biography 1980 - The Isles of the Sea 1985 - Portrait of the Soviet Union 1988 - Bonnie Prince Charlie 1988 - All the Russias 1992 - Highlanders : A History of the Scottish Clans 1995 Biographies . - Maclean , Veronica ( 2002 ) Past Forgetting : a memoir of heroes , adventure , love and life with Fitzroy Maclean . London : Review . - McLynn , Frank ( 1992 ) Fitzroy Maclean . London : John Murray .