Sir Fitzroy Maclean , 1st Baronet Sir Fitzroy Hew Royle Maclean , 1st Baronet , KT , CBE ( 11 March 1911 – 15 June 1996 ) was a Scottish soldier , writer and politician . He was a Unionist Member of Parliament 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 Tito and his Yugoslav Partisans . It has been speculated that Ian Fleming used Maclean as one of his inspirations for James Bond . Early life . Maclean was born in Cairo , Egypt to Major Charles Wilberforce Maclean QOCH ( born 1875 - d . ? ) , a member of the Scottish landed gentry , and Gladys Frances Elaine Royle ( b . ? - died 1954 ) , the only daughter of a Royal Navy officer . He was brought up in Italy . His clan ' s ancestral home was Duart Castle on the Isle of Mull in the Hebrides . He was educated at Eton and King ' s 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 traveled 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 : North Africa and Yugoslavia . When war broke out in 1939 Maclean was prevented from joining the military because of his position as a diplomat . 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 Queen ' s 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 . Later that year he transferred to the Middle East as part of the Persia and Iraq Command . Amongst his accomplishments was the arrest and kidnapping of General Fazlollah Zahedi , the commander of the Persian forces in the Isfahan area . Maclean then smuggled him out by plane to internment in Palestine . This incident soon led Hitler ' s government to withdraw support from its network in Persia . Churchill chose him to lead a liaison mission to central Yugoslavia in 1943 . As Maclean wryly put it , his mission was " simply to find out who was killing the most Germans and suggest means by which we could help them to kill more . " ( See also Yugoslavia and the Allies ) . At the time of Maclean ' s deployment to Yugoslavia , Josip Broz Tito and his Partisans were emerging as a major irritant to the 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 would later produce two biographies of him . Maclean ' s relationship with Tito ' s 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 . 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 island of Korčula , modern Croatia . 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 Major - General in 1947 . Later life . Maclean had been elected as Conservative Member of Parliament ( MP ) for Lancaster in a 1941 by - election . He served briefly as a junior minister at the War Office from 1954 to 1957 . In the 1959 general election he switched constituencies to Bute and North Ayrshire where he was re - elected until he retired at the Feb 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 . 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 ( born 1949 ) , who were brought up in their mother ' s faith . Maclean was also stepfather to his wife ' s 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 the writer Derek Marlowe , and is stepmother to autistic savant Derek Paravicini . Jeremy became a Major - General in the army , having served in the SAS . Jamie founded the " Erotic Review " . 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 Russia n 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 . Maclean was decorated posthumously with the Order of Prince Branimir by the Croatian President Stjepan Mesić for humanitarian aid to the Republic of Croatia during the Croatian War of Independence , and for international affirmation of Croatia .