David Ormsby-Gore, 5th Baron Harlech

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(William) David Ormsby-Gore, 5th Baron Harlech KCMG PC (May 20, 1918–January 26, 1985), known as David Ormsby-Gore until 1964, was a British diplomat Conservative Party politician.

Ormsby-Gore was the second son of William Ormsby-Gore, 4th Baron Harlech, a Conservative politician, and Lady Beatrice Edith Mildred Cecil. Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, was his maternal great-grandfather. He was educated at Eton College and Oxford University. During World War II, he served in the 'Phantom' reconnaissance unit and worked with airborne and other special units. After the war, his father handed over all his land and Ormsby-Gore farmed the 400 acres (1.6 km²) of the Woodhill Estate, Oswestry, Shropshire.

At the 1950 general election he was elected as Member of Parliament for Oswestry, which he remained until until 1961. He served briefly under Anthony Eden as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from November 1956 to January 1957, and was Minister of State for Foreign Affairs from 1957 to 1961 under Harold Macmillan. After the election of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in November 1960 he was appointed British Ambassador to the United States.

Ormsby-Gore knew Kennedy well from his time in London where his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, had served as American Ambassador. Like Macmillan, he was distantly related to Kennedy, but enjoyed a much closer relationship with the President-elect and his brother Robert. Six months after Kennedy took office, Ormsby-Gore was in Washington. Referred to under the Kennedy administration as "our kind of Ambassador", he supplied Cuban cigars smuggled in his diplomatic bag and a stream of advice; he was practically a resident at the White House. Ormsby-Gore had the status primarily of friend of the family as opposed to merely ambassador. Following President Kennedy's assassination there were even rumours of a romance between Ormsby-Gore and Jacqueline Kennedy, these were not likely to have been believed by the family. Ormsby-Gore was one of the pallbearers at Robert Kennedy's funeral which included Robert McNamara, John Glenn, Averell Harriman, C. Douglas Dillon, Kirk Lemoyne Billings (schoolmate of John F. Kennedy), Stephen Smith (husband to Jean Ann Kennedy), David Hackett, Jim Whittaker, and John Seigenthaler Sr.. Under the LBJ administration relations were obviously more formal but remained excellent and Ormsby-Gore maintained his position even after the Labour government took power in Britain in 1964.

He retired from the post in 1965, a year after his father died and took up his seat in the House of Lords as Lord Harlech, briefly also holding the position of Conservative party deputy chairman. He also had a successful career as a television executive, founding HTV, and served as president of the British Board of Film Classification. But his time back in England was also difficult: his wife died in a car accident in 1967 and his son committed suicide in 1974.

A fierce opponent of oil-barrel politics, Ormsby-Gore's terse dismissal of the phenomenon ran: "It would indeed be a tragedy if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more than the story of an ape playing with a box of matches on a petrol dump." His political influence over the Kennedy administration is much disputed. Unable to persuade the American government to agree the British line over Yemen and the Congo, or to proceed with either a negotiated settlement with Khrushchev over Berlin or the Skybolt ballistic missile programme, he nevertheless played a significant role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and ensured that Britain's views were always taken in account by the American government—though they were not necessarily pursued.

However his friendship with John Kennedy helped to engage the first ever Test-Ban Treaty. His actions were largely off stage and not well known. Along with British Prime Minister Macmillian, they persuaded Kennedy that the time for the Test-ban treaty was at a head in 1963. Macmillian and especially Ormsby-Gore had been attempting to achieve a test-ban treaty with the Russians for the past 10 years, as saw the political climate shift in a way that they saw that they could at long last secure a deal, if only through the persuasion of Kennedy. They did this through a tag team of letters directly from Macmillian and frank and forth-right discussions between Ormsby-Gore and Kennedy. They attempted to convince him to act like a statesman rather than a politician as he was reluctant to engage in Test-ban treaties with Russia that may have made him seem as an appeaser which was strongly reviled by the American public at the time.

Otmsby-Gore was a keen participant in what is referred to as their "twenty-five year conversation to do with the role of a leader in a democratic society. He was a major influence on Kennedy, helping to remain focused on the issues that were relevant to the world and the future, rather than attempting to protect himself politically as he was inclined to do on occasion.

Lord Harlech married, firstly, Sylvia Thomas, daughter of Hugh Lloyd Thomas, in 1940. They had five children, two sons and three daughters. After his first wife's death in 1967 he married, secondly, Pamela Colin, in 1969. They had one daughter. Lord Harlech died in a car crash in 1985, aged 66, and was succeeded in the barony by his second but only surviving son Francis.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Oliver Poole	Member of Parliament for Oswestry 1950–1961	Succeeded by John Biffen
Political offices
Preceded by Douglas Dodds-Parker Lord John Hope	Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs with Douglas Dodds-Parker 1956–1957	Succeeded by The Earl of Gosford Ian Douglas Harvey
Preceded by Allan Noble	Minister of State for Foreign Affairs with Allan Noble 1957–1959 John Profumo 1959–1960 1957–1961	Succeeded by Joseph Godber
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Sir Harold Caccia	British Ambassador to the United States 1961–1965	Succeeded by Sir Patrick Dean
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by William Ormsby-Gore	Baron Harlech 1964–1985	Succeeded by Francis Ormsby-Gore

[edit] References

• Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990.
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page
• www.thepeerage.com

[edit] External Links

• A creature card in the collectible card game Magic: the Gathering is called "Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore." Any reasoning behind this name is unknown, other than meaningless titular presence, though the card does interestingly feature the flavor text, "The highway of fear is the shortest route to defeat." [1]