Frank Roberts

Who was Frank Roberts?

Sir Frank Kenyon Roberts GCMG GCVO was a British diplomat. He played a key role in British diplomacy in the early years of the Cold War, and in developing Anglo-German relations in the 1960s.

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he was educated at Bedales School, Rugby School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1930 with first-class honours in history. He entered the Foreign Office in 1930, having been first-placed in the entrance examination.

His first overseas posting was to Paris, followed by Cairo where he married Celeste Leila Beatrix "Cella" Shoucair. Roberts returned to London in 1937 to work in the central department of the Foreign Office, where, as a still relatively junior official, he was involved in much of the diplomacy with Nazi Germany in the lead-up to World War II. When war broke out, he was British joint secretary of the Anglo French Supreme War Council from 1939 to 1940, and acted as interpreter during the third meeting of the SWC which took place at 10 Downing Street on 17 November 1939.

He was based in London until January 1945, when he was posted to Moscow, serving as an advisor to Winston Churchill at the Yalta conference and as British minister to the Soviet Union until 1947. With the United States Deputy Chief of Mission, George Kennan, he developed the analysis of Soviet foreign policy which formed the basis of the British and American policy of containment. He returned to London in 1947 as private secretary to Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, where he was involved in the negotiations with the Russians and the Americans over the Berlin airlift in 1947 and 1948. He was then Deputy High Commissioner to India from 1949 to 1951 and Deputy-Under Secretary of State at the Foreign Office from 1951 to 1954. In the latter year, he was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Yugoslavia, a post he held until 1957, when he became British Permanent Representative on the North Atlantic Council to 1960. He was Ambassador to the USSR from 1960 to 1962, and Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany from 1963 to 1968. He was awarded a CMG in 1946, knighted KCMG in 1956, advanced to GCMG in 1963, and made GCVO in 1965.