Sir Fitzroy Hew Royle MacLean, Baronet of Dunconnel, (March 11, 1911 - June 15, 1996) was a Scottish diplomat, adventurer, writer and politician, as well as rumoured to be one of the inspirations for James Bond although throughout his life he neither confirmed or denied this. In Eastern Approaches, MacLean recounted his extraordinary adventures in Soviet Central Asia, and in the Western Desert, where he specialized in hair-raising commando raids behind enemy lines.

MacLean went to school at Eton College, followed by King's College, Cambridge University. On going down from Cambridge, he joined the Diplomatic Service in 1933.

In the Soviet Union

In the mid-thirties Fitzroy MacLean was posted to the British embassy in Paris. Bored with the pleasant but undemanding routine, he requested a posting to Moscow, which would later become the basis for 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 great Russian revolutionaries. While in Moscow, MacLean ventured by train and by foot into often remote regions of the Soviet Union, which were off limits to foreigners, and was pursued by the NKVD as he did so.

World War II: North Africa and Yugoslavia

When war broke out, MacLean was prevented from enlisting at first because of his position as a diplomat. He eventually managed to sign up in 1941 by a subterfuge, joining the Cameron Highlanders , and in North Africa Maclean distinguished himself in the early actions of the newly formed SAS. He rose from private to officer rank, and Winston Churchill personally chose him to lead a liaison mission to central Yugoslavia, where Tito and his partisans were emerging as a major irritant to the German control of the Balkans. MacLean knew Tito well, and would later produce two biographies of him. MacLean was a brilliant practitioner in the T.E. Lawrence brand of fighting, and he reported directly to Churchill the two meeting in Cairo. Along with Ralph A. Bagnold, he developed ways of driving vehicles over the Libyan sand 'seas'.

MacLean's relationship with Tito's partisans was uneasy, partly because they were Communist, and he was a member of the Scottish aristocracy who had witnessed Stalinism in action. However, it is believed he was instrumental in steering post-war Yugoslavia away from the Soviet sphere of influence.

Later life

MacLean had been elected as Unionist Member of Parliament 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 in 1974. 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 was honoured with a Baronetcy in 1957.

MacLean was best known in later life for his books which ranged from fiction to Scottish history, to biographies of Tito and books about Russia. Take nine spies is a collection of true spy stories, including Mata Hari, Richard Sorge, Kim Philby, Gordon Lonsdale , Guy Burgess and Donald MacLean (no relation!) etc.

Biographies

• MacLean, Lady Veronica: Past Forgetting: A Memoir of Heroes, Adventure, Love and Life With Fitzroy Maclean
• McLynn, Frank: Fitzroy MacLean

See also

Inspirations for James Bond

Bibliography

• Eastern Approaches 1949
• 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
• 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
• Tito: A Pictorial Biography

External links

• Sir Fitzroy, the original James Bond, is dead
• Scots adventurer was never a spy, reveals widow