Terence O'Brien (British diplomat)

Terence John O'Brien, CMG, MC (13 October 1921 in Ranchi, India – 22 December 2006 in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England) was a British career diplomat.^[1]^[2]

Background

Born in India, the son of Joseph O'Brien, he belonged to a long line of British civil servants who served the Indian Empire. When he was eleven his father retired and settled in the English county of Norfolk.

Education and war service

O'Brien was educated at

Normandy Landings, being awarded the Military Cross in 1945 for his survey work between Allied and enemy lines. After the war, he returned to Oxford to complete his degree and was an active member of the Oxford University Dramatic Society

.

Career

In 1947, O'Brien joined the

Diplomatic Service

. His subsequent career was spent in South and South East Asia.

He was appointed British ambassador to

RAF and the Indian government. In Kathmandu

he invented the sport of duck racing.

He was posted as ambassador to

Burma in 1974 and was appalled by the regime of General Ne Win, whom he was obliged to meet officially on many occasions. Among his friends there were U Myint Thein, a former Chief Justice, and Daw Khin Kyi, the widow of Aung San and mother of Aung San Suu Kyi

.

He next went as ambassador to Indonesia in 1978, then presided over by Suharto, where he faced the challenge of a trade war between Britain and Indonesia.

He retired to Dorset in 1981, where he spent much of his time trout fishing. When he died in 2006, he was living at Wallingford, Oxfordshire.

Diplomatic career summary

Dominions Office, 1947
Commonwealth Relations Office
, 1947 to 1949
British High Commission,
Ceylon
, 1950 to 1952
seconded to the Treasury, 1953 to 1956
British High Commission, Australia, 1958 to 1960
First Secretary, Kuala Lumpur, 1960 to 1962
Secretary to Intergovernmental Committee,
Jesselton, Sabah
, 1962–63

Head of Chancery, New Delhi, 1963 to 1966
Counsellor,
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
, 1968 to 1970
Ambassador to Nepal, 1970 to 1974
Ambassador to
Burma
, 1974 to 1978
Ambassador to Indonesia, 1978 to 1981

Family

O'Brien married Phyllis Mitchell in 1950,^[3] but she died of polio in 1952. In 1953 he married Rita Emily Drake Reynolds;^[3] they had one son and two daughters.

Honours

Military Cross, 1945^[3]
Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, 1971

References

^ Heath, John, Obituary: Terence O'Brien Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine, The Independent, 27 January 2007.
^ Who's Who 2003 (A. & C. Black, London, 2003), page 1618.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Levens, R.G.C., ed. (1964). Merton College Register 1900-1964. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 318.

Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Richard Hugh Sedley Allen	British Ambassador to Burma 1974–1978	Succeeded by Nicholas Fenn

[1] Heath, John, Obituary: Terence O'Brien Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine, The Independent, 27 January 2007.

[2] Who's Who 2003 (A. & C. Black, London, 2003), page 1618.

[MCreg-3] Levens, R.G.C., ed. (1964). Merton College Register 1900-1964. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 318.

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