Reginald Hibbert
|
Sir Reginald Hibbert GCMG |
|
|---|---|
| United Kingdom Ambassador to France | |
|
In office 1979–1982 |
|
| President |
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing François Mitterrand |
| Preceded by | Sir Nicholas Henderson |
| Succeeded by | Sir John Fretwell |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
21 February 1922 Ilford, Essex, England |
| Died | 5 October 2002 (aged 80) Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Spouse(s) | Ann Alun Pugh |
| Alma mater | Worcester College, Oxford |
Sir Reginald Alfred Hibbert, GCMG (21 February 1922 – 5 October 2002) was a British diplomat.
Reginald Hibbert was educated at Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet and Worcester College, Oxford where he took a war-shortened course in modern history. After graduating in 1942 he volunteered for the army and was commissioned into the 4th Hussars (a tank regiment). In 1943 he was seconded to the Special Operations Executive and was parachuted into Albania, where he served as a liaison officer first with the nationalists, and then with the communist partisans. In 1944 he rejoined his regiment in Italy, serving as a troop commander until demobilisation. After a further year at Oxford learning Russian he entered the Foreign Service in 1946. In that year, before embarking on a more normal career, he had what he subsequently called a 'highly astonishing pupillage' as a note-taker and occasional interpreter in Russian for Ernest Bevin, the foreign secretary, in Moscow, Paris, and New York.
Hibbert served in Bucharest, Vienna, Guatemala, Ankara and Brussels before volunteering for the post of Chargé d'Affaires in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, 1964–66. He then took a sabbatical research fellowship at Leeds University before being appointed in 1967 to the office of the Commissioner-General in South-East Asia in Singapore, first as head of chancery and then as political adviser to the Commander-in-Chief, Far East. He was Minister at Bonn 1972–75; Assistant Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office 1975–76; Deputy Under-Secretary of State 1976–79; and finally Ambassador to France 1979–82.
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