Curtis Keeble

Sir Herbert Ben Curtis Keeble (18 September 1922 – 6 December 2008) was a British diplomat and Ambassador to the Soviet Union between 1978 and 1982.

Early life He was born in Chingford in 1922 and attended Clacton County High School and Queen Mary, University of London, where he studied Modern Languages.

World War Two His studies were interrupted by World War II, and he volunteered in 1941, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Irish Fusiliers on 20 February 1943. He worked as an interpreter on various convoys, including one marked H9 carrying 2000 Russian refugees to Odessa despite the fact that, at the time, he did not speak fluent Russian. and posted to Jakarta as acting vice-consul despite the normal requirement for applicants to have a university degree. His main task while serving there was to decipher coded messages arriving from the British ambassador at The Hague, something the staff did with only pencils and cipher books. In 1951 he was sent to the Berlin British Sector as deputy political advisor. In 1954 he was transferred yet again, this time to Washington to serve in the commercial department and again in 1958 back to London. In 1961 he was appointed head of the department negotiating the entry of Britain into the European Economic Community, something that failed due to clashes with the French.

In 1971 he returned to London again as assistant under-secretary and handled negotiations with Iceland during the second Cod War. On 16 January 1974 he was posted to East Germany as the first British Ambassador, where despite requesting a subdued colour for his official car he was given one that was bright red. According to him this later proved key, however; when Leonid Brezhnev was introduced to the British diplomatic staff he expressed amazement at Keeble's height (5 ft 9 in) telling him it did not do justice to his country, but "the situation was rapidly restored by the red Daimler". where he would form close ties with his opposite number, Andrei Gromyko, He retired in 1982, at which point he was given a tour of a private part of the Kremlin; a mark of the regard the Russians held him in.

Retirement After retirement he continued to be involved in foreign affairs, serving as an adviser to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and from 1985 as chairman of the Great Britain-USSR Association.

Personal life While serving in World War II, he met his future wife Margaret Fraser, with whom he had three daughters: Suzanne, a doctor; Sally Keeble, a Member of Parliament for Northampton North constituency from 1997 to 2010; and Jane Keeble, who was killed on 12 July 1998 in a car accident, after which he suffered a heart attack. Lady Keeble died in 2014 aged 92.