Clive Rose
 Clive Rose     (diplomat, deep state actor) | ||||||||||||||
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| Born | 15 September 1921 | |||||||||||||
| Died | April 17 2019 (Age 97) | |||||||||||||
| Alma mater | Marlborough College, Christ Church (Oxford), Imperial Defence College | |||||||||||||
| Spouse | Elisabeth Mackenzie | |||||||||||||
British diplomat and right wing networker with an interest in countering "civil emergencies"
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Sir Clive Rose was a diplomat who is best remembered as the head of the Cabinet Office's Civil Contingencies Unit during the "Winter of Discontent" strike wave of 1978-79, which almost certainly assured Margaret Thatcher of victory in the subsequent general election. He then was appointed UK/Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Council (NATO) from 1979 until 1982.[1]
Rose chaired the Royal United Services Institution from 1983 to 1986, and the private military contractor Control Risks Information Services from 1991 to 1993.[1]
Background
Clive Martin Rose was born on September 15 1921, the son of the Rt Rev Alfred Rose, who became Bishop of Dover, and Lois Garton, a former concert pianist.[1]
Leaving Marlborough School in 1940, he taught briefly, then was an infantryman in World War 2. Demobilised in the rank of major, he took up a place at Christ Church, Oxford.[1]
Diplomatic career
He was accepted by the Commonwealth Relations Office that accepted Rose in 1948. It sent him to Madras, assisting Britons stranded after independence who wanted to come home.[1]
From 1950 to 1953 Rose worked on the Foreign Office's Persian Gulf desk. He accompanied Roger Makins, just appointed ambassador in Washington, to Kuwait, then Riyadh.
Rose was posted next to Bonn, then, on the FO's German desk from 1956, played a major part in organising the State visit of President Heuss, the first by a German head of state since the war.
In 1959 he was posted to Montevideo, where he was tested by a visit from the Prince Philip. Advised that the press in Brazil had given him a hard time, Rose barred the Uruguayan media from the tarmac when Prince Philip landed, only for him to remark: "Why the hell haven’t I got the press?"[1]
Back at the Foreign Office from 1962, Rose led on NATO and military co-operation with the United States and was heavily involved with the future of Britain's nuclear weapons. After a few years (under cover?) as commercial counsellor in Paris from 1965, and a year at the Imperial Defence College, in 1969 he was posted to Washington as defence counsellor.
After two years he returned to the FCO as its under-secretary in charge of security, then in 1973 took charge of Britain’s delegation to the the Negotiations on Mutual Reduction of Forces and Armaments and Associated Measures talks in Vienna – the first and only negotiations between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. With Harold Wilson due to visit Moscow in 1975, Britain's embassies were instructed not to upset the Soviets. When Rose voiced criticisms in a speech, he was told to submit future texts for clearance by the FCO.[1]
Civil Contingencies Unit
In September 1976 Rose moved to the Cabinet Office, where he headed the Civil Contingencies Unit (CCU) and took minutes at the Cabinet's Overseas Policy and Defence committee. He took over the CCU – intended for any kind of peacetime emergency in 1976 The Winter of Discontent was a grassroots revolt – encouraged by some union leaders – against Chancellor Denis Healey's five per cent norm for pay increases. During the unrest, Rose's panel was in almost continuous session.
When pickets blockaded Immingham docks, the Prime Minister Jim Callaghan told Rose he wanted the Army to take over. Rose replied that this was a tall order, but Callaghan told him: "Don't argue with your Prime Minister, go away and do what you are told." Rose rang the GOC North West, saying he had an instruction from the Prime Minister to take over the port of Immingham. "How am I supposed to do that?" the general replied. "I haven’t got anybody who knows about running ports, or enough men." However he agreed to work up a contingency plan which Rose then showed to Callaghan, who had second thoughts. "We won’t do that now," said the Prime Minister, "We will think of some way round it."[1]
NATO
With Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister, Rose went to Brussels as Permanent Representative to NATO; his posting spanned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the imposition of martial law in Poland. Some European NATO members were resisting the deployment of short-range US nuclear missiles. Rose was involved in negotiating a deal under which they took the missiles in return for attempts to open disarmament talks. Washington then tried to deploy the missiles without any talks – backing off after Rose told his US counterparts this was unacceptable.[1]
Retiring in 1982, he wrote Campaigns Against Western Defence (1985), where he argued that NATO was threatened not only by the Soviet Union, but by an internal erosion of public support through CND, and Soviet front organisations like the World Peace Council.[1]
From 1983 to 1987 he was President of the Emergency Planning Association. After "the apparent chaos in Whitehall that followed Chernobyl", Rose pressed for local councils to have a statutory duty to plan for civil emergencies, and for a "lead department" to identify potential disasters.
