David Ormsby-Gore, 5th Baron Harlech

Early life

William David Ormsby-Gore was born into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family on 20 May 1918 in Westminster, London, the second son of William Ormsby-Gore, 4th Baron Harlech, a Conservative politician, and Lady Beatrice Edith Mildred Gascoyne-Cecil. His maternal great-grandfather was British Prime Minister The 3rd Marquess of Salisbury. He was educated at St Cyprian's School, Eton College and New College, Oxford.

A well-known story told of him at Eton is that, when a boy in his house killed himself, the housemaster called the boys together, and asked if any of them had any idea why this should have happened. Ormsby-Gore put up his hand and asked, "Please sir, could it have been the food?"

In 1939, he was commissioned into the Royal Artillery (Berkshire Yeomanry Field Regiment), served in the 'Phantom' reconnaissance unit, and worked with airborne and other special units. By the end of the War, he held the rank of major on the general staff.

After the war, his father handed over to him all his land, and Ormsby-Gore farmed the 400 acres (1.6 km2) of the Woodhill Estate, Oswestry, Shropshire. In 1948, he was commissioned a Major in the Shropshire Yeomanry, but left in 1950.

His elder brother Owen having died in 1935, Ormsby-Gore became Lord Harlech on the death of his father in 1964.

Career

Member of Parliament

At the 1950 general election, he was elected Member of Parliament for Oswestry, which he remained until 1961. Under Prime Minister Anthony Eden he served briefly, from November 1956 to January 1957, as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; and under Prime Minister Harold Macmillan he was from 1957 to 1961 Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. After the election of U.S. President John F. Kennedy he was appointed British Ambassador to the United States on 18 October 1961. This meant that he had to take the Chiltern Hundreds on 1 June, so that he could resign from the House.

Ambassador to the United States

Ormsby-Gore knew Kennedy well from his time in London, where his father Joseph P. Kennedy had served as American Ambassador. Like Macmillan, Ormsby-Gore was distantly related to Kennedy, but had a closer relationship than did Macmillan with the President-elect and his brother Robert. Six months after Kennedy took office Ormsby-Gore was in Washington, D.C. Referred to under the Kennedy administration as "our kind of Ambassador", he supplied Kennedy with a stream of advice and Cuban cigars via his diplomatic bag. He was almost a resident at the White House, being more a friend of the family than a mere ambassador. After President Kennedy's assassination there were rumours of a romance between Ormsby-Gore and Jacqueline Kennedy. In 1968 he proposed marriage to her, but, she did not accept. Ormsby-Gore was one of the pallbearers at Robert F. Kennedy's funeral along with Robert McNamara, John Glenn, W. Averell Harriman, C. Douglas Dillon, Kirk Lemoyne Billings (schoolmate of John F. Kennedy), Stephen Edward Smith (husband to Jean Ann Kennedy), David Hackett, Jim Whittaker and John Seigenthaler. Under the Lyndon B. Johnson administration relations were more formal but remained excellent; and Ormsby-Gore maintained his position after the Labour government took power in Britain in 1964.

A fierce opponent of oil-barrel politics, Ormsby-Gore's terse dismissal of the phenomenon ran: "It would indeed be a tragedy if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more than the story of an ape playing with a box of matches on a petrol dump."{{cite magazine |access-date = 2025-09-05

The friendships of Ormsby-Gore and Macmillan with John F. Kennedy helped secure the first Test-Ban Treaty in 1963. Macmillan and Ormsby-Gore had been attempting to achieve a test-ban treaty with the Russians for the past ten years, and won Kennedy over through letters from Macmillan and frank discussions between Ormsby-Gore and Kennedy. They persuaded him to act like a statesman and conclude Test-ban treaties with Russia and not fear being branded as an appeaser by political opponents in the United States.

Ormsby-Gore was a participant in what is referred to as a "twenty-five year conversation to do with the role of a leader in a democratic society". He encouraged Kennedy to remain focused on issues relevant to the world and the future, rather than attempting to protect himself politically.

According to the Duchess of Devonshire, who travelled with the British delegation to Kennedy's funeral in November 1963, Macmillan's successor as Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home had wanted to appoint Ormsby-Gore as Foreign Secretary, but R. A. Butler had insisted on having this post as a condition of serving under Home. After Kennedy's assassination, Ormsby-Gore became involved in a relationship with his widow Jacqueline, going on vacation with her in Cambodia. He proposed marriage to her in 1967 and was turned down. In 1968, when she married the Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, Lord Harlech was opposed and wrote to her asking her to change her mind.

Later life

Ormsby-Gore retired as ambassador in 1965, a year after his father died, and took his seat in the House of Lords as Lord Harlech, briefly also holding the position of deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. He also had a successful career as a television executive, founding HTV, and served as president of the British Board of Film Classification. He had an active interest in the avant-garde, and for nearly ten years, beginning in 1969, was patron of the Institute for Research in Art and Technology. In 1971–1972, he was a deputy chairman of the Pearce Commission. In 1972, with actor Stanley Baker, Harlech staged a four-day festival near Lincoln.

Personal life

On 9 February 1940, Lord Harlech married Sylvia Lloyd Thomas (1920–1967) daughter of Hugh Lloyd Thomas, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to France between 1935 and 1938, and Guendaline Ada Bellew. Before Lady Harlech's death in an automobile accident on 30 May 1967, they had five children:

• Julian Hugh Ormsby-Gore (1940–1974), who died of gunshot wounds, an apparent suicide.
• Jane Teresa Denyse Ormsby-Gore (b. 1942), who was said to have had an affair with Mick Jagger during the 1960s; some consider the Rolling Stones song "Lady Jane" to be about her. She married Michael Rainey in 1966 (div. 1984) and lived at Brogyntyn Home Farm, Oswestry.
• Victoria Mary Ormsby-Gore (1946-1995)
• Alice Magdalen Sarah Ormsby-Gore (1952–1995), who was the girlfriend of Eric Clapton from 1969-1974. She died of a heroin overdose in 1995.
• Francis David Ormsby-Gore, 6th Baron Harlech (1954–2016), who married Amanda Jane Grieve (b. 1959), daughter of Alan Grieve.

In 1968, Lord Harlech proposed to the widowed Jacqueline Kennedy, whom he had been friends with since before her husband's assassination. Jacqueline Kennedy declined his offer of marriage in a letter, writing: "If ever I can find some healing and some comfort — it has to be with somebody who is not part of all my world of past and pain ... I can find that now if the world will let us." She later married Aristotle Onassis.

On 11 December 1969, Lord Harlech married American socialite Pamela Colin, daughter of a Manhattan top corporate lawyer, herself a London resident editor of Vogue and then food editor of the British Vogue. The wedding was attended by Princess Margaret, the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, the Earl and Countess of Drogheda, the Earl and Countess of Airlie, The Countess Gowrie, Lord and Lady David Cecil, Sir Fitzroy Maclean, J. J. Astor and Michael Astor. They had one daughter:

• Pandora Beatrice Ormsby-Gore (b. April 1972), who is the partner of actor Rory Kinnear, with whom she has two children.

Death

Lord Harlech was seriously injured in a car crash at Montford Bridge near Shrewsbury on the evening of 25 January 1985 and died at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital the following morning, aged 66. Senator Edward Kennedy, Jacqueline Onassis and other Kennedy family members attended his funeral and interment in Llanfihangel-y-traethau. He was succeeded in the barony by his second and only surviving son, Francis.

Contents of Lord Harlech's house at Glyn Cywarch, including his government despatch box containing drafts from him and numerous letters from Jackie Kennedy illustrating their close relationship, were auctioned at Bonhams in London in September 2017 on behalf of his grandson after a preview in New York. The box (whose lock had had to be filed open) and its contents sold for over $40,000.

In popular culture

Ormsby-Gore was portrayed by Peter Donat in the 1974 television play The Missiles of October, which was about the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Honours and arms

Honours and Crown appointments

Ormsby-Gore was appointed to be a Deputy Lieutenant of Shropshire on 12 April 1961. As the British Ambassador to the United States, he was, on 29 June 1961, appointed to the Order of St Michael and St George as a Knight Commander (KCMG). In 1962, he was appointed to the Order of St John as a Knight (KStJ).

Coat of arms

Notes

References

• Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990,
• Leaming, Barbara. “Jack Kennedy: The Education of a Statesman” (2006). W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Numerous references.

References

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5. {{London Gazette. (21 November 1961)
6. {{London Gazette. (6 June 1961)
7. Erlanger, Steven. (2017-02-08). "Letters From Jacqueline Kennedy to the Man She Didn't Marry". The New York Times.
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9. Devonshire, Deborah. (2010). "Wait For Me!".
10. (9 February 2017). "The One That Got Away: A Trove of Jacqueline Kennedy's Love Letters Has Been Found". Vogue.
11. "May 05, 1972 - Four-Day Pop Festival: The Great Western Express four-day pop festival is being staged by actor Stanley Baker and Lord Harlech's Great Western Festivals LTD, at Bardney, near Lincoln. Photo shows Plenty of protection against the weather for these fans at the site Stock Photo - Alamy".
12. "Ancestry® {{!}} Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History Records".
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14. [https://web.archive.org/web/20080103182937/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,945144,00.html?promoid=googlep ''Time'' magazine], 18 November 1974
15. Davis, Stephen: Old Gods Almost Dead
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18. (December 12, 1969). "Lord Harlech Marries Pamela Colin In London Ceremony Attended by 100". [[The New York Times]].
19. "Rory Kinnear, actor".
20. (4 September 2013). "Rory Kinnear on writing his first play". London Evening Standard.
21. Denham, Jess. (13 April 2014). "Olivier Awards 2014: Rory Kinnear beats Jude Law and Tom Hiddleston to Best Actor for Othello". [[The Independent]].
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25. {{London Gazette. (1 September 1961)
26. {{London Gazette. (16 January 1962)