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Douglas Busk
Douglas Laird Busk KCMG (1906–1990) was a British diplomat, mountaineer and geographer.
Busk was born in London on 15 July 1906, the son of John Laird Busk (a descendent of Wadsworth Busk) and Eleanor Joy (daughter of Charles A. Joy). The family settled in Westerham, Kent in 1917. His father died in 1922 when he was a teenager.
Busk was educated at Eton, the Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz and New College, Oxford, also spending some time at Princeton University. He married Bridget Hemsley Thompson in 1937, and they had two daughters. Bridget was an artist and her line drawings illustrate his books The Delectable Mountains and The Fountain of the Sun . He died on 11 December 1990, aged 84, at Chilbolton.
Busk joined the diplomatic service in 1927 and served in several countries in a junior role, including Iran, Hungary, Japan and Turkey.
He was posted to Tokyo in November 1941, just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Ten days after his arrival, when the Ambassador was at the American Embassy, he "was pressed to accept an ideographic Declaration of War". Along with all other Allied diplomats in Japanese territory he was interned for 8 months until Allied and Japanese diplomats were formally exchanged in 1942. On 30 July 1942, Craigie, the ambassador, and the other embassy staff left Japan on board the Tatsuta Maru, returning to Britain via Lourenço Marques in East Africa (today Maputo, Mozambique).
Whilst in Turkey Busk employed a nursemaid to look after their children, the nursemaid was a mistress of the nazi spy Elyesa Bazna and Busk went on to employ Bazna as a valet. Busk was first secretary and head of chancery at the embassy and he introduced Bazna to Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, the ambassador, who went on to employ Bazna as chauffeur and valet from November 1943 to March 1944.
Busk also served in Iraq and from 1946-1948, he was acting head of mission from late 1947-early 1948 because the ambassador was unwell, this meant that he had responsibility for the Baghdad side of UK-Iraq relations which included the Iraqi monarch's plans to renew the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930, an intention which led to the Al-Wathbah uprising.
He served as Britain's ambassador to Ethiopia (1952–1956), Finland (1958–1960) and Venezuela (1961–1964). In the early 1960s Venezuela had just emerged from rule by a military junta, the 1963 Venezuelan general election was held on 1 December. On December 4, in a wave of incidents in Caracas, terrorists launched a machine-gun attack on the embassy from a passing car, Lady Busk was inside the residence but was uninjured.
Douglas Busk
Douglas Laird Busk KCMG (1906–1990) was a British diplomat, mountaineer and geographer.
Busk was born in London on 15 July 1906, the son of John Laird Busk (a descendent of Wadsworth Busk) and Eleanor Joy (daughter of Charles A. Joy). The family settled in Westerham, Kent in 1917. His father died in 1922 when he was a teenager.
Busk was educated at Eton, the Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz and New College, Oxford, also spending some time at Princeton University. He married Bridget Hemsley Thompson in 1937, and they had two daughters. Bridget was an artist and her line drawings illustrate his books The Delectable Mountains and The Fountain of the Sun . He died on 11 December 1990, aged 84, at Chilbolton.
Busk joined the diplomatic service in 1927 and served in several countries in a junior role, including Iran, Hungary, Japan and Turkey.
He was posted to Tokyo in November 1941, just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Ten days after his arrival, when the Ambassador was at the American Embassy, he "was pressed to accept an ideographic Declaration of War". Along with all other Allied diplomats in Japanese territory he was interned for 8 months until Allied and Japanese diplomats were formally exchanged in 1942. On 30 July 1942, Craigie, the ambassador, and the other embassy staff left Japan on board the Tatsuta Maru, returning to Britain via Lourenço Marques in East Africa (today Maputo, Mozambique).
Whilst in Turkey Busk employed a nursemaid to look after their children, the nursemaid was a mistress of the nazi spy Elyesa Bazna and Busk went on to employ Bazna as a valet. Busk was first secretary and head of chancery at the embassy and he introduced Bazna to Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, the ambassador, who went on to employ Bazna as chauffeur and valet from November 1943 to March 1944.
Busk also served in Iraq and from 1946-1948, he was acting head of mission from late 1947-early 1948 because the ambassador was unwell, this meant that he had responsibility for the Baghdad side of UK-Iraq relations which included the Iraqi monarch's plans to renew the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930, an intention which led to the Al-Wathbah uprising.
He served as Britain's ambassador to Ethiopia (1952–1956), Finland (1958–1960) and Venezuela (1961–1964). In the early 1960s Venezuela had just emerged from rule by a military junta, the 1963 Venezuelan general election was held on 1 December. On December 4, in a wave of incidents in Caracas, terrorists launched a machine-gun attack on the embassy from a passing car, Lady Busk was inside the residence but was uninjured.