Hastings Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay

General Hastings Lionel "Pug" Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay (21 June 1887 – 17 December 1965) was a British politician, diplomat and general in the British Indian Army who was the first secretary general of NATO. He also was Winston Churchill's chief military assistant during the Second World War.

Ismay was born in Nainital, India, in 1887, and educated in the United Kingdom at Charterhouse School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. After Sandhurst, he joined the Indian Army as an officer of the 21st Prince Albert Victor's Own Cavalry. During the First World War, he served with the Camel Corps in British Somaliland, where he joined in the British fight against the "Mad Mullah", Mohammed Abdullah Hassan. In 1925, Ismay became an Assistant Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID). After being promoted to the rank of colonel, he served as the military secretary for Lord Willingdon, the Viceroy of India, then returned to the CID as Deputy Secretary in 1936.

On 1 August 1938, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, Ismay became the committee's secretary and began planning for the impending war. In May 1940, when Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, he selected Ismay as his chief military assistant and staff officer. In that capacity, Ismay served as the principal link between Churchill and the Chiefs of Staff Committee. Ismay also accompanied Churchill to many of the Allied war conferences. For Ismay's advice and aid, "Churchill owed more, and admitted that he owed more" to him "than to anybody else, military or civilian, in the whole of the war."

After the end of the war, Ismay remained in the army for another year, and helped to reorganise the Ministry of Defence. He then retired from the military and served as Lord Mountbatten of Burma's chief of staff in India, helping to oversee its partition. From 1948 to 1951, he served as chairman of the council of the Festival of Britain, helping to organise and promote the event. Then, in 1951, when Churchill again became prime minister, he appointed Ismay Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations.

Ismay accepted the position, but resigned after only six months to become the first secretary general of NATO in 1952. While Secretary General, Ismay is also credited as having been the first person to say that the purpose of NATO was "to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down," a saying that has since become a common way to describe the dynamics of NATO. He served in this role until 1957, and helped establish and define the position. After retiring from NATO, Ismay wrote his memoirs, The Memoirs of General Lord Ismay, served on a variety of corporate boards, and co-chaired the Ismay–Jacob Committee, which reorganised the Ministry of Defence once again. He died on 17 December 1965, at his home, Wormington Grange, Gloucestershire.

Ismay was born in Nainital, Kumaon, India, on 21 June 1887. His father, Sir Stanley Ismay, was a member of the Viceroy's Legislative Council, and his mother, Beatrice Ellen (née Read), was the daughter of an Army colonel, Hastings Read. Ismay began his education in Britain at the Charterhouse School, and his parents hoped that after completing his education there he would attend Cambridge and enter the civil service.

Ismay, however, "had a sneaking desire to be a cavalry soldier", and after doing poorly on his final examinations at Charterhouse, he was ineligible to attend Cambridge. As a result, he entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in 1904. Ismay would later write: "Sandhurst never meant nearly so much to me as Charterhouse had", but he enjoyed his time at the college and studied alongside many men who went on to become important military officers, including Lord Gort, Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt and Cyril Newall.

After completing the course at Sandhurst, Ismay was placed fourth overall in its examinations and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Indian Army. Ismay was then attached to the Gloucestershire Regiment of the British Army in Ambala, where he served a one-year mandatory apprenticeship. After leaving the regiment, Ismay did not immediately find a place in the Indian cavalry, so he spent nine months floating among positions with various British and Indian units.