Oliver Franks

If Britain were a republic, it was said, Oliver Franks would have to be president: no one else would do. Oliver Franks: Founding Father is the first biography of this remarkable man, written by a leading historian and specialist in international relations. Things happened to Oliver Franks. An exceedingly deliberate man, he was, so to say, accident-prone. He did not seek his various careers of don, mandarin, diplomat, banker, provost, pillar of state. They sought him. He did not collect committees, as some men do. They collected him. He did not pine for public recognition - he was the very picture of the magnanimous man. Recognition came none the less. Franks lived a long life and a good one. A moral philosopher by training and inclination, he was thrust into a leading role in transforming events in the mid-twentieth century: supplying the war against Hitler, securing the post-war recovery of Europe, negotiating the Atlantic alliance - all the while tending that delicate growth, the Anglo-American 'special relationship'. Confronted with an intractable problem, the British Government - Labour and Conservative alike - responded predictably: send for fireman Franks. Faced with the need for an official inquiry, Government reacted in the same way. Franks was invited to inquire into everything from Official Secrets to Oxford University. At the tender age of seventy-seven, he inquired into the workings of Government itself - the Thatcher Government's handling of the Falklands crisis, the most controversial Franks Report of them all. This is a scrupulously researched and finely written study of an exceptional life. Alex Danchev conducted extensive interviews with Lord Franks himself and with many of his British and American associates; he has combed public and private papers on both sides of the Atlantic. The result is a combination of sharp insight and meticulous scholarship, illuminating one of the most influential public servants of our time.