Robert Conques British intelligence officer, diplomat, historian, science fiction writer, poet. Participant of the Second World War. Date of Birth: 15.07.1917 Country: Great Britain

Biography of Robert Conquest

Robert Conquest, a British intelligence officer, diplomat, historian, science fiction writer, and poet, was born on July 15, 1917, to an American businessman father and an English mother. He attended Winchester School, Grenoble University, and St. Magdalen College at Oxford University. During a year-long break from his studies, he traveled to Bulgaria. Upon his return to Oxford in 1937, he joined the Communist Party. In 1939, he graduated with a below-average grade.

With the start of World War II, Conquest enlisted in British intelligence, which allowed him to avoid frontline duty. In 1940, he married Joan Watkins. In 1942, he underwent four months of training in the Bulgarian language at the School of Slavic Studies. In 1944, he was sent to Bulgaria as a liaison officer with pro-Soviet Bulgarian forces, where he met Tatiana Mikhailova, who later became his second wife. After the war, Conquest was transferred to diplomatic service and served as a press attaché at the British Embassy in Sofia, where he observed the establishment of communist rule. In 1948, he returned to London with Tatiana Mikhailova and married her after divorcing his first wife.

Until 1956, Robert Conquest worked for the Information Research Department (IRD) of the Foreign Office. In British embassies, the head of the IRD department was responsible for providing "corrected" information to journalists and public figures. His main areas of research were the Third World and the Soviet Union. He also worked in the British delegation to the United Nations. In 1960, his first book about the deportations of peoples in the Soviet Union was published. In 1962, he divorced his second wife, stating that she showed symptoms of schizophrenia. From 1962 to 1963, Conquest worked as a literary editor at The Spectator. In 1964, he married American Carolyn Macfarlane.

Upon the suggestion of the IRD, Conquest wrote a book about the Soviet Union titled "The Great Terror: Stalin's Purges of the 1930s." One-third of the book's total print run was purchased by Frederick Praeger, who regularly published and distributed books on behalf of the CIA. Conquest continued to combine his work at universities with writing books commissioned by the US and UK governments, all of which were infused with the "spirit of the Cold War." In 1984, US President Ronald Reagan assigned Conquest to write material for his presidential campaign to "prepare the American people for a Soviet invasion." The text was titled "What to Do When the Russians Come: A Survival Guide." It included the following statement: "It is not true that all people are people. Russians are not people. They are alien beings."

Today, Conquest's works are actively used by the Ukrainian government to lend credibility to their claims about the "artificiality of the 1933 famine." Conquest is also the author of numerous articles, science fiction stories, and three poetry collections. He is currently a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in the United States.

For his "services to the nation," Robert Conquest was awarded the Order of the British Empire.