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Mr A H Birse C.B.E.
In 1932 he joined the Amstelbank in
Amsterdam, being appointed by a group of British Bank creditors to attend to
the liquidation of this concern. He joined Martins Bank in 1936 as Assistant
Manager in London Foreign branch. But the most
spectacular part of his career was still to come. As an accomplished
linguist, and in particular as a fluent speaker of the Russian language and
expert on Russian affairs, he became during the second world war, after service in the
Intelligence Corps in Egypt and the Military Mission in Moscow with the rank
of major, second Secretary to the British Embassy in Moscow and personal
interpreter to the Ambassador, Lord Inverchapel. Arising from this he acted as
interpreter to Mr Churchill and Mr Eden at the Moscow Conference in October, 1943; at the Teheran Conference in November, 1943; at the
Moscow conference in October, 1944; and at
the Yalta Conference in January, 1945.
Mr Eden made a personal request to the bank for the services of Mr Birse at the Moscow
Conference of 1944. He also acted as interpreter at the prolonged Armistice negotiations with
the satellite countries in Moscow during September
and October, 1944. In April, 1945, he accompanied Mr. Eden
to San Francisco, and in July he was in Potsdam, acting as interpreter to Mr
Churchill, Mr Eden, Mr Attlee and Mr Bevin.
All these duties were of a most exacting and arduous nature, involving
sixteen hours a day, and often more, for days on end. For his services
he received the C.B.E. from our ambassador on behalf of H.M. the King, and
the Order of the Red Banner of Labour from the President of the U.S.S.R. Last year he
travelled all over the United States and part of Canada visiting our
correspondents and accompanied the Chief General Manager Mr J M Furniss, on a
trip to North America. |
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At Potsdam in 1945 © Keystone Press Agency |
With Mr and Mrs McKendrick at Niagara |
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