Nicholas Bethell

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Nicholas William Bethell, 4th Baron Bethell (born July 19, 1938) is a British historian of Eastern and Central Europe. His parents were William Gladstone Bethell and Ann Margaret Bethell.

He served as a nominated member of the European Parliament from 1975 to 1979 and an elected member from 1979 to 2003. Bethell sat in the House of Lords as a Conservative. He graduated from Harrow and Pembroke College, Cambridge, and has worked for the BBC Radio Drama department from 1964 to 1967 and for the Times Literary Supplement from 1962 to 1964. Bethell resides in London and has three children. In 1970-1971, Bethell served as the Government's Whip in the House of Lords.

Bethell has been married twice. In 1964, he married Cecilia Mary Honeyman and was divorced in 1971. She died in 1977. In 1992, he married Bryony Lea Morgan. Fluent in Russian and Polish Bethell often translates the work of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and other Russian and Polish writers into English. His hobbies are tennis and poker. In 1991, the Polish government awarded Bethell the Order of Merit at the Commander's level. Bethell was the president of the Uxbridge Conservative Association from 1995-1999 and the Friends of Gibraltar's Heritage from 1992 to 2001 and the Friends of Cyprus Association from 2001. He is active in the movement to keep Gibraltar a part of Britain.

Stalwartly anti-communist, Bethell in his books such as Betrayed strongly supported the Anglo-American efforts to overthrow the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe; what Bethell criticized was the execution of such operations, not their goal.

[edit] Work

Gomulka: his Poland and his communism, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1969.
The War Hitler Won, September 1939, London: A. Lane 1972.
The Last Secret : forcible repatriation to Russia 1944-7 with introduction by Hugh Trevor-Roper, London : Deutsch, 1974.
Russia Besieged, Alexandria, Va. : Time-Life Books, 1977.
The Palestine Triangle : the struggle between the British, the Jews and the Arabs, 1935-48, London : Deutsch, 1979.
Betrayed, London: Times Books, 1984; published as The great betrayal : the untold story of Kim Philby's biggest coup, Toronto : Hodder & Stoughton, 1984 in North America.
Spies and Other Secrets, 1994.

[edit] Translations

Six Plays by Slawomir Mrozek.
Elegy to John Donne, And Other Poems, London: Longmans 1967 by Joseph Brodsky.
Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1968.
The Love Girl and the Innocent by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1969.
The Ascent of Mount Fuji by Chingiz Aitmatov, 1975.