Archibald Clark Kerr

Archibald Clark Kerr, later Baron Inverchapel, was a British diplomat whose career placed him at several of the most important international posts of the Second World War. Born in Sydney in 1882 and raised largely in Britain, he entered the diplomatic service in 1906 and served in Latin America, Sweden and Iraq before becoming ambassador to China in 1938. During the Sino-Japanese War he remained with Chiang Kai-shek’s government and worked to maintain British relations under the pressure of Japanese expansion.

In 1942 Clark Kerr was transferred to Moscow, where his combination of informality and political judgement helped him establish a working relationship with Joseph Stalin during the wartime alliance. He participated in the diplomacy surrounding the Allied conferences and then served as ambassador to the United States from 1946 to 1948, during the rapid deterioration of relations with the Soviet Union. Elevated to the peerage as Baron Inverchapel in 1946, he ended his career as one of Britain’s most experienced senior diplomats of the transition from world war to Cold War.

Giles Milton’s The Stalin Affair follows the diplomats and envoys sent to Moscow, including W. Averell Harriman and Archibald Clark Kerr, as they negotiated aid, strategy and access to a government shaped by secrecy and terror.