Sir Eric Drummond, the first Secretary General Interview with M. Carr, D. Macfadyen & J. Burley

June 17, 2025

Sir Eric Drummond, the first Secretary General
Interview with Marilyn Carr, David Macfadyen and John Burley

Diva: Could you be so kind as to tell us a little about why you started to write a book about Sir Eric?

Marilyn: Having worked for much of my life for the United Nations, I was intrigued to learn about a very special person, Sir Eric Drummond, who set up the UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations in 1919 and established its HQ in Geneva. My colleagues David Macfadyen and Michael Davies (now sadly deceased) asked me to join them in putting his life into print. David had started the process after working on the history of WHO, and Michael became involved following his earlier work on international institutions. John Burley joined us later at a witness seminar on the international work of former UN civil servants. As part of a British team, it was exciting to learn about this extraordinary man. It was wonderful to explore his story and bring it to the present generation of the UN, our British association of former UN staff, and the public in general who, like myself, had perhaps not previously known about his remarkable contributions to shaping the impartial character of the international civil service. He was relatively unknown, and the book was a way of increasing the visibility of the first Secretary General.

Diva: How would you characterise Sir Eric Drummond, the first Secretary General of the League, as a person outside his official role?

David: Friendly, courteous and cheerful; the essence of ‘L’Esprit de Genève’. Sir Eric’s recreations were fishing and golf. Immediately after his appointment, he went fly-fishing, during which he arrived at the League’s structure. His partners at the Golf-Club at Onex included a Japanese colleague and a Chinese delegate. Drummond was free of the bigoted attitudes of the time towards other nationalities. He told his directors that the spirit of the Covenant implied ‘equal liberty and independence for all races’.

His wife Ela, to whom he was devoted, hosted delegates, League staff and spouses in La Pelouse, their Geneva home. One observed that, to pierce behind Drummond’s reserve, one had to see the ideal family life in which he found repose (see photo).

[Image 2] – L to R. Angela, Margaret, Lady Drummond, David & Gillian, Geneva c 1925. Stobhall Papers, ‘Photos 2/8’. Courtesy of the Earl of Perth.

Sir Eric was the youngest of those who have been Secretary General of either the League or the UN. Character and manners underpinned his achievements. Before telling the Council of his intention to resign he wrote to his immediate colleagues to forewarn them and, after leaving, wrote them hand-written letters of thanks. On his departure, the Irish delegate said the way to repay the debt owed to Sir Eric was to maintain that international cooperation to which he devoted valuable years, much labour and great ability.

Diva: During his tenure, the first 10 years of the organisation’s existence, it was rather successful. Why did Drummond leave the ship when the tide started to turn?

David: Yes, its successes stemmed from Drummond and those he appointed. Several, including Jean Monnet, his first Deputy, had experienced transnational cooperation in wartime interallied supply committees. Together with the Under-Secretary Generals and Heads of Section, they constituted a cohesive ‘board of directors’ who created international cooperation in many technical fields. The tide started to turn however in 1927, when Drummond was pressured into appointing, as Under-Secretary General, a protégé of Mussolini, Paulucci di Calboli. This undermined Drummond’s concept, that the Secretariat needed to be impartial and independent.

Nevertheless, the League continued to achieve successful international cooperation in the economic and social fields, and Drummond expressed pride in what had been accomplished in other fields, such as the codification of international law.

Drummond’s departure followed Japan’s invasion of Manchuria, an external aggression against the territorial integrity of a member state, and a breach of the Covenant. He announced his resignation in 1932, and it took effect on 30 June 1933, after 14 years of service. The reason given was that serving the League had been ‘extremely strenuous’. There was, however, a more banal reason — although the League had established a staff pension scheme, he was not included and consequently needed to build-up his UK pension.

Diva: We do not hear much about Sir Eric after he left Geneva and League of Nations. What happened next?

John: On retirement from the League, Sir Eric returned to the British Foreign Office, serving as Ambassador to Italy (1934-39). There he had the invidious job of trying to keep Fascist Italy away from Nazi Germany. Mussolini hated the League and thus distrusted Drummond. British policy to Italy was inconsistent in the 1930s, but Drummond faithfully executed his instructions. Drummond’s return to the British Diplomatic Service stimulated current UN restrictions on retiring Secretary Generals.

After Rome, Drummond worked briefly for the British Government before taking his seat in the House of Lords as Earl of Perth. There, he participated in debates on international affairs and later directed the work of two groups that made significant contributions to the establishment of the United Nations. The first, a ‘lessons learnt’ exercise of former senior League officials; the second, a UK Liberal Party review of the outcome of Dumbarton Oaks (the preparatory conference for San Francisco). In each, Drummond championed the independence, integrity and objectivity of the international civil service, an achievement that Dag Hammarskjöld regarded as Drummond’s creation. Subsequently, this transited seamlessly between the League and the new United Nations and its agencies.

Diva. It is a huge undertaking to write a book. How long did it take you, and how did you find the material?

Marilyn: The literature on Eric Drummond and the League of Nations is rich but deeply buried! As a team of 4 people, we were able to look into many sources of information in various locations. Although many books have been written about the League, these have focussed on the institution rather than the remarkable people, including Drummond, who served within it. David Macfadyen had access to the Drummond family papers in Scotland. Michael Davies was well placed in Oxford to search there. John Burley had access to the League of Nations Archives in Geneva. In London, I had access to the vast collection in the National Archives and also visited archive collections in Bristol and Carlisle to fill out the details of Drummond’s life and work, as well as those of his closest colleagues. These included some of the remarkable (mainly British and American) women whom Drummond hired into the League, a good quarter of a century before the doors of the British Foreign Office were open to women. We shared information and chapters were written collectively over a 5-year period. This was difficult, but our experience of teamwork in the UN helped, and it proved a very worthwhile thing to do.

Diva: David, you have also written a book on Derso & Kelen, the two caricaturists, which came out a year ago. Where does the interest come from, and do you have new book projects going on?

David: Readers who have visited the Palais des Nations will have seen, as I did, menu cards of Derso & Kelen displayed on the walls of the Bar de la Presse. Realising their significance, the League had purchased 15, produced for annual lunches that international journalists hosted for delegates. My interest was renewed when the present Earl of Perth kindly gave me access to the Drummond family papers. Within these, I discovered that Sir Eric had retained one of their cartoons. Dated 1927, it illustrates his role in Franco-German reconciliation and is included in Eric Drummond and his Legacies. Another that is included, from 1932, depicts Drummond defending his budget against attack, a humorous image that reveals his prudent persona. A third, from 1950, shows Trygve Lie dousing a cat and dog fight with a hose, an allusion to the new power of the Secretary General under Article 99 of the UN Charter, to act on perceived threats to peace and security.

Alas, no new projects. We wrote the book on Sir Eric because he, and the century of multilateral cooperation that he sparked, deserve greater recognition. These are two causes that Marilyn, John and I continue to promote.

Diva: Finally, looking at the period of League of Nations, do you think it has similarities to our own time?

John: True multilateralism and great power domination are incompatible. When major

powers reject international law and refuse to reach solutions through dialogue and compromise, multilateral institutions inevitably suffer. So, there is considerable similarity between the League’s fate in the 1930’s and today’s world.

The League suffered immensely because it was never universal, and powerful countries came and left. Fortunately, the UN remains universal, for the moment. The General Assembly is a beacon of light, although the Security Council is inoperative because of the veto power. International law is ignored or disregarded by those countries adversely affected by its rulings. The US and other countries have withdrawn from certain agencies and UN programmes that serve the common good, for reasons allegedly associated with national interests. The US is also reviewing its support to all international organizations.

Drummond viewed the US absence from the League as the principal reason for the League’s difficulties.

Historical analogies are never exact. But if brute force, also known as ‘might is right’,

determines the outcome in Ukraine, then the current very worrying situation will degenerate even further, as it did in the 1930s.