Patrick Robin Fearn was educated at
Ratcliffe College and
University College, Oxford. After
national service 1952–54 he worked for
Dunlop Rubber in Venezuela and the Caribbean 1957–61, then joined the
Diplomatic Service. Between posts at the Foreign Office (later the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, FCO) he served at the embassies in
Caracas,
Havana,
Budapest, as Head of Chancery and
Consul at
Vientiane 1972–75 and as Head of Chancery and
Consul General at
Islamabad 1977–79. He was head of the South America department at the FCO 1979–82, culminating in the
invasion of the Falkland Islands by
Argentina on 2 April 1982. :From the moment of the invasion, it fell to Fearn to organise and animate – indeed, almost to invent – the emergency unit which had to manage intra-Whitehall coordination as well as to seek international support for the UK's response. He worked almost without pause for weeks on end, but remained calm, reassuring and approachable, encouraging his team by his own example as they shouldered a huge burden of work. – Obituary,
The Guardian After the war Fearn spent 1983 at the
Royal College of Defence Studies, writing a thesis on the
Antarctic Treaty. He was
ambassador to
Cuba 1984–86, assistant
Under-Secretary of State (Americas) at the FCO 1986–89, and ambassador to
Spain 1989–94. He was appointed
CMG after the Falklands war and knighted KCMG during his posting to Spain. After retiring from the Diplomatic Service, Fearn was director of the
Oxford University Diplomatic Studies Programme and visiting Fellow of University College 1995–99. ==References==