Major Sir Brian Edward Urquhart KCMG MBE (/ˈər.kət/ UR-kut) (28 February 1919 – 2 January 2021) was a British Army officer, politician and writer.

[2][5][6] When World War II broke out, Urquhart joined the British Army and, after a brief training period, was commissioned as an officer in the Dorsetshire Regiment on 14 January 1940.

[7][8][3] He was posted to the 5th Battalion of his regiment, a recently raised Territorial Army (TA) unit which was part of the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division.

In the film version, directed by Richard Attenborough, Urquhart's character (portrayed by Irish actor Frank Grimes) was renamed "Major Fuller", to avoid confusion with the British general Roy Urquhart, the commander of the 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem.

He became deeply depressed by his failure to persuade his superiors to halt the operation, and requested a transfer out of the airborne forces.

[10] After leaving the airborne forces, he was transferred to T-Force, a unit responsible for searching for German scientists and military technology.

[13] He loyally served by Hammarskjöld's side until the latter's death in 1961, admiring him greatly in spite of admittedly never getting to know him very well on a personal level.

[14] During the Suez Crisis of 1956 Urquhart played a critical role in creating what turned out to be the first major U.N. effort towards conflict resolution and peacekeeping.

When it turned out that those would take six weeks to make, Urquhart proposed the characteristic blue helmets, which could be converted in a day by painting over normal ones.

He survived only by persuading his captors that his death would bring retribution by U.N. Gurkha troops, whom the Katangans greatly feared.

[2][6] Alongside his autobiography, A Life in Peace and War (Urquhart 1987), his work with Erskine B Childers includes several books of methods that he believed would make the United Nations more effective.

[25] His biographical book Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey (1993), was used to create a William Greaves documentary film of the same name in 2001.