Major Robert Louis Constantine Lee-Dillon FitzGibbon[1][2][3] RSL (8 June 1919 – 25 March 1983) was an American-born Irish-British historian, translator and novelist.
[8] From his father's later marriage to Kathleen Clare Aitchison, he was a half-brother of Louis FitzGibbon, author of a number of works about the Katyn massacre of Polish officers in 1940, by Soviet troops.
[15] FitzGibbon was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, a British public (i.e. private) school with military affiliations, which he detested.
He won a scholarship to Exeter College, Oxford to read modern languages in 1937, but left in May 1940, after the fall of France, to join the army.
FitzGibbon served as an officer in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (the 'Ox & Bucks') regiment of the British Army, from 1940 to 1942.
On being discharged in 1946, FitzGibbon was offered, but refused, a job with the successor to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
FitzGibbon wrote prolifically, authoring over 30 books, including nine novels, historical works, memoirs, poetry, and biography.
His 1960 novel When the Kissing Had to Stop caused controversy because of its explicit anti-CND theme; the book depicts the Soviet occupation of Britain after a left-wing government has removed its nuclear weapons.
[16] Fitzgibbon's first, brief, marriage was to Margaret Aye Moung, but during World War II he met Theodora Rosling.
[19] The novel was adapted by Giles Cooper in two episodes as part of the ITV Play of the Week series, first broadcast on 16 & 19 October 1962.