Sir David Hunt KCMG OBE (25 September 1913 – 30 July 1998) was a British diplomat, perhaps best remembered as winner of the BBC's Mastermind television quiz in 1977.
He served as Private Secretary to prime ministers Clement Attlee and Winston Churchill, and was knighted in 1963.
Frederick Forsyth, then a journalist in Nigeria and later a successful novelist, described Hunt as "a snob and a racist"[2] representing the diplomatic corps whose "blithering incompetence" failed to appreciate or deal with the tensions that erupted into the Nigerian Civil War.
[3] Forsyth claimed that Hunt was responsible for Britain's complete misreading of the war, contributing to the deaths of millions of Biafrans, particularly starving children.
[1][5] In addition to writing, Hunt was a frequent reviewer for The Times Literary Supplement.