Leif Leifland (30 December 1925 – 3 April 2015) was a Swedish diplomat who served as State Secretary for Foreign Affairs from 1977 to 1982 and as Ambassador of Sweden to the United Kingdom from 1982 to 1991.

[3][4] In 1965, he became a desk officer (departementssekreterare) at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and was appointed Minister at the Swedish Embassy in Washington in 1970.

[5] The newly appointed Swedish ambassador, Social Democrat Yngve Möller [sv], was declared unwelcome in the U.S. capital.

[3] Upon returning to Sweden in 1974, he was appointed by Olof Palme as Director (utrikesråd) and head of the Political Department at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

As State Secretary, he worked under three foreign ministers: Karin Söder, Hans Blix, and Ola Ullsten,[6] managing crises such as the Soviet submarine S-363, which ran aground in the Blekinge archipelago in October 1981.

Leifland considered himself an apolitical State Secretary, although he never made a secret of voting for the Liberal People's Party.

[1] He was also chairman of the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (Stiftelsen för internationalisering av högre utbildning och forskning, STINT).