Brigadier Michael Neale Harbottle, OBE (7 February 1917 – 30 April 1997) was a senior British Army officer who was chief of staff of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus from 1966 to 1968, a peace campaigner and amateur cricketer.
[4] He had considerable success in the match, scoring 156 runs in his only first-class innings, before being dismissed by Desmond Eagar.
After two years in the post, the UN Secretary General U Thant requested that Harbottle remain as chief of staff of the UN Force in Cyprus; however, the Ministry of Defence declined to support his continuation in the role.
He became chief security officer for a British-owned mining subsidiary of the Consolidated African Selection Trust in Sierra Leone.
He wrote a book in 1976 titled The Knaves of Diamonds in which he provided his account of events in Sierra Leone during his time there.
He was vice president of the United Nations Association UK from 1974, and general secretary of the World Disarmament Campaign from 1980 to 1982.
The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 led to Harbottle becoming the coordinator for the Worldwide Consultative Association of Retired Generals and Admirals from 1991.