John Burton (diplomat)

John Wear Burton was born on 2 March 1915 in Melbourne and was educated at Newington College, the University of Sydney and the London School of Economics. As a public servant he served as private secretary to Herbert Vere Evatt, Secretary of the Department of External Affairs and Australian High Commissioner in Ceylon. He wrote "The Alternative" in 1954 and has since published a number of books on diplomacy and conflict resolution. In 1960 he was awarded a fellowship at the Australian National University and two years later the Rockefeller Foundation awarded him a grant to study neutralism in Africa and Asia. the following year, while a Reader in International Relations at University College University of London, he established the Centre for the Analysis of Conflict. He has since held fellowships at numerous universities and now lives near Braidwood. [1]