Sir Michael Quinlan

Former Permanent Under-Secretary of State

Michael Quinlan (1930-2009) was an official in the ministry of Defence, and expert on aspects of defence and national security, especially nuclear weapons and deterrence. After completing National Service in the RAF in the mid-1950s, Quinlan held numerous government positions, including Private Secretary to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Air (1956-58), and Chief of Air Staff (1962-65). In the late 1960s he was a Director of Defence Policy at the Ministry of Defence, and in the mid-1970s served in the Cabinet Office Constitution Unit. He held the positions of Deputy Secretary (Industry) of the Treasury and Permanent Secretary at the Department of Employment in the 1980s before returning to the Ministry of Defence to work as the Permanent Under-Secretary of State in 1988. He retired in 1992.

Quinlan also served as Director of the Ditchley Foundation (1992-99), and served on the boards of Lloyds TSB Bank plc and Pilkington Group plc. He was also a visiting professor at King’s College London’s Department of War Studies, and author of Just War: The Just War Tradition: Ethics in Modern Warfare (2007).