Michael Dobbs, Baron Dobbs (born 14 November 1948) is a British Conservative politician and best-selling author.

Early life and education

Michael Dobbs was born on 14 November 1948 in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, the son of nurseryman Eric and Eileen Dobbs. He was educated at Hertford Grammar School, Cheshunt Grammar School, and Christ Church, Oxford.

After graduating from Oxford in 1971, Dobbs moved to the United States. He attended the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts and graduated in 1977 with an M.A., M.A.L.D., and Ph.D. in nuclear defense studies. His doctoral thesis was published as China and SALT: Dragon Hunting in a Multinuclear World. In 2007, Dobbs gave the Alumni Salutation at Fletcher.

Early career

Dobbs' studies at The Fletcher School were funded by a job as feature writer for the Boston Globe, where he worked as an editorial assistant and political feature writer from 1971 to 1975.

Politics

After getting his PhD in 1977, Dobbs returned to England and began working in London for the Conservative Party. From 1977 to 1979, he was an advisor to Margaret Thatcher, who was then leader of the Opposition. From 1979 to 1981, he was a Conservative MP speechwriter. From 1981 to 1986, he served as a Government Special Advisor. From 1986 to 1987, he was the Conservative Party Chief of Staff. In 1984, he survived the Brighton bombing at the Conservative Party Conference. Considered a masterful political operator, he was called "Westminster's baby-faced hit man", by The Guardian in 1987. From 1994 to 1995, he served in the John Major government as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party.

Michael Dobbs (born 1950) is a British-American non-fiction author and journalist.

Early life and education

Dobbs was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and graduated from the University of York in 1972, with a BA in Economic & Social History, and completed fellowships at Princeton and Harvard. He became a U.S. citizen in 2010.

Career

Dobbs spent much of his career as a foreign correspondent covering the collapse of communism. He was the first Western reporter to visit the Gdansk shipyard in August 1980; he also covered the Tiananmen Square uprising in China in 1989, the abortive coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991, and the wars in the former Yugoslavia. He joined The Washington Post in 1980, when he was appointed bureau chief in eastern Europe (1980-1981), based in Warsaw. He was also bureau chief in Paris (1982-1986) and Moscow (1988-1993). Other assignments included stints in Rome for Reuters news agency (1974-1975), in Africa as a freelancer (1976), and as a special correspondent in Belgrade (1977-1980), when he covered the death of Marshal Josip Broz Tito.