Sir Guy Millard - Telegraph Eden was unwell at the time of the crisis, and Millard recalled: "The Opposition was making the most tremendous row in the House of Commons. It was quite amazing actually that his health stood up to all that, but he never lost control of himself in the House of Commons. But obviously the strains on a man who was already ill undoubtedly were enormous. Millard ended his career as Ambassador in Rome from 1973 to 1976, when the political situation in Italy appeared to be drifting dangerously close to the so-called "historic compromise" - the inclusion of Communists in the country's government. Anxieties about this prospect greatly preoccupied Italy's allies, especially the Americans . Millard's assessment was less dire. Essentially his view was that Italy would probably muddle through without having to accept any undue dependence on Communist support. He also took a sanguine view of Italy's economic prospects. Many years later, in 2008, declassified documents unearthed by an Italian researcher at the National Archives at Kew suggested that Britain had plotted to support a coup d"état in Rome in 1976 because of fears that the Italian Communist Party would win the election and form a government. Millard - who had left Rome in October 1976, four months after the Italian elections in which the Communists won 34.3 per cent of the vote, compared with 38.7 per cent for the Christian Democrats - insisted that he had known nothing of a coup plot, adding: "I never thought the Communists would win the election because the Italians would have been scared of separating themselves from the Americans. If there was a plot to mount a coup the Foreign Office never told me, but then it would have been so secret that they wouldn't have wanted diplomats to know about it... Communism in Italy, you know, was a pretty mild variety. We called it Eurocommunism, and the ones I met seemed most civilised. Millard's enjoyment of Rome was somewhat clouded by uncertainty over the tenure of his residence, the Villa Wolkonsky. The then British government took the view that this was too sumptuous and extravagant for the needs of the Ambassador (though it was less than half the size of the Paris embassy); the government was thinking of selling the property, and nothing could be spent on redecoration or replacement furnishings. But the house, if increasingly shabby, was an attractive one with a beautiful garden, and the Millards and their young family much enjoyed living there. They also took advantage of the need of an ambassador to get to know Italy outside Rome, especially Milan and Turin, in view of the importance of export promotion. Millard was much liked and respected by Italian ministers, senior officials and diplomatic colleagues. Guy Elwin Millard was born on January 22 1917, the son of Col Baldwin Salter Millard and Phyllis Mary Tetley. He was educated at Charterhouse and Pembroke College, Cambridge, and joined the Diplomatic Service in 1939. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Navy. Resuming his diplomatic career after the war, he spent four years at the embassy in Paris, then served three years in Turkey. Other postings included Tehran (1959-62); the African Department of the Foreign Office in London, concerned with Egypt and Sudan; and, from 1964 to 1967, Minister to Nato, when he was based in Paris. From 1967 to 1969 he was Ambassador to Hungary before going as Minister to the embassy in Washington, DC, in 1969-71. Millard was Ambassador to Sweden from 1971 to 1974. He was appointed CMG in 1957, CVO in 1961 and KCMG in 1972. Millard always looked the part of a diplomat, cutting an elegant figure - debonair, intelligent, sophisticated and invariably polite. But for a slight diffidence, he might have risen even further, for example to the Paris embassy; but he was content to have ended his career in Rome, where he was very much at home. After retiring to Gloucestershire in 1976, he took on the honorary chairmanship of the British-Italian Society (1977-83), a duty which he performed with exemplary aplomb. He was appointed a Grand Officer of the Italian Order of Merit in 1981. Guy Millard married first, in 1946, Anne Mackenzie, with whom he had a son and a daughter. They parted in 1963, and the next year he married Judy Dugdale, with whom he had two sons. Sir Guy Millard, born January 22 1917, died April 26 2013