He used his contacts with Winston Churchill and Robert Vansittart to try to shift British policy away from one of appeasement to one based more on the use of force.
He was a distant cousin of Robert Vansittart, Permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs between 1930 and 1938.
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Robert Vansittart, son of the Henry Vansittart, the Governor of Bengal from 1759 to 1764, and is credited with scoring the first recorded century in cricket in India
Vansittart was born at Wilton House, Farnham, Surrey, the eldest of the three sons of Robert Arnold Vansittart, of Foots Cray Place, Kent, a Captain in the 7th Dragoon Guards, by his wife Susan Alice Blane, daughter of Gilbert James Blane.