The "Kilted Pimpernel" is Major General Sir Fitzroy Hew Royle Maclean of Dunconnel, 1st Baronet KT CBE, diplomat, soldier, politician. Maclean, in the British Foreign Service, witnessed the Kafkaesque trials of the top twenty-one Old Guard Communists whom Stalin wished to eliminate. In World War II, Winston Churchill ordered Maclean dropped behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia to meet with the Partisans and Tito, who was unknown to the British. Churchill needed a reliable, first-hand report on whether the Partisans or the Chetniks could best accomplish his goal of defeating and killing as many Germans as possible and end the war. Maclean's report resulted in British backing of the Partisans rather than the Chetniks, who had the support of the Royal Yugoslav Government in Exile in London. Churchill appointed Maclean Brigadier General to coordinate all British activities with Tito and the Partisans in Yugoslavia.