Armstrong, Robert Temple (1927– )

English civil servant, cabinet secretary in Margaret Thatcher's government. He achieved notoriety as a key witness in the Spycatcher trial in Australia 1987. Defending the British government's attempts to prevent Peter Wright's book alleging ‘dirty tricks’ from being published, he admitted to having sometimes been ‘economical with the truth’. He retired in 1988 and was made a life peer.

After Oxford University he joined the civil service and rose rapidly to deputy-secretary rank. In 1970 he became Prime Minister Edward Heath's principal private secretary; Thatcher later made him cabinet secretary and head of the home civil service.