Sir Donald James Dundas Maitland GCMG OBE (16 August 1922 – 22 August 2010) was a senior British diplomat. He served as British Prime Minister Edward Heath's press secretary 1970 to 1974.^[1][2]

Donald was the son of Thomas Maitland. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and educated at George Watson's College and the University of Edinburgh.^[1]

Maitland joined the Foreign Service in 1947.

After serving as Heath's press secretary, he was appointed as Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations.

Maitland's expertise was in the Middle East where he served during World War II. Between 1956 and 1960 he was Director of the Middle East Centre for Arab Studies, Lebanon. In 1967 he became Principal Private Secretary to the Foreign Secretary and later Ambassador to Libya.

In June 1980 he was appointed Permanent Secretary at the Department of Energy, until his retirement from the civil service in December 1982.^[1]

He was appointed OBE in 1960, CMG in 1967, knighted in 1973 and appointed GCMG in 1977.^[3] In 1995, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Laws) by the University of Bath,^[4] and was their pro-chancellor from 1997 to 2000.

Maitland lived between Bath and Bradford on Avon. He married Jean Young in 1950, and had a son and a daughter.^[5]

• Interview with Sir Donald James Dundas Maitland & transcript Archived 31 July 2020 at the Wayback Machine, British Diplomatic Oral History Programme, Churchill College, Cambridge, 1997