Gee's powerful intellect and formidable scientific expertise were matched with a quiet determination and a cheerful demeanour -- qualities that served him well in his professional quest to help rid the world of chemical weapons. He played an influential role in the 12-year international negotiation that resulted in the 1992 UN Chemical Weapons Convention that covers 181 countries and 98 per cent of the world's population.
The convention's unprecedented scope in banning the development, production and use of chemical weapons, and the stringency of its verification regime, owed much to Gee, who later served as deputy director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the body responsible for implementing the convention, from 1997 to 2003.
The convention was the first multilateral disarmament accord that provided for the elimination of a category of WMD. By 2007 only eight countries remained non-signatories, including North Korea, Syria and Egypt.
Upon hearing of Gee's death a Russian arms control specialist from the OPCW wrote: "Today almost one-third of the world's chemical weapons and two-thirds of the production capacity have been destroyed. Much of the credit for these truly historic achievements should go to John. Few can claim such a legacy."
Just before his death from brain cancer the Australian Government belatedly recognised Gee's contribution to global arms control with his appointment as a member of the Order of Australia. Gee's citation noted his service to "international relations, notably disarmament and the elimination of weapons of mass destruction".
In a message to Gee's family after his death John Howard paid tribute to Gee's "huge contribution" as a diplomatic and international public servant to the cause of disarmament and arms control.
A fifth-generation Tasmanian, Gee was a brilliant student. He graduated with first-class honours in science from the University of Tasmania and won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford in 1967. There he completed a doctorate in inorganic chemistry.
Powerfully built, the reticent, sandy-haired Gee was an accomplished oarsman, winning a rowing blue at Oxford. The cox of Gee's Oxford crew in the losing 1970 eight against Cambridge was another Tasmanian Rhodes scholar, Ashton Calvert.
Gee joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1971 and served in Cairo, Moscow, New Delhi and Bangkok. In Moscow he fostered his deep love of Russian literature and met the Norwegian who would become his wife, Liv Aasgaard.
With the Hawke Labor government taking a strong interest in disarmament, Gee played an important role in the establishment in 1985 of the Australia Group, a group of countries seeking to curb the spread of chemical and biological weapons.
From 1990-92 he served as DFAT's special adviser on disarmament, helping finalise negotiations on the Chemical Weapons Convention and working on the elimination of Iraq's WMD arsenal.
In 1991 Gee was appointed by the UN secretary-general to the newly created UN Special Commission that was charged with overseeing the disarmament of Iraq. As co-ordinator of UNSCOM's chemical and biological weapons working group he drew up the master plan for on-site inspections of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons plans and supervised the painstaking measures that led to their eventual destruction.
From 1993 to 1997 he served as director of the verification division of the OPCW provisional technical secretariat that drew up the procedures necessary to verify compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention including the recruitment and training of 200 new weapons inspectors.
Comptetent in Russian, he was instrumental in complex negotiations in Washington and Moscow resulting in the destruction of their respective chemical weapons stockpiles.
During his nearly six years as deputy director-general of the OPCW, Gee managed the evolution of the fledgling agency into a significant multilateral disarmament body.
On his return to Canberra in 2003 Gee worked as a consultant WMD expert with the Office of National Assessments.
Appointed as a special adviser to the US-led Iraq Survey Group in early 2004 he quietly resigned after a short stint in Iraq, advising the Howard Government that the CIA-backed ISG's mission to hunt for Saddam Hussein's alleged WMD arsenal had been fundamentally flawed. The final report of the ISG concluded, as Gee had predicted, that there were no WMDs in Iraq.
At a packed funeral service at St John's Church, Reid, in Canberra, attended by three serving of former departmental heads and the head of the Office of National Aassessments Peter Varghese, close family friend and former DFAT colleague Kyle Wilson spoke of Gee's essential modesty and subtle magnetism. His CV made no mention of his Rhodes scholarship or his numerous academic honours.
"Behind the quiet self-confidence and invariable good humour was an intensely private, reticent and reflective man, a listener rather than a speaker," Wilson noted.
He added that Gee had not aspired to high rank in the Australian public service. Instead he much preferred to be in the thick of things, truly wanting to make a difference.
A Russian colleague from OPCW wrote that Gee had had to withstand many political pressures as deputy director-general -- firmly defending the equal treatment of all member countries although this earned him some powerful enemies. "Private and reserved, he was at the same time open, easy to talk to, democratic, accessible, objective and most of all, fair. This was probably the secret of his success. He was truly the first among equals."
Gee's strong affinity for Russian language, literature and music stayed with him throughout his life and greatly enriched his dealings with his Russian interlocutors. A favourite pilgrimage was to the grave of Boris Pasternak in the village of Peredelkino outside Moscow.
Gee is survived by his wife, Liv, and his three children, Rebecca, Nicholas and Cristina.