Bradman Weerakoon

Weerakoon married Damayanthi Gunasekara (d. June 2007). They have one child, Esala, who also became a senior civil servant. Married to Krishanti, the daughter of another well known Sri Lankan civil servant Bernard Tilakaratna, Esala Weerakoon was a former Sri Lankan ambassador to Norway who declined to co-operate in a publicity campaign against the Tamil Tigers, former Deputy Chief of Mission at the Sri Lanka Embassy in Washington, USA and current Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India.

His memoir Rendering Unto Caesar was published in 2004 after Wickremesinghe's government was defeated.

After Ranil Wickremesinghe became the prime minister in 2001, Weerakoon was reappointed to his previous position of Secretary to the prime minister. He was an influential figure in Wickremesinghe's administration, especially in the peace process between the government and the Tamil Tigers.

After Premadasa's death, he continued as the advisor of his successor Wijetunge, and resigned in 1994 when Chandrika Kumaratunga became the president.

In 1977, J. R. Jayawardene appointed him as the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Plantation. In 1980, he joined the Prime Minister's office once again as secretary during the tenure of Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa. Following the ethnic riots of 1983, he was appointed as Commissioner-General of essential services with wide-ranging administrative powers. In 1984, he rejoined IPPF as its secretary-general in London for one year, which entailed a great deal of travel from China to Africa to Mexico.

In 1976, he retired from his post to join International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), an NGO working in the area of family planning as its Secretary General.

Weerakoon joined the Ceylon Civil Service in 1954 and was assigned as a cadet to the Anuradhapura Kachcheri as an understudy to the Government Agent (GA) of Anuradhapura, after which he spent a year in Jaffna where he learnt Tamil. After that he was transferred to Badulla, but before he could assume duties, the order was withdrawn and he was sent to the Prime Minister's office.

In 1953, he was appointed as the assistant secretary to the prime minister at the time, Sir John Kotelawela. He later became the secretary to the prime minister and continued after Solomon Bandaranaike became the prime minister in 1956. After his death, he served Wijayananda Dahanayake and Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Thereafter he worked for Dudley Senanayake although some in the UNP felt uneasy about his presence. After Sirimavo won the election again in 1970, he was transferred as Government Agent of Batticaloa and later Ampara, since he was deemed untrustworthy having conveyed information to the UNP Dudley Senanayake during Mrs. Bandaranike's previous regime.

Deshamanya Robin Bradman Weerakoon, CCS (born 20 October 1930) is a Sri Lankan civil servant. As a senior bureaucrat of the Sri Lankan government, he served nine Sri Lankan heads of state in a career spanning half a century.

His father, Edmund R. Weerakoon and his mother, a teacher at Princess of Wales College, were both devout Anglicans. He was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka on 20 October 1930 and named after the legendary Australian cricketer Don Bradman who sailed to Colombo on the day of his birth.