This has truly been a fantastic year in Britain, so fantastic in fact that it is difficult to pick the event of the year. President de Gaulle barred Britain’s entry into the Common Market. This was the biggest diplomatic rebuff Britain has suffered since the end of the war. Mr Hugh Gaitskell died at the height of his popularity. Mr Harold Macmillan made his exit unsung. Mr John Profumo resigned after the confession that he had lied to the House of Commons in a personal statement, something unknown in the history of the mother of parliaments. Christine Keeler went to jail on the petty charge of perjury after having toppled a government and wrecked the careers of Mr Macmillan and Mr Profumo, not to mention the luckless Dr Stephen Ward.
The same scandal-ridden year witnessed Britain play an important if not decisive role in the conclusion of the partial nuclear tests ban agreement, undoubtedly the first step in the long journey towards the relaxation of the cold war. The Central African Federation, a monument to the white settlers’ attempt to perpetuate their domination, was disbanded. This has opened the way for early independence for Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia. Kenya and Zanzibar attained independence. The granting of independence to Kenya is a British achievement which is particularly notable in view of the frightening picture that had been built up in this country of the freedom struggle on account of Mau Mau terrorism and the pressure on behalf of the settlers. The reconciliation with Mr Jomo Kenyatta can without exaggeration be called an act of faith.
Spending Spree
If the year opened amidst the worst weather conditions in living memory and the highest level of unemployment since 1947, which is remembered here not so much for India’s independence as for the worst ever fuel crisis, it ended with the largest ever spending spree. Blue prints for the reorganisation of education, regional development, housing, roads and city centres trundled out of Whitehall towards the end of the year creating an atmosphere in which debate on Lord Denning’s report on the Profumo affair in the House of Commons last week looked strangely out of place. No one was interested in raking the past and the events of last spring and summer appeared peculiarly remote.
It seems obvious to me that the Profumo affair would not have assumed the proportions that it did if it did not break into the open in the context of the Vassall espionage case. The espionage case itself was blown up in the context of the crisis over Cuba in October 1962. The anxiety was natural because of the widespread impression that security arrangements, particularly in the Admiralty, were lax. All the same the press over-reached itself. Mr Macmillan reacted sharply to the press campaign of innuendo and the McCarthyite atmosphere of guilt by association that it created. He gave the Radcliffe tribunal terms of reference which converted the inquiry into an exposure of the press. Two reporters went to jail tor refusal to disclose their sources of information.
It was in this atmosphere of not only distrust but hatred between the press and Mr Macmillan that the former came into possession of the explosive material regarding Mr Profumo’s involvement with Christine Keeler who was carrying on with a Soviet attaché as well. How the crisis developed is well known and need not be recalled. The way Mr Profumo sought first to persuade the Director of the Security Service to ban publication of what Christine Keeler was willing to disclose and then tried to silence her with an offer of £500 has also been reported. His conduct in lying to his colleagues and the House of Commons drew on him the censure he deserved. The point is whether the security aspect of the affair was again not exaggerated. It apparently was.
A Bad Dream
The lengths to which Mr Profumo went to deny illicit relations with Christine Keeler did suggest that his sense of guilt was so strong as to open him to blackmail. But the fact remained that there was no evidence at all that he had been exposed to such a threat. Once he had owned up and resigned, the matter could have been allowed to rest. For one who has faith in the good sense of the British people, the events of the past summer are something like a bad dream. It is almost unbelievable that a Minister of the Crown voluntarily subjected himself to medical examination to prove that he was not the headless man in the photograph produced in the divorce case of Duke and Duchess of Argyll. There we are. Sometimes even the sanest of societies run wild.
In this unbelievably surcharged atmosphere the British people’s innate dedication to justice and liberty prevailed to the extent that nothing like the McCarthyite hysteria developed here. It did not prove strong enough to save Mr Macmillan. His handling of the affair was undoubtedly inept. But for once this shrewdest political operator in twentieth century Britain was having like a gentleman. It was only when he was taken ill and resigned that he began to receive the sympathetic understanding that he deserved.
For those who watched him in the House of Commons on June 17 when the first of the several debates on the Profumo affair took place, it will remain an unforgettable experience. His voice was choked with emotion as never before. He pressed the handkerchief in his hand as if he was wringing some comfort from it. His eyes were visibly wet. He was not performing though he was fighting for his career. He had been deceived and the blow was too heavy to bear.
Historians will record that Mr Macmillan resigned because one of those undignified physical frailties. They will be right in that he should have otherwise carried on in the absence of an obvious successor as leader of the Conservative party. All the same he had lost his moral authority and had become a liability to his party. In happier circumstances his illness need not have led to his resignation. The Profumo affair will go down in history on that account. Mr Macmillan is reported to have said that he would not allow himself to be overthrown by a call girl. But she did overthrow him, without trying and even without wishing it.
One result of Mr Macmillan’s resignation has been that for the first time since Gladstone and Disraeli confronted each other, both the principal parties have new leaders. They do not display towards each other the same hatred and contempt that Gladstone and Disraeli did. In fact they are extremely polite. In the brief period Sir Alec has been Prime Minister the temperature of political controversy has visibly come down. He has been able to establish with Mr Wilson a level of co-operation which did not exist before.
If it was only a matter of personalities it would not merit mention. With the acceptance by the Government of the need for the expansion of education facilities, housing and slum clearance programme, establishment of new industries in north-east England and central Scotland and improving the lot of the underprivileged sections of the community, the differences between the two parties have narrowed down to such an extent that for an ordinary person they have become difficult to define. Both parties are appealing to the same section of the electorate, the floating voter whose support they need to win the election.
New Symbol
When Mr Wilson succeeded Mr Gaitskell as the leader of the Labour party it was widely feared that he would swing the party away from the centre to the left. In fact he has tossed away the symbol of the cloth cap and identified his party with the white-coated youth who seek to change Britain. He has been more non-doctrinaire in his approach than his non-doctrinaire predecessor could ever dare. Similarly at the time of Sir Alec’s appointment as Prime Minister there was concern in the left wing of the Conservative party. If anything Sir Alec is moving faster than Mr Macmillan. Once again a broad consensus has emerged between the two parties.
No review of the year can omit the decline of the Liberal party. I instinctively regarded the so-called liberal revival as phoney. Somehow the handsome Jo Grimmond did not impress me. To a certain extent I shared the distrust of those who regarded it as a form of Poujadism. “I will march my troops towards the sound of the gun fire,” exclaimed Mr Grimmond in September. Already the recruits of 1961 and 1962 were beginning to melt away. Now even the generals are in flight. The crazy year is indeed out.
The Times of India, 28 December 1963