NIGHT OF THE LONG QUILLS

Robert Rhodes James recalls how

a famous political memoir was rudely interrupted by its author's dismissal

THE RECENT death of Sylvia, Lady De La Warr, also the widow of Lord Kilmuir, enables me to reveal that the true author of Kilmuir's famous — or notorious ___ memoirs was not David Kilmuir. It was me. Or at least partly me. In the summer of 1961 I had a telephone call from George Weidenfeld. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Kilmuir, had written his memoirs. Unfortunately, they were inordi- nately long and sensationally dull. They wanted drastic editing and livening up. When the typescript arrived, and I had ploughed through it, I could well under- stand George's dismay. There were some very interesting episodes, especially the account of the Nuremburg Trials, in which he had made his name by his cross-exami- nation of Goering, who had run such rings around the American lawyer, Robert Jack- son, that the latter had in effect collapsed, and the then David Maxwell Fyfe had had to take over at very short notice. But the rest was pretty leaden stuff, which I then proceeded to liven up with passages of my OW, including the entire Preface — much admired by reviewers as evidence of Kil- muir's wide reading and erudition — and a Whole section on Churchill as Leader of the Opposition. Kilmuir was delighted by the early evi-

dence of my endeavours, and he and his wife came to lunch with us at our then rented Sussex cottage, much populated with very small daughters. After lunch, David and I went through his memoirs and my drafts and suggestions, and had further sessions. He emphasised that there was no hurry, as he could not publish them until he had retired as Lord Chancellor, and the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, had asked him to stay on until the end of the

Parliament, which would occur either in the autumn of 1963 or the following Spring.

_ Things were proceeding satisfactorily, as 1 continue to 'edit' David's dreary accounts Of official visits to numerous Common- wealth countries and to give some colour to his bland portraits of his colleagues and oPponents, until, in the famous 'Night of the Long Knives, in July 1962, he was abruptly summoned from chairing a Cabi-

net committee to Admiralty House (10 Downing Street being in the process of being gutted and rebuilt) to be told that he was no longer Lord Chancellor. His suc- cessor wanted to move in on the following Monday. This was a Friday. As he and Sylvia drove down to their cottage on Buck De La Warr's Sussex estate they heard on the radio that he had been given an earldom.

It was a shattered and embittered man that I next met. Macmillan had personally assured him only days before that he, at least, was secure. Now he had been treat- ed like a dishonest servant caught stealing the family silver (a phrase I recalled vivid- ly many years later in a different context). There were no words bad enough for such a cad. Winston and Anthony would never have behaved as Macmillan (no longer referred to as 'Harold' or 'The PM') had. Furthermore, over the weekend he had written a detailed account of what had happened, which he wished me to read.

It was in his own hand, and, metaphori- cally, dipped in vitriol. I sat down to pre- pare a draft that, while it maintained the essence, toned down the savage fury of the original. Nonetheless, it was tough stuff. It purported to be a factual account of the events that had led to his dismissal and consisted of a violent attack on Macmil- lan's conduct, his selfish disloyalty to his friends to save his own skin, and so on and so forth. To say that it livened up the orig- inal memoirs was putting it mildly. It was explosive. The publishers saw this at once. So did the editor of the Sunday Times (who eagerly bought the serialisation rights for what was then a largt., sum).

But so, also, did Sir Burke Trend, to whom the completed typescript was sent for approval by the Cabinet Office at the end of 1963.

By this time, to David and Sylvia's unconcealed delight, Macmillan was no longer prime minister. David was particu- larly pleased that I had written a passage of glowing praise of Lord Home as Foreign Secretary, and was untroubled when he received a summons to see the new prime minister.

Trend had drawn Sir Alec's attention to the last chapter. With the Conservative government and Party facing a menacing general election it would be a shattering blow if all this venom were to appear in the Sunday Times. Home saw this at once, and he and Burke had marked those passages they most urgently wished to be deleted. David was astounded and upset, but Home and Trend were adamant. He returned very shaken, but he had given in. My dismay was much surpassed by that of the Sunday Times, who drastically reduced their offer for the serialisation rights, on the grounds that the watered down version would not have the same impact or appeal. David, who was seriously interested in money, later reflected with some fervour on how much that meeting with Home and Trend had cost him.

In fact, the serialisation of the final ver- sion caused an uproar. The first thing that happened was a libel writ from Anthony Eden over David's account (in fact, it was mine) of Eden's alleged volte face on the European army in 1951. David urgently rang me to see him in his Westminster flat. He was literally shaking. Here was he, a former lord chancellor, being sued for libel by a former prime minister, and it was all my fault. I promised that I would draft a robust reply that would shut Eden up. I did, and it worked. Many years later, when I was Eden's biographer, I found my rebut- tal in his papers, thankful that no one else knew who its author was.

But, if Eden was taken care of, the Tory party was not. The second serialised instal- ment of the memoirs was exclusively about the Night of the Long Knives and Macmil- lan's conduct. It created an even greater furore. David was baffled. He had done what Home and Trend had asked, and had lost a large sum of money thereby. Now he was being reviled as 'a Scotsman on the make' and was being cut dead in the Carl- ton Club. The party seethed against him. Home, when questioned in the House by a gleeful Opposition, disclaimed all knowl- edge of or responsibility for former col- leagues' memoirs, which made me gasp faintly. The Tory press heaped much oblo- quy upon David, who took it very deeply. Not long afterwards he had a heart attack,

and, in my view, never recovered from the shock of the abuse hurled upon his blame- less head.

Re-reading those (literally) fatal last few pages and the serialisation, I, like David at the time, cannot understand what all the fuss was about. But, of course, we knew the original account, which he had not published, and he had been damned for what he had. But the Tory party in a state of jitters, as it certainly was in 1964, are an unreasoning and ungrateful lot.

There was a rather grandiose reconcilia- tion with Macmillan at the Carlton Club, when, on the famous staircase, Macmillan ostentatiously, and in front of a large audi- ence, offered Kilmuir his hand with great magnanimity, which some thought a superb gesture and others nauseating.

David did not live long after this trauma. for such it was. I had not realised how unhappy his private life had been, and the strains this must have imposed upon him. But I know that I, wholly unwittingly, had hastened his death and made his last years a misery.

I have never 'edited' anyone else's book ever since, and never will. But I look at Political Adventure — The Memoirs of The Earl of Kilmuir on my shelves with very mixed emotions. At least I achieved some immortality for poor David, because the phrase 'Loyalty is the Tories' secret weapon' is always ascribed to him. Of course, it was nonsense, as I, David, and others, have discovered to their cost.

Sir Robert Rhodes James is the biographer of Anthony Eden, and the author of Churchill: a study in failure.