Pressure from the PM
Sir: I was interested in Lord Hartwell's account of his involvement in the Kilmuir memoirs saga (Letters, 25 July), but there are some of his points that require correc- tion.
I certainly did not `ghost' Kilmuir's mem- oirs. I prepared drafts after discussions with him, and asked him to write more detailed accounts of certain events and personalities that seemed to me interesting. The `brutal comments' on some of his colleagues were not mine: I was only 29 at the time, and was in no position to make them. As I have related, I greatly toned down his account of his sacking, which must have been the type- script that Lord Hartwell read, before it was seen by Burke Trend.
Trend's concern was, quite rightly, with aspects of possible broken Cabinet confi- dences and State papers, and his sugges- tions were helpful and fair. But he also saw the political implications of the last chap- ter, which was why he drew it to the atten- tion of the Prime Minister — again, quite rightly.
Sir Alec Douglas-Home, for whom I have an admiration and affection just as great as Lord Hartwell's, then asked Kilmuir to see him, and indicated certain passages which he wanted deleted or rewritten. I saw Kil- muir very shortly after this meeting and he told me that he had, very reluctantly, agreed under some pressure. I have no doubt that it was expressed very courteous- ly as between old friends and colleagues, but it was certainly done very firmly.
The serialisation had, of course, nothing to do with me, but it was based on the book itself, and not the earlier draft. The individ- ual who did the serialisation did a brilliant job in making sensational what was not in reality sensational at all. The leader writer in the Times, who was as baffled as David and I were by the uproar, concluded that only a party 'with a bad attack of the jitters' could have reacted as it did.
I do not see the point of Lord Hartwell's last paragraph. As a party leader facing a very difficult election, Sir Alec was abso- lutely justified in his actions to attempt to limit the political impact of ICilmuir's book.
Robert Rhodes James
The Stone House, Great Gransden, Sandy, Bedfordshire
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