THE MACMILLAN MEMOIRS-1

Difficulties and discovery

LORD BUTLER

On page 703 a tribute is paid to me and my utterances are described as Delphic. I shall therefore have a high standard to live up to in composIng this review. It will be apparent that this book* is the fourth volume of the Macmillan Memoirs and that it runs to well over 700 pages. There is another volume to come, presumably of the same size. This is in itself a gigantic achievement. Volume iv which we are considering covers only the period from 1956 to the election of 1959. It will be seen, therefore, that everything in the Prime Minister's life is described and nothing is left to the imagination. I was so deeply involved that I find the detailed chap- ters most readable. There is a touch of Jus- tin McCarthy's The History of Our Own Times in the prose; the main difference in style from that of the earlier historian being that Macmillan quotes repeatedly from his own diary, and that, being an autobiography, it is essentially couched in personal terms.

The title of the book, many chapter head- ings and much of the presentation are rather more dramatic than is really justified by events. I do not, for example, think that there was a very marked storm to ride dur- ing these years; this is probably because I had knowledge of the unflappability (Hail- sham's phrase) of the Prime Minister and never doubted that he would set about his task in a quiet and efficient manner. There was nothing in these years to match 1940 and the war. I also thought that he was well fit- ted to heal the rift in the Anglo-American alliance, since it was obvious that, after his Suez tantrums, Eisenhower would come to heel. I also think that the author's 'handling of relations with the Soviet Union tends to exaggerate the importance, for good or evil, of the Soviet leaders, Khrushchev in particu- lar. However, the chapter on a 'Voyage of Discovery' is engagingly written and will de- serve further mention.

The author writes about the book :

'Even the casual reader will have observed that the greater part of this volume is concerned with world and Commonwealth affairs. The struggle between the Com- munist and the Free World; the special problems of Europe and NATO: the streng- thening of the Anglo-American alliance; the recurring dangers of the Middle East and the Far East; the enigma of Russia; the divisions of Western Europe—all these occupy the greater part of my record, be- cause they attracted the greater part of my thoughts and actions.'

He goes on to explain that the reason for this was that Britain, in spite of all her wounds and weaknesses, was still a dominat- ing nation.

Though the'book is primarily concerned, as was Macmillan, with overseas affairs, there is plenty of comment on economics, This science is, for example, described as having usurped the place held one hundred years ago by theology and the odium econo- rnicum as having taken the place of the odium theologicum. The author describes the vast output of economists from univer- *Riding the Storm Harold Macmillan (MacI illan L4.20)

sities old and new, some of whose living is provided by academic endowments, others by the press, the banks and the television. The Prime Minister enjoyed manipulating the economy—a touch of deflation here and of inflation there, if things looked like getting too hard on his beloved north-east coast.

He always told me that he regretted his phrase 'never had it so good', which like so many notorious phrases was not deliberately designed to make a particular impression. This discussion on economics brings me back to the opening of the book, where there are two chapters on the Treasury and the Exchequer. These are written in a markedly modest vein and are generous to his pre- decessor and to his colleagues in the Cabinet. Indeed this generosity of comment on per- sonalities is a feature of the book and stands in welcome contrast to some memoirs.

The theme of the Exchequer and of money breaks in once or twice again, not- ably over the resignation of Peter Thorney- croft, Powell and Birch, and over the alleged Bank rate leak (Chapter xin). It is diffi- cult to see how the Prime Minister could do otherwise but accept the resignations of his Chancellor and aides, for the very good reason that these latter were not prepared to diminish their requests in order to meet their colleagues. Macmillan left for the Commonwealth the morning after these 'little local difficulties' occurred and I was left, as so often in these pages for shorter or longer periods, holding what remained of the baby. I was in a similar position over the Bank rate leak; Macmillan again being away, I had to make what the author describes as a 'formidable speech condemn- ing the political weapon of the smear'. Chapters in and xis/ are useful for future historians in that they describe the early dawning in Whitehall of the advisability of making a move towards European unity. Plan 0 in Chapter iii shows that one states- man at any rate was aware that when the six nations met at Messina in 1955 something of vital importance was on foot. I have no doubt from my experience, that the two government departments principally con- cerned, the Foreign Office and the Treasury, greatly underestimated the importance of Messina. It is, therefore, good to read of Macmillan needling his advisers on the sub- ject. I do not think that Eden or Macmillan or I myself moved fast enough at this time towards an actual participation in the plans of the Six for a Treaty of Rome. Churchill had done his bit at The Hague and at Zurich, but strangely enough had never fol- lowed up his perorations by associating Britain with structure building in Europe. The author pays tribute to Churchill and went further himself with Plan a, which is set out in an appendix. It proposed a partial free trade area with the Customs Union of the Messina Six, together with other °EEC countries. Dependent territories were, however, to be left out and all food- stuffs omitted. This plan never got very far owing to its inherent insufficiencies and owing to its emergence precisely at the height of the Suez venture. Nor did we get very far in wooing Europe in these years. The Suez venture is enveloped in the blanket title of 'Anglo-America Schism'. In fact one has to Poke one's fingers right into the Eisenhower-Dulles plum cake, or shall we call it suet, to discover the concealed six- penny bits about the Suez complications. Here the historian of the future will find that the story as told concentrates so much on Anglo-us relations that it does not reveal the ultimate shock to the Entente Cordiale. I have to acknowledge that when Macmillan realised the threat to the pound and the econorny, I could not, during Eden's illness, have found a more loyal colleague in helping to withdraw the troops, to carry out the UN resolutions, restore the pound and party unity. This chapter is, of course, related by One who, at the Exchequer, was not involved in many of the detailed negotiations.

Chapter x describes how the author re- stored the honeymoon atmosphere at Wash- ington and on page 341 he summarises the main achievements, to date, of the adminis- tration in the diplomatic field. Not the least of these was in the Commonwealth during a memorable tour, and in the Soviet Union in the 1958 Voyage of Discovery. It is in the chapter of that name that Harold Macmillan is at his gayest and most astute. The story of Khrushchev's toothache which was brought on to prevent him accompanying the Prime Minister to Kiev, is here described with much humour. - This Voyage of Discovery was an impor- tant one since 'no Prime Minister in office or Head of Government of any of the western coun- tries had visited Russia since the end of the war. In spite of some doubts there was general approval although there was clearly, especially among our allies, some nervousness lest I should attempt to achieve more than I had undertaken to do. Nevertheless the intensity of the cold war and the shadow of the nuclear bomb oppressed the whole world. Any attempt to break through the clouds of suspicion was generally welcomed.'

Macmillan was particularly scrupulous lest his allies, in particular President Eisen- hower and Chancellor Adenauer, knew how he was getting on. He said to the President of the us:

'From the way in which Khrushchev talked to me throughout yesterday when we were out in the country it was borne in on me that, in spite of their great new power and wealth, the Russians are still obsessed by a sense of insecurity. The old bogey of encirclement has not yet been laid. Like a poor man who has suddenly made a fortune, they feel uneasy in their new situation and they are resentful and nervous of their neighbours.

The Prime Minister after what eventually, despite all the excitement, turned out to be a successful voyage, paid visits to Bonn, Can- ada, the usn and France. A note in the author's diary of 21 March runs:

`I thought it wise to accept among many phrases and paragraphs that I liked, some , words that I did not like so much'.

This can be described as a very good summary of the author's wisdom and writing.

The book ends with an amusing minute from Lord Hailsham about how Alexander the Great was informed when in Central Asia that a battle had taken place between Sparta and Argos. Alexander had dismissed this by saying that it was a battle between mice and frogs. Fortunately an Harold Mac- millan's absences abroad I was able to keep the home front free of such conflict.