Anthony Eden
By 1AIN MACLEOD
Tins volume,* the last to be written and the second in period of time, is the best of the three, and that is high praise. The years of apprenticeship are behind, the years of illness and the Grecian tragedy of his Premiership still ahead. In every sense of the word the years from 1938 to 1945 were for Anthony Eden (as, of course, he was then and as we still think of him) years of achievement and fulfilment. I hold the view that history will certainly rank him higher than she seems to at present. It is not to be held against him that he played lieutenant to a man of Churchill's stature, and is so often written down in comparison. No Englishman living or dead could stand undiminished when measured with Sir Winston. Eden will be remembered for much more than the excellent efficiency of his various terms as Foreign Secretary, or for the collapse of his venture at Suez. He was, for example, an admirable Leader of the House of Commons. More important still he had an instinctive under- standing of the new forces forming in the Tory Party, and in the electorate. The phrase of a 'property-owning democracy' was to him both a policy and a philosophy. Even though his Minis- terial experience lay in the field of Foreign and Imperial Affairs, he had a flair (if a somewhat erratic one) for domestic affairs. He would have been thoroughly at ease in the policy discussions on the problems of the New Salariat. It was not, for example, by accident that he retained for so many years until 1964 the Presidency of the Young Conservative movement; it was a recog- nition by the youth of the party that they under- stood him, and he them.
I find the early chapters of this volume un- satisfactory. Perhaps this is because I wrote a biography of Neville Chamberlain. My view of this period was, and is that Chamberlain was not so wrong, and Churchill not so right as the authorised version now holds. Eden spends too much time dragging out small details to prove that he was right at every point. The result is un- convincing. Yet once war is declared and Eden joins the Government first as Dominions Secre- tary under Chamberlain, and then from May 1940 as Secretary of State for War under Chur- chill, the story gathers interest, pace and authority. Like all men who have themselves served in the forces, he was happy at the War Office, He was also successful. The short period of seven months he spent there covered the Battle of France and the Battle of Britain, and the opening (with Wavell's early triumphs) of the long struggle waged in the Middle East. All the same, as Churchill put it, he was 'like a man going home' when he returned to the Foreign Office in December 1940 on Halifax's appoint- ment to Washington. He was also in fact already Churchill's heir-apparent. If anything had hap- pened to the Prime Minister on his numerous and hazardous journeys Eden would have been his successor. Given the composition of the
* THE EDEN MEMOIRS, Vol. III. THE REacomm. (Cassell, 42s.)
House of Commons the new Prime Minister would have to come from the Tory ranks, and the informal understanding which existed from 1940 was confirmed when in July 1942 Churchill, fol- lowing an inquiry from the King, tendered formal advice that in the event of his death Eden should be invited to form a new Government.
In the event the summons did not come until the spring of 1955, and the last page of this volume has a poignant comment: 'What neither [Churchill] nor I could have foreseen was that when at last I stepped into his place, I should have so short a run. Thirty years of political work at high tension and a feckless disregard for my health were to claim their forfeit.' Eden always seemed destined for Downing Street, but the book records two occasions when he might have taken another path. The first was the some- what bizarre suggestion that he might go as Viceroy of India in the summer of 1943. In fact Wavell was appointed, and it seems strange that Churchill should have even considered letting his second in command leave the battlefield for Delhi. The second was the much more imaginative idea that he might become the first Secretary- General at the United Nations. Mr. Trygve Lie, who of course was himself appointed, was warmly in favour. The Labour Government which had just come to power in Britain quashed the idea. Eden would without question have been an excel- lent choice. Perhaps all the later tragedy would then never have been enacted. Perhaps again, however, he would still have been clawed down by illness, for with the advantages of hindsight one can see now that the signs of his sickness were upon him long before the end came.
I was the youngest member of Anthony Eden's Cabinet, and it is never easy to write dispassion- ately about those who have been your leader. The more or less accepted view of Eden is that he was a first-rate Foreign Secretary who was not up to being Prime Minister. The first part of this verdict is certainly true. The second I dispute. It does not, of course, follow that to be a success at the Treasury or the Foreign Office or any- where else qualifies one for Downing Street. Not until a man sits in the Prime Minister's chair does one know whether he can fill it or not. Eden in dark moments had some doubts about his capacity. Worried about money, he confided to his diary in September 1942: 'Moreover I do not really feel confidence in myself as No. 1 at home and it looks as if, fame de mieux, I might drift that way. . . .' The strain of high office was clearly apparent a dozen years before he followed Sir Winston Churchill.
Eden was immensely liked and respected in the House of Commons, and the House is a shrewd judge of a man. For the moment the words Suez and failure and illness blur the whole picture and tend to distort a true judgment. No doubt he was not a great Prime Minister— although given good health he might well have proved himself to be a more than competent one. But he is a fine man and a great servant of his country.
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