Tired Man

The months-long strain of decisions, uncertainties and criticisms was too much.

Last week, harassed by circumstance, chivied by Opposition critics and harried by rebellion within his own party and even his own Cabinet, Britain's 59-year-old Prime Minister Anthony Eden succumbed to "overstrain" and was ordered off the political stage to a weeks-long rest.

Close associates date Sir Anthony's physical decline from early October. Then, on his way out to the country for a quiet weekend at Chequers, Eden stopped at London's University College Hospital to see his wife Clarissa, who was suffering with a troublesome wisdom tooth. As he sat by the bedside, Eden suddenly began to shiver. His temperature soared to 105½°. Doctors put him to bed on the spot, just across the corridor from his wife, and announced he had suffered "a feverish chill." Three days later, Eden was back at his desk, but some colleagues claim he has never been the same since.

They say that he became more and more difficult to work with, more demanding in his manner, more imperative in his decisions, more stubborn in pursuing his own way in defiance of contrary advice.

When the Suez assault came, Eden gave an impressive show of a man tightly controlled. Day after day, he sat composed in the House of Commons while criticisms beat about his head. Whenever he rose to answer the baiting, he projected a conviction that he was sure he was right. Sir Horace Evans, who is also physician to the Queen, urged him repeatedly to take a few days off, but Eden stubbornly drove himself on, taking more and more of the Suez work load himself, sweeping aside any suggestion that he should delegate more work to other Cabinet members. But his way had failed, and the penalties of a botched job were upon him.

Crowding Troubles. Early last week, Eden drove back to London from a weekend at Chequers. Everything seemed to crowd in upon him. There was Commonwealth opposition: his first visitor was Ceylon's Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranaike on his way to New York to inform the U.N. Assembly of the Colombo powers' condemnation of both Britain and Russia. Eden spent 30 minutes putting Britain's case to Bandaranaike, only to have him emerge and tell reporters that the actions of Britain and France in Egypt were "not at all justified," seemed "a resurgence of the spirit of imperialism and colonialism." There was the dissatisfied U.S. Reports came in that the State Department had fresh evidence of collusion between Britain, France and Israel, and that the U.S. was in no hurry to promise any oil until the British left Suez. There was the discontented U.N. Hammarskjold was insisting that British and French forces withdraw from Port Said before any settlement was made for the canal. There was rebellion among Eden's own followers: a committee of backbench Tory M.P.s from the "Suez group" came to tell him bluntly that he must stand up firmly to U.N. demands or lose their support. In another office, officials were preparing the most conspicuous dramatization of Eden's troubles—the imposition of gasoline rationing on Dec. 17.