Great Britain: The Lost Leader

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But there were editors and M.P.'s who knew by now that he had lied, and Profumo showed himself both arrogant and stupid in thinking that he could suppress the truth indefinitely by libel suits. (In fact, he sued Paris-Match for libel and collected out of court from Italy's Tempo Illustrato).) Besides, Ward began to talk, and to Labor M.P. George Wigg he unfolded a tale, as Wilson described it in the Commons, that "took the lid off a corner of the London underworld—vice and dope, marijuana, blackmail and counter-blackmail, violence, petty crime." Added Wilson gratuitously: "If Ward's statement had been published as a fiction paperback in America, it would have seemed overdrawn and beyond belief."*

Wilson sent an account of the Ward-Wigg conversation to Macmillan, who turned it over to the "appropriate authorities," who found nothing disturbing in it. Prodded further, Macmillan wrote Wilson: "There seems to be nothing in the papers you sent which requires me to take any action."

Even after Ward sent Wilson, the Home Secretary and the entire British press a letter announcing that Profumo had lied to the House of Commons, the disclosure "did not seem to make any impression" on the Prime Minister. While ordering the Lord Chancellor to investigate Ward's charges, Macmillan assured Wilson he was confident nonetheless that the security question had been "fully and efficiently watched"—although, as Wilson accurately pointed out, MI-5 men apparently knew nothing about Christine until they read about her in the papers.

As the dismal facts and alibis tumbled out in the Commons, the adulation and affection the Tories had once bestowed on "Macwonder" turned almost visibly to a kind of stupefied pity. At the end of his defense, Macmillan pleaded: "I am entitled to the sympathetic understanding and confidence of the House and of the country." But from the Tory benches, as he sat down, came a sound that was more sigh than cheer. By twos and threes, perturbed backbenchers went out to argue in the lobbies while several Tory speakers caustically condemned the Prime Minister. Macmillan rose and with bowed head left the chamber.

Who Next? Some angry Tories felt that Macmillan should resign at once, but at a backbenchers' meeting the view prevailed that, as one Cabinet minister put it, "the country must not get the feeling that he is being hounded out because of Christine Keeler. Our party would never recover from that."

The present consensus is that Macmillan will be allowed to retire rather than to resign, some time this summer or fall. In perspective, he may well remain one of the most successful Prime Ministers in Tory history, but few Conservatives want him in command of their next election campaign; even pre-Profumo, the party had been in bad trouble over defense muddles, Britain's failure to enter the Common Market, and above all Macmillan's stop-and-go fiscal policies and a sluggish economy.