Editing Alec Douglas-Home (section)

==Foreign Secretary (1960–1963)==
=== Appointment ===
In 1960 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, [[Derick Heathcoat-Amory]], insisted on retiring.<ref>Ramsden John. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30760, "Amory, Derick Heathcoat, first Viscount Amory (1899–1981)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 28 April 2012 {{Subscription required}}</ref> Macmillan agreed with Heathcoat-Amory that the best successor at the [[HM Treasury|Treasury]] would be the current Foreign Secretary, [[Selwyn Lloyd]].<ref>Thorpe (1997), pp. 205–206</ref>  In terms of ability and experience the obvious candidate to take over from Lloyd at the Foreign Office was Home,<ref name=dnb/> but by 1960 there was an expectation that the Foreign Secretary would be a member of the House of Commons. The post had not been held by a peer since [[Lord Halifax]] in 1938–1940; Eden had wished to appoint Salisbury in 1955, but concluded that it would be unacceptable to the Commons.<ref>Dutton, p. 33</ref>

[[File:Sir Edward Heath.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Edward Heath]], Home's deputy at the Foreign Office. They later served in each other's cabinets.]]
After discussions with Lloyd and senior civil servants, Macmillan took the unprecedented step of appointing two Foreign Office cabinet ministers: Home, as Foreign Secretary, in the Lords, and Edward Heath, as [[Lord Privy Seal]] and deputy Foreign Secretary, in the Commons. With British application for admission to the [[European Economic Community]] (EEC) pending, Heath was given particular responsibility for the EEC negotiations as well as for speaking in the Commons on foreign affairs in general.{{Sfnp|Hutchinson|1980|pp=76–77}}

==== Objection at appointment ====
The opposition Labour party protested at Home's appointment; its leader, [[Hugh Gaitskell]], said that it was "constitutionally objectionable" for a peer to be in charge of the Foreign Office.<ref name=pike462/> Macmillan responded that an accident of birth should not be allowed to deny him the services of "the best man for the job&nbsp;– the man I want at my side".<ref name="pike462">Pike, p. 462</ref> Hurd comments, "Like all such artificial commotions it died down after a time (and indeed was not renewed with any strength nineteen years later when [[Margaret Thatcher]] appointed another peer, [[Lord Carrington]], to the same post)".<ref name=dnb/> The Home–Heath partnership worked well. Despite their different backgrounds and ages&nbsp;– Home an [[Edwardian]] aristocrat and Heath a lower-middle class meritocrat raised in the inter-war years&nbsp;– the two men respected and liked one another. Home supported Macmillan's ambition to get Britain into the EEC, and was happy to leave the negotiations in Heath's hands.<ref name=dnb/>

=== Cold War ===
[[File:JFKWHP-AR7514-A.jpg|thumb|alt=Douglas-Home and John F. Kennedy smiling for a photo.|Douglas-Home with [[John F. Kennedy]] at the [[White House]], 30 September 1962.]]
Home's attention was mainly concentrated on the Cold War, where his forcefully expressed anti-communist beliefs were tempered by a pragmatic approach to dealing with the Soviet Union. His first major problem in this sphere was in 1961 when on the orders of the Soviet leader, [[Nikita Khrushchev]], the [[Berlin Wall]] was erected to stop [[East Germans]] escaping to [[West Germany]] via [[West Berlin]]. Home wrote to his American counterpart, [[Dean Rusk]], "The prevention of East Berliners getting into West Berlin has never been a ''casus belli'' for us. We are concerned with Western access to Berlin and that is what we must maintain."<ref>Thorpe (1997), p. 227</ref> The governments of West Germany, Britain and the US quickly reached agreement on their joint negotiating position; it remained to persuade [[Charles de Gaulle|President de Gaulle]] of France to align himself with the allies. During their discussions Macmillan commented that de Gaulle showed "all the rigidity of a poker without its occasional warmth."<ref>Thorpe (1997), p. 228</ref> An agreement was reached, and the allies tacitly recognised that the wall was going to remain in place. The Soviets for their part did not seek to cut off allied access to West Berlin through East German territory.<ref>Thorpe (1997), p. 229</ref>

The following year the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] threatened to turn the Cold War into a nuclear one. Soviet nuclear missiles were brought to Cuba, provocatively close to the US. The American president, [[John F Kennedy]], insisted that they must be removed, and many thought that the world was on the brink of catastrophe with nuclear exchanges between the two super-powers.{{Sfnp|Divine|1971|pp=40–41, 49}} Despite a public image of unflappable calm, Macmillan was by nature nervous and highly strung.<ref name=dnb/> During the missile crisis, Home, whose calm was genuine and innate, strengthened the Prime Minister's resolve, and encouraged him to back up Kennedy's defiance of Soviet threats of nuclear attack.<ref name=dnb/>  The Lord Chancellor ([[Reginald Manningham-Buller, 1st Viscount Dilhorne|Lord Dilhorne]]), the [[Attorney General for England and Wales|Attorney General]] ([[John Hobson (politician)|Sir John Hobson]]) and the [[Solicitor General for England and Wales|Solicitor General]], ([[Peter Rawlinson, Baron Rawlinson of Ewell|Sir Peter Rawlinson]]) privately gave Home their opinion that the American blockade of Cuba was a breach of international law,{{Efn|The legality of US actions in the crisis, including the blockade of Cuba, has subsequently been questioned by American writers specialising in law, including [[Abram Chayes]] in ''The Cuban Missile Crisis: International Crises and the Role of Law'', and [[Stephen R Shalom]] in ''International Lawyers and Other Apologists: The Case of the Cuban Missile Crisis''. The former concludes that American actions were not in breach of international law;{{Sfnp|Chayes|1974|pp=25–40}} the latter takes the contrary view.<ref>Shalom, Stephen R. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/3234383 "International Lawyers and Other Apologists: The Case of the Cuban Missile Crisis"], ''Polity'', Vol. 12, No. 1 (Autumn 1979), pp. 83–109 {{Subscription required}}</ref>}} but he continued to advocate a policy of strong support for Kennedy.<ref>Thorpe (1997), p. 241</ref> When Khrushchev backed down and removed the Soviet missiles from Cuba, Home commented:
{{Blockquote|There has been a good deal of speculation about Russia's motives. To me they are quite clear. Their motive was to test the will of the United States and to see how the President of the United States, in particular, would react against a threat of force. If the President had failed for one moment in a matter which affected the security of the United States, no ally of America would have had confidence in United States protection ever again.<ref>Speech to the conference of the Institute of Directors, 31 October 1962, ''quoted'' in Thorpe (1997), p. 249</ref>|}}

=== Nuclear Test Ban Treaty ===
The principal landmark of Home's term as Foreign Secretary was also in the sphere of east–west relations: the negotiation and signature of the [[Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty]] in 1963. He got on well with his American and Soviet counterparts, Rusk and [[Andrei Gromyko]]. The latter wrote that whenever he met Home there were "no sudden, still less brilliant, breakthroughs" but "each meeting left a civilised impression that made the next meeting easier." Gromyko concluded that Home added sharpness to British foreign policy.{{Sfnp|Gromyko|1989|p=159}} Gromyko, Home and Rusk signed the treaty in Moscow on 5 August 1963.<ref name="timesban">{{Cite news |date=6 August 1963 |title=Three Ministers Sign Test Ban Treaty in Moscow |work=The Times |page=8}}</ref> After the fear provoked internationally by the Cuban Missile Crisis, the ban on nuclear testing in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water was widely welcomed as a step towards ending the cold war.<ref name=timesban/> For the British government the good news from Moscow was doubly welcome for drawing attention away from the [[Profumo affair]], a sexual scandal involving [[John Profumo|a senior minister]], which had left Macmillan's government looking vulnerable.<ref>Thorpe (1997), p. 267</ref>

===Successor to Macmillan===
[[File:Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham Allan Warren.jpg|thumb|right|alt=An elderly man, clean shaven, with full head of grey hair|upright|[[Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone|Lord Hailsham]], Macmillan's original preference as successor]]
In October 1963, just before the Conservative party's annual conference, Macmillan was taken ill with a [[prostate|prostatic obstruction]]. The condition was at first thought more serious than it turned out to be, and he announced that he would resign as prime minister as soon as a successor was appointed. Three senior politicians were considered likely successors, Butler ([[First Secretary of State]]), [[Reginald Maudling]] (Chancellor of the Exchequer) and [[Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone|Lord Hailsham]] (Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Lords). ''[[The Times]]'' summed up their support:
{{Blockquote|Mr. Butler can no doubt be sure of a majority inside the Cabinet, where the main initiative must now be taken. Mr. Maudling, when Parliament dispersed at the beginning of August, could have commanded a majority among backbenchers in the Commons. Lord Hailsham, as his reception showed today on his first appearance before the conference, continues to be the darling of the constituency associations.<ref name="t63">{{Cite news |date=10 October 1963 |title=Conservatives Look for New Leader |work=The Times |page=12}}</ref>}}
In the same article, Home was mentioned in passing as "a fourth hypothetical candidate" on whom the party could compromise if necessary.<ref name=t63/>

It was assumed in the ''Times'' article, and by other commentators, that if Hailsham (or Home) was a candidate he would have to renounce his peerage.<ref name=t63/> This had been made possible for the first time by recent legislation.{{Efn|If Macmillan had resigned a year earlier or a year later, neither Hailsham nor Home could have been candidates for the succession. The [[Peerage Act 1963|Peerage Act]] became law in 1963 after a three-year campaign by [[Anthony Wedgwood Benn]], who had reluctantly inherited his father's peerage in 1960.<ref>{{Cite news |date=21 August 1963 |title=Fight that Changed the Law |work=The Times |page=8}}</ref> Under this law existing peers had twelve months from 31 July 1963 in which they could disclaim their peerages.<ref>Thorpe, pp. 259–261</ref>}} The last British prime minister to sit in the House of Lords was the third [[Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury|Marquess of Salisbury]] in 1902. By 1923, having to choose between Baldwin and [[Lord Curzon]], [[George V]] decided that "the requirements of the present times" obliged him to appoint a prime minister from the Commons. His private secretary recorded that the King "believed he would not be fulfilling his trust were he now to make his selection of Prime Minister from the House of Lords".<ref>Stamfordham, Lord ''quoted'' in {{Harvp|Wilson|1976|p=9}}</ref> Similarly, after the resignation of Neville Chamberlain in 1940 there were two likely successors, Churchill and Halifax, but the latter ruled himself out for the premiership on the grounds that his membership of the House of Lords disqualified him.{{Sfnp|Churchill|1985|pp=596–598}} In 1963, therefore, it was well established that the Prime Minister should be a member of the House of Commons.<ref name=timesobit/> On 10 October Hailsham announced his intention to renounce his viscountcy.<ref>{{Cite news |date=11 October 1963 |title=Mr. Macmillan Decides to Resign Soon&nbsp;– Lord Hailsham to Renounce his Title |work=The Times |page=12}}</ref>
The "customary processes" once again took place. The usual privacy of the consultations was made impossible because they took place during the party conference, and the potential successors made their bids very publicly. Butler had the advantage of giving the party leader's keynote address to the conference in Macmillan's absence, but was widely thought to have wasted the opportunity by delivering an uninspiring speech.{{Sfnp|Howard|1987|pp=313–314}} Hailsham put off many potential backers by his extrovert, and some thought vulgar, campaigning.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Johnson |first=Paul |date=15 October 1976 |title=The very image of a laird |work=[[The Times Literary Supplement]]}}</ref> Maudling, like Butler, made a speech that failed to impress the conference. Senior Conservative figures such as [[Lord Woolton]] and Selwyn Lloyd urged Home to make himself available for consideration.<ref>Thorpe (1997), pp. 299–300</ref>

Having ruled himself out of the race when the news of  Macmillan's illness broke, Home angered at least two of his cabinet colleagues by changing his mind.<ref name=timesobit/> Macmillan quickly came to the view that Home would be the best choice as his successor, and gave him valuable behind-the-scenes backing. He let it be known that if he recovered he would be willing to serve as a member of a Home cabinet.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Arnold-Foster |first=Mark |date=13 October 1963 |title=Home in the lead&nbsp;– Macmillan would serve under him{{'"}} |work=The Observer |page=1}}</ref> He had earlier favoured Hailsham, but changed his mind when he learned from [[David Ormsby-Gore, 5th Baron Harlech|Lord Harlech]], the British ambassador to the US, that the Kennedy administration was uneasy at the prospect of Hailsham as prime minister,<ref>Thorpe (1997), pp. 300–301</ref> and from his chief whip that Hailsham, seen as a right-winger, would alienate moderate voters.<ref name="t303">Thorpe (1997), pp. 303–305</ref>

Butler, by contrast, was seen as on the liberal wing of the Conservatives, and his election as leader might split the party.<ref name=t303/> The Lord Chancellor, Lord Dilhorne, conducted a poll of cabinet members, and reported to Macmillan that taking account of first and second preferences there were ten votes for Home, four for Maudling, three for Butler and two for Hailsham.<ref>Thorpe (1997), p. 307</ref>{{Efn|In 1980 a biographer of Macmillan, George Hutchinson, expressed strong doubt about the reliability of Dilhorne's figures.{{Sfnp|Hutchinson|1980|pp=139–140}}}}

The appointment of a prime minister remained part of the [[royal prerogative]], on which the monarch had no constitutional duty to consult an outgoing prime minister. Nevertheless, Macmillan advised the Queen that he considered Home the right choice.<ref>Pike, pp. 462–463</ref> Little of this was known beyond the senior ranks of the party and the royal secretariat. On 18 October ''[[The Times]]'' ran the headline, "The Queen May Send for Mr. Butler Today".<ref>{{Cite news |date=18 October 1963 |title=The Queen May Send for Mr. Butler Today |work=The Times |page=8}}</ref> ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' and ''[[The Financial Times]]'' also predicted that Butler was about to be appointed.<ref>{{Cite news |date=20 October 1963 |title=Could they have stopped him? |work=The Observer |page=2}}</ref> The Queen sent for Home the same day. Aware of the divisions within the governing party, she did not appoint him prime minister, but invited him to see whether he was able to form a government.<ref>{{Cite news |date=19 October 1963 |title=Lord Home Faces Crisis Forming Government |work=The Times |page=8}}</ref>
Home's cabinet colleagues [[Enoch Powell]] and Iain Macleod, who disapproved of his candidacy, made a last-minute effort to prevent him from taking office by trying to persuade Butler and the other candidates not to take posts in a Home cabinet.<ref>Thorpe (1997), pp. 312–313</ref> Butler, however, believed it to be his duty to serve in the cabinet;<ref name=dnb/> he refused to have any part in the conspiracy, and accepted the post of Foreign Secretary.<ref name="h321">{{Harvp|Howard|1987|p=321}}</ref> The other candidates followed Butler's lead and only Powell and Macleod held out and refused office under Home.<ref name=h321/> Macleod commented, "One does not expect to have many people with one in the last ditch".<ref name="macleod">Goldsworthy, David [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/34788 "Macleod, Iain Norman (1913–1970)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 21 April 2012 {{Subscription required}}</ref>  On 19 October Home was able to return to [[Buckingham Palace]] to [[kiss hands]] as prime minister.<ref name="p463">Pike, p. 463</ref> The press was not only wrong-footed by the appointment, but generally highly critical. The pro-Labour ''[[Daily Mirror]]'' said on its front page:

{{Blockquote|A nice chap and a polite peer. But [[Caligula]]'s appointment of [[Incitatus|his horse]] as a consul was an act of prudent statesmanship compared with this gesture of sickbed levity by Mr. Macmillan.&nbsp;... Alec (not Smart Alec&nbsp;– just Alec) is playing chess with a Cabinet containing at least four members of greater stature, brain-power, personality and potential than himself. Butler has been betrayed, Maudling insulted, Macleod ignored, Heath treated with contempt, and Hailsham giggled out of court by the jester in hospital.<ref>{{Cite news |date=19 October 1963 |title=Brand X is the Boss |work=The Daily Mirror |page=1}}</ref>}}

''The Times'', generally pro-Conservative, had backed Butler,<ref>{{Cite news |date=11 October 1963 |title=The Successor |work=The Times |page=13}}</ref> and called it "prodigal" of the party to pass over his many talents. The paper praised Home as "an outstandingly successful Foreign Secretary", but doubted his grasp of domestic affairs, his modernising instincts and his suitability "to carry the Conservative Party through a fierce and probably dirty campaign" at the general election due within a year.<ref>{{Cite news |date=19 October 1963 |title=Summons to Duty |work=The Times |page=9}}</ref> ''[[The Guardian]]'', liberal in its political outlook, remarked that Home "does not look like the man to impart force and purpose to his Cabinet and the country" and suggested that he seemed too frail politically to be even a stop-gap.<ref>{{Cite news |date=19 October 1963 |title=The man, his team, and their tasks |work=The Guardian |page=6}}</ref> ''[[The Observer]]'', another liberal-minded paper, said, "The overwhelming&nbsp;– and damaging&nbsp;– impression left by the events of the last two weeks is that the Tories have been forced to settle for a second-best.&nbsp;... The calmness and steadiness  which made him a good Foreign Secretary, particularly at times of crisis like Berlin and Cuba, may also be a liability."<ref>{{Cite news |date=20 October 1963 |title=Eccentric Choice |work=The Observer |page=10}}</ref>

In January 1964, and in the absence of any other information, Macleod now editor of ''[[The Spectator]]'', used the pretext of a [[The Spectator (1828)#"The Tory Leadership" article|review of a book]] by [[Randolph Churchill]] to publicise his own different and very detailed version of the leadership election. He described the "soundings" of five Tory grandees, four of whom, like Home and Macmillan had been to school at Eton, as a stitch up by an Etonian 'magic circle.'<ref name="vernon">{{Cite news |last=Vernon Bogdanor |date=18 January 2014 |title=The Spectator book review that brought down Macmillan's government |url=http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9116411/the-book-review-that-brought-down-a-government/ |access-date=30 June 2014 |work=The Spectator}}</ref>  The article received wide publicity convincing [[Anthony Howard (journalist)|Anthony Howard]], who later declared himself  "deeply affronted ...and never more affronted than when Alec Douglas-Home became leader of the Conservative Party."<ref name="ciar">{{Cite news |last=Ciar Byrne |date=12 June 2006 |title=The Indestructible Journos |url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/the-indestructible-journos-482007.html |access-date=1 July 2014 |work=The Independent}}</ref>